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    The Children’s Writer’s Guide
    The Children’s Writer’s Guide
    The Children’s Writer’s Guide
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    The Children’s Writer’s Guide

    By Simon Rose

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    About this ebook

    The Children’s Writer’s Guide examines how you can get started as a writer, create time and space to pursue your craft and deal with lack of motivation and writers block. Topics covered include where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, choosing names for characters that are appropriate to the story, the importance of historical research if your novel is set in a different era, writing science fiction and fantasy, and the use of magic in stories for children.

    The author examines the role of editing and revision and how to deal with what is often the inevitable process of rejection, at least until good fortune comes your way. The author also recounts some of his experiences with marketing and promotion, such as book launches and in-store signings, websites, blogs, and social media, and discusses presentations, workshops and author-in-residence programs at schools and libraries.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon Rose
    Release dateJan 7, 2016
    ISBN9781310700811
    The Children’s Writer’s Guide
    Author

    Simon Rose

    Simon Rose is the author of The Alchemist's Portrait, The Sorcerer's Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic's Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Future Imperfect, Twisted Fate, Parallel Destiny, the Shadowzone series, and the Stone of the Seer series. He is also the author of The Children's Writer's Guide, The Time Traveler's Guide, The Working Writer's Guide, The Social Media Writer's Guide, a contributor to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction and has written many non-fiction books with Crabtree Publishing, Beech Street Books, Weigl Publishers, and Capstone.Simon offers a number of services for writers, including editing, coaching, mentoring, consulting, manuscript evaluation, and writing workshops. He has provided substantive and copy editing services for many other writers over the years. This has been for novels, short stories, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, inspirational books, and many other genres. He also offers copywriting services for business, including website and social media content. Full details can be found on his website at simon-rose.com. He is the founder of Children’s Authors and Illustrators on Facebook, served as the Writer-in Residence with the Canadian Authors Association, is a member of the Calgary Association of Freelance Editors, and served as the Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI Western Canada.Simon offers a wide variety of presentations, workshops, and author in residence programs for schools, along with virtual author visits. He is an instructor for adults with the University of Calgary and offers a variety of workshops and writing courses for both children and adults.You may also follow him on Twitter or Instagram, connect on Facebook, or visit his channel on YouTube.

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      Book preview

      The Children’s Writer’s Guide - Simon Rose

      The

      Children’s Writer’s Guide

      The Children’s Writer’s Guide

      Copyright © 2014 by Simon Rose

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations for the purpose of a book review. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact Simon Rose at sorcerersletterbox@gmail.com

      Published by Sorcerer's Letterbox Publishing, Calgary, Alberta

      www.simon-rose.com

      Editing by Ricki Ewings, Trail, British Columbia

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Introduction

      Chapter One Starting Out as a Writer

      Getting Started

      Creating the Spark

      In the Beginning

      Kick-start Your Creativity

      No Happily Ever After

      Alternate History

      Inspiration in Daily Life

      Create Something from Nothing

      Chapter Two Creating Time and Space for Your Writing

      The Home Office

      Time for Writing

      Night and Day

      Chapter Three The Curse of Writer’s Block

      Planning Ahead

      Switch Projects

      Take a Break

      Chapter Four Where Do Ideas Come From?

      What If?

