October 2004
How Do I Get Started As A Children's Writer?
I am 19 years old and spent the last year in Norway. I have come to a point at my life to where I am starting to see what I want to do. I have a very good idea for a children's book in my mind. I just need some help getting started here. I have the basic outline for my book, but haven't actually written it yet. If you can help guide me on what I have to do it would really help me out a ton.
The best way to get a good start as a children's writer is to read! Read as many children's books as you can get your hands on. Go to the library and bookstore and look for books that are the most like the books you want to write. Study how other children's writers do it.
The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) is an all-inclusive organization with information and programs for beginners, as well as accomplished authors. Most helpful to beginners are their regional and national conferences, usually held twice a year. They have local chapters all over the US. Once you join, look up your regional director at the web site and contact him/her for more information about conferences and writers' groups in your area.
If you're looking for instruction, the Institute of Children's Literature is the most established and well-known correspondence course. Instructors include: Sharon Hart Addy, Nancy Alberts, Elaine Marie Alphin, Marilyn D. Anderson, and DJ Arneson. College credits are available for all courses. Instruction is by the home study method. Lessons are exchanged either through regular mail or by email. Or if you're more the independent study type, be sure to visit the Write4Kids web site and take a look at their ebook, Career Starter: A Beginner's Guide to Writing for Children. In my opinion, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books by Harold Underdown is a must-have for all beginning children's writers. This book truly does contain everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about writing for children!
How Do I Submit a Photo Essay?
Do you know anything about photo essays? I have about 80 pictures of the treasures from King Tut's tomb and would like to submit them (or some of them) as a photo essay. How much writing should I include? Also, how many photos usually go into a photo essay? Should I send extras? Do I submit them on disk or in print? The guidelines don't specify. Any help would be appreciated.
The Elementary Science Integration Projects web site publishes an excellent article about photo-essays. While the main focus of the article is teaching students how to create a photo-essay, it provides a basic tutorial from planning to storyboards to taking the pictures, which you will find helpful.
It's always best to query before submitting a photo essay, or any nonfiction piece, to a magazine or publisher. It seems like you have a magazine or publisher already in mind. If that's the case then you should query the editor. If he/she is interested in your photo essay, you can work out the details according his/her specific guidelines.
Should Animals Talk?
I have read a lot of widely varying discussion about talking animals in children's literature. Most of it is negative but seems to center mostly with "Betsy the Beetle" type picture books or other, so called, cutesy books for younger children. I am currently writing a fantasy story for YA readers with -- you guessed it -- talking animal characters that live, work, play and solve life's problem in an imaginary but very realistic world. From the comments I have seen, I'd be crazy to think this would ever get published. I know this has been done recently with great success in books such as the Redwall series. My point is, if you remove talking animals, animated objects and other similar characters you virtually obliterate the whole idea of fantasy. What do you feel the truth is with animal characters in YA fantasy? Is it saleable or not?
While I'm flattered that you think my opinion matters one way or another, I'm not an expert on children's publishing or fantasy. However I can certainly help you sort out the issue of talking animals vs animals that talk. The negative "Betsy the Beetle" argument centers on picture books, but not necessarily novels.
Whenever I'm looking for an expert opinion in children's publishing today, I look to Harold Underdown. In his book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books, he labels the controversy "Watership Down vs Sammy Squirrel: Anthropomorphism." According to Underdown: "In Richard Adams's serious fantasy novel Watership Down, the bunnies do talk. Far more common in what you might call 'animal fantasy' are picture-book stories in which animals stand in for people. They dress like people do, talk like people do, and get into difficulties like people do. this technique is known as anthropomorphism. Venture in to this territory at your peril! Any book with talking beasts must quickly prove itself unique and original, or a publisher won't look twice. As for writing more substantial fantasies for a much older audience, like Watership Down and Redwall, keep in mind that your tone can't be cutesy and your world must be rich and believable."
The best advice I can add to that is to believe in your book and keep writing!
For more information:
- Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators
- http://www.scbwi.org
- Institute of Children's Literature
- http://www.institutechildrenslit.com
- Photo-Essays
- http://www.esiponline.org/classroom/foundations/writing/photoessays.html
- Career Starter: A Beginner's Guide to Writing for Children
- http://write4kids.com/starter.html
Peggy Tibbetts has been a professional writer, editor, and full member of the Society for Children's Book Writers & Illustrators for the past 26 years. She offers courses in children's writing and has edited several successful children's manuscripts. She is the author of the children's novel The Road to Weird, as well as the adult novel Rumors of War. Peggy also moderates the The Write List discussion list at Yahoo.
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