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    The Children's Writer's Guide 2
    The Children's Writer's Guide 2
    The Children's Writer's Guide 2
    Ebook110 pages

    The Children's Writer's Guide 2

    By Simon Rose

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2 is ideal for writers not just of books for children and young adults, but also features information that’s applicable to writers in all genres. The first installment of The Children’s Writer’s Guide has a wealth of tips and advice, including suggestions regarding how to get started as a writer, dealing with writer’s block, conducting research, choosing appropriate names for your characters, the editing and revision process, as well as the world of marketing and promotion.

    This second book further explores the writing process, examining topics such as developing memorable characters, creating effective dialogue, the importance of book covers, the value of blogging, age levels and appropriate content for books for children and young adults, networking, and the process of submitting your work to publishing houses.

    In combination with The Children’s Writer’s Guide, this second book provides invaluable advice and support for both established and aspiring authors of books for children and young adults.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon Rose
    Release dateJan 22, 2018
    ISBN9780995940390
    The Children's Writer's Guide 2
    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, Future Imperfect, the Flashback series, the Shadowzone series, The Stone of the Seer series, and An Untimely Death. Simon is also the author of The Children’s Writer's Guide, The Time Traveler’s Guide, The Working Writer’s Guide, a contributing author to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One, and has written many non-fiction books.Simon offers a number of services for writers, including editing, manuscript evaluation, coaching, mentoring, 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, non-fiction, biographies, inspirational books, and many other genres. He also offers copywriting services for business, including website and social media content. He served as the Writer-in-Residence for the Canadian Authors Association, is the founder of Children’s Authors and Illustrators on Facebook, and served as the Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI Western Canada.Simon works as a creative writing instructor throughout the year, is an instructor for adults with the University of Calgary, and offers a variety of online workshops for both children and adults. Simon also offers a wide variety of presentations, workshops, and author in residence programs for schools and libraries, including virtual author visits.Simon is a regular presenter at conferences and festivals, and served as a juror for the Governor General’s Literary Awards for Children’s Literature, the Saskatchewan Book Awards, the Parsec Awards, and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.Full details can be found at his website www.simon-rose.com. You may also connect on Facebook or follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

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      Book preview

      The Children's Writer's Guide 2 - Simon Rose

      The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2

      Working as an Author for Children and Young Adults

      By

      Simon Rose

      The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2

      Copyright © 2018 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 [email protected]

      Published by Sorcerer's Letterbox Publishing

      Calgary, Alberta

      www.simon-rose.com

      Print ISBN: 978-0995940383

      Ebook ISBN: 978-0995940390

      Thanks to Isobelle Davenport for her invaluable help with this book.

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Introduction

      Chapter One - Writing What You Know

      Chapter Two - Editing Your Own Work

      Editing Issues

      Dialogue

      Punctuation and Tenses

      Description

      Characters

      Story Synopsis

      Chapter Three - People Plotting

      Finding Characters

      Making a Difference

      The Real World

      Chapter Four - Dynamic Dialogue

      Is Said Dead?

      Adverbs and Adjectives

      Dialogue and Description

      Who is Speaking?

      Almost Realistic

      Chapter Five - The Importance of Book Covers

      Attracting Attention

      Packaging Products

      Chapter Six - A Story in One Paragraph

      Chapter Seven - Age Levels and Word Counts

      Board Books

      Early Picture Books

      Picture Books

      Nonfiction Picture Books

      Early Readers

      First Chapter Books

      Chapter Books

      Middle-grade Books

      Young Adult (YA) Novels

      Chapter Eight - Age-appropriate Material

      Relationships

      Swearing

      Violence

      Chapter Nine - Study Guides and Resources

      Inspiration and Imagination

      Workshops and Creative Writing Exercises

      Chapter Ten - The Value of Blogging

      Blog Word Counts

      Post Frequency

      The Importance of Good Content

      Blog Tours

      Topics to Cover

      All About You

      Chapter Eleven - Networking and Writers Groups

      Membership in Groups

      Maintaining Connections

      Online Groups

      Feedback

      Networks

      Chapter Twelve - Submitting Your Work

      Researching Publishers

      Cover Letter

      Synopsis

      The Time Camera Synopsis

      Sample Chapters

      The Time Camera – Sample chapters

      Conclusion

      About the Author

      Books by Simon Rose

      Fiction

      Non-fiction

      Anthologies

      Introduction

      The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2 is ideal for writers not just of books for children and young adults, but also features information that’s applicable to writers in all genres. The first installment of The Children’s Writer’s Guide has a wealth of tips and advice, including suggestions regarding how to get started as a writer, dealing with writer's block, conducting research, choosing appropriate names for your characters, the editing and revision process, as well as the world of marketing and promotion.

      In this second book, I further explore the writing process, examining topics such as developing memorable characters, creating effective dialogue, the importance of book covers, the value of blogging, age levels and appropriate content for books for children and young adults, networking, and the process of submitting your work to publishing houses.

      In combination with The Children’s Writer’s Guide, this second book provides invaluable advice and support for both established and aspiring authors of books for children and young adults.

      Chapter One

      Writing What You Know

      In terms of writing and publishing trends, even though the height of the Harry Potter phenomenon is now long gone, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of books with similar fantasy themes. I’m in bookstores in Calgary conducting signings on a regular basis and a large percentage of the books that children and young adults seem to enjoy are in the fantasy genre. These stories don’t always involve wizards and dragons and that kind of thing but magic is usually part of the story. This appears to be an ongoing trend although vampires, elves, and zombies seem to be less popular than they used to be. Steampunk mostly appears in adult novels but there have been books published in this genre for teens and YA in recent years. The paranormal is also quite popular these days, but how long that trend lasts is unknown, of course.

      As an author it’s really up to you what you decide to write about, but I always find it’s best to write about what you know or at least about something that you’re interested in. It’s much harder to write a novel to satisfy a current trend if you dislike or are uninterested in the topic or genre. For example, my own books cover such areas as fantasy, science fiction, the paranormal, time travel, superheroes, parallel universes, alternate realities, historical fiction, and a few other themes. These are the things I’m interested in writing about so that makes it easier to develop the story ideas but also to actually create the novels.

      I do write lots of nonfiction books on topics that may not always be my favourites and which involve considerable research but that’s a little different, more like writing magazine articles or being a business writer or journalist. I probably wouldn’t write a book about fishing, sailing, mountain climbing, farming, most sports, horses, and several other topics, although these things might crop up in a book as part of the plot. I prefer to stick with what interests and inspires me, which makes the writing process much more enjoyable.

      I should clarify that this doesn’t mean that you have to pigeonhole yourself. If you come from a small town does that mean you can never write about life in a big city? If you live on a farm in a rural area, can you never compose a gritty crime drama set in New York? You should always strive to stretch yourself creatively. Everyone develops as a writer as they work on their stories and most writers usually become more proficient at their craft as they continue to create new work.

      Writing what you know refers to what interests or intrigues you rather than what you’re qualified to do. As I mentioned, my nonfiction work has often been on topics with which I’m less familiar and involved considerable research, similar to that conducted by journalists when completing an article for a magazine or an online publication.

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