      Influences and Imagination

      Historical Parallels

      Turning Ideas into Stories

      Chapter Five Writing for Children

      Time Travel Tales

      Adult Characters

      Chapter Six In the Beginning: Hooking the Reader

      Grabbing Attention

      Creating Intrigue

      People and Places

      Chapter Seven Naming Characters

      Choosing the Right Name

      Historical Considerations

      Creating Impressions

      Chapter Eight Historical Research

      Medieval Mysteries

      Historical Resources

      Maintaining Focus

      Chapter Nine Magic in Stories for Younger Readers

      Familiar Faces

      The Roots of Magic

      Mystical Powers and Mythological Creatures

      The Fantasy Realm

      Magic and Time Travel

      Magic and Reality

      The Limits of Magic

      Fatal Weaknesses

      Themes in Magical Tales

      Magical Objects

      Secret Languages and Mysterious Books

      Chapter Ten The Importance of Editing and Revision

      The Editing Process

      Planning and Outlines

      Checking Your Progress

      Ready for Submission

      Chapter Eleven Dealing with Rejection

      Taking It Personally

      Reasons for Rejection

      The Rejection Letter

      Constructive Rejection

      The Next Step

      The Numbers Game

      Remember, Everyone Gets Rejected

      Chapter Twelve Book Signings and Promotional Events

      Choosing Locations

      Building Relationships

      Do Your Homework

      Promotional Material

      Autographed Copies

      Chapter Thirteen Author Visits and Workshops

      Books as Classroom Resources

      School Tours

      Creating Presentations

      Advance Planning

      Money Matters

      Book Sales

      Author-in-Residence

      Virtual Author Visits

      Staying Connected

      Chapter Fourteen Virtually Famous: Websites for Authors and Writers

      Creating Quality Content

      Keeping it Current

      Generating Traffic

      The Value of Statistics

      Conclusion

      About the Author

      Books by Simon Rose

      Fiction

      Non-fiction

      Anthologies

      Introduction

      This book talks about getting started as a writer, creating time and space to pursue your craft and dealing with lack of motivation and writer’s block. It also looks at where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, choosing names for characters that are appropriate to the story, the importance of historical research if your novel is set in a different era, writing science fiction and fantasy and at the use of magic in stories for children. It examines the role of editing and revision and how to deal with what is often the inevitable process of rejection, at least until good fortune comes your way. I also recount some of my experiences with marketing and promotion, such as book launches and in-store signings, websites, blogs, and social media, and presentations, workshops and author-in-residence programs at schools and libraries.

      Chapter One

      Starting Out as a Writer

      Getting Started

      There appears to be an endless number of sites on the web offering advice on writing, concerning where to get ideas, character development, point of view, working in different genres, story structure, the editing process, how to capture the attention of publishers and agents and so on. And yet one of the most frequently asked questions, especially for beginners, is How do I actually get started with my writing? It may seem like a very simple question, but if you can’t get started, how can you ever make use of all these great tips that published writers, or at least very knowledgeable and prolific ones, offer all the time? Let’s examine some of the ways you can kick-start your creativity, then stay motivated in your quest to get your writing career not only on track, but into the fast lane as well. And don’t forget, even established writers sometimes have problems starting a particular project.

      Creating the Spark

      Free writing, sometimes referred to as stream-of-consciousness writing, involves writing continuously for a set period of time. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, and even a topic are largely irrelevant. Although the process may appear to result in mostly unusable material, it can help writers get to grips with their subject matter or to overcome the dreaded writer’s block. If you’re a regular writer, whether of stories for children, magazine articles, non-fiction pieces or something else entirely, you most likely already have a topic in mind. But you can certainly adapt the free writing method to suit your own purposes. It can be a good exercise to see if you can write a certain number of words in a day, but don’t be too concerned with the quality of the ideas. Nor do you need to think too much about editing and revising at this stage, since you can do that later. When you’re engaged in the exercise, the objective is to write as much as possible in the time you have allotted. You may decide to complete a certain word count completed that day or set yourself a time limit. Working against the clock may give you the incentive you need to get the job done. Writing a thousand words, for example, may seem daunting, but is very achievable. Even if you end up deleting a lot of this text afterwards, you still have the material to work on, no matter how irrelevant some of it may turn out to be. You’ll have to review the material before you decide which parts to get rid of, and in the process, you might get some new ideas for the project or take it in a completely new direction as you discover that much sought after inspiration.

      In the Beginning

      Even if you’re determined to work on your writing and have set time aside for it, there will be days when nothing seems to work to get you started. An interesting exercise to get a story moving is to use a collection of random objects drawn from a bag. The idea is then to create a story, in which these objects must all be used as a significant part of the narrative. For example, you could place a set of keys, a hairbrush, a pen, a cellphone, an apple, a sock, a postcard from the Caribbean, a teddy bear, an address book, a broken pair of sunglasses, a Post-it note, a watch, or indeed any collection of unrelated items in a bag. You then draw out four or five at random and use them to create your story. This type of exercise always sparks the imagination of children and you’d be surprised at what you come up with when confronted with a group of seemingly unconnected objects. You could even set a time limit to force yourself to devise the beginning, middle, and end of the story. The final result may not be bestseller material, but the process will stimulate your imagination and might be just enough to get your creativity moving again.

      Kick-start Your Creativity

      A great way to get started is to consider an overheard conversation and where it might lead. How about I’ll never forgive him for as long as I live, or I didn’t mean to set the laboratory on fire, it just kind of happened, or After that incident last year, her family will never be the same again? Any of these could be overheard in a supermarket, at a store checkout or on a bus or train journey. You could even find a mysterious note or a cellphone with a text message containing tantalizingly vague details from someone who may be in serious danger. Maybe you receive a letter and immediately recognize the name above the return address as belonging to someone you thought was dead. All

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