1. If you want to write for kids then you need to be around kids. Run workshops for them, go to their schools, learn what they are reading, what they like, how they think.
2. Never write a book for children with the intention to teach them something. In other words, don’t lecture them and don’t be condescending. She had a great way of saying it: “Write as if you were looking them in the eye.”
3. Kids books need to be kid focussed. They should be about kids with the kids finding the solutions to their problems. Adults should remain peripheral to the story.
4. Kids like pace. You need to cull anything in your story that doesn’t drive the plot forward.
5. The book needs to start with a hook otherwise the kids won’t read past the first page.
6. Stay away from fads of language because it only dates your book. What the kids are saying now may not be how they say it when your book is published.
Deborah offered many more great tips for writing which you might see in another post.
Can you think of other tips that might be helpful to anyone wanting to write for children?
