Writing for Young Readers - by Eugie Foster

August 2006
An interview with Gisele LeBlanc, editor/publisher of Dragonfly Spirit

Gisele LeBlanc, editor/publisher of Dragonfly Spirit (http://www.dragonflyspirit.com), the ezine for ages 4 to 14, is also a mother, wife, writer, and artist. When not writing or illustrating, Gisele is a moderator for the online writing community, Forward Motion, and runs her own writer's group, Silver Web, which focuses on writing for children and young adults. Her artwork, poetry, puzzles, fiction, and nonfiction have been accepted by publications including: Wee Ones, KidVisions, Vision, Beyond Centauri, Our Little Friend, Cecil Child, Story Station, Fandangle Magazine and Tangerine Sky Productions.

I was a voracious reader as a child. I loved books and still do. Being a writer was something that always interested me, but I only became serious about it after I had my son. I learned as much as I could through books and online communities. I participated in critique groups and realized that I loved editing, and that I was pretty good at it too.

Within a few years I started receiving acceptances for my poetry and stories. Then the dragonflies began appearing in my life -- and kept appearing until I could no longer ignore them. I researched their symbolism and soon came to understand what I believe they were trying to tell me.

With their prompting and a lot of soul-searching, I recognized the fact that I essentially thrive on creativity and dreams. It is who I am.

When I began thinking about creating the site and the magazine, they seemed to appear even more frequently, and I took this as a sign. It helped me find the confidence I needed to reach for my dreams, and Dragonfly Spirit took flight.

Dragonfly Spirit is still getting used to its wings -- still testing the winds, so to speak. We hope that our stories and poems, combined with a straightforward, simple approach to writing and art will offer our readers motivation and easy ways of kick-starting their imagination. Or simply prompt others to follow their dreams.

We've decided to focus more energy on the educational aspect of the site, and we hope that schools and homeschoolers also take advantage of our material and activities.

What stands out for me is strong, tight writing -- where the story stays focused on the plot and no words are needlessly used.

Manuscripts get rejected for a number of reasons. Here are a few:

• Too wordy, not enough focus
• No plot
• Inconsistent point of view
• No conflict or character growth
• Story goes over our word limit counts (this will get an immediate rejection)
• Too much telling instead of showing
• Flat, uninteresting characters
• Too didactic

And sometimes there isn't really anything amiss, but the story or theme simply didn't grab us. The entire process of editing is very subjective and writers need to remember this.

One of the things that irks me the most is when people send attachments after we specifically state in our submission guidelines that we do not accept them. I urge writers to read the guidelines carefully. They are there for a reason.

We also get many submissions where there is only the manuscript, the author's contact info, and nothing else. Even if a writer doesn't have published clips, this doesn't mean that they shouldn't formally address the editor. If you meet an editor in person, or anyone for that matter, what's the first thing you do? You greet them, shake their hand, and introduce yourself, don't you? Just because you're submitting a manuscript through e-mail, doesn't mean you can't use this same polite courtesy. And if you're not published, don't state it. Keep it short and simple.

Something like the following is all you need:

Then add your name and contact info.

As far as poetry goes, we also look for strong, tight writing. Authors should make every word count. And to make an impact, they should use descriptive words that evoke strong imagery.

There are not many original ideas out there for poetry, but this doesn't mean your poem can't be "unique."

For example, we had a poem in our June issue, called "Butterfly Ballet" (http://www.dragonflyspirit.com/june_2006/butterfly_ballet.html). Now, there is nothing original about a poem on butterflies, but the author, Annette Gulati, made her poem unique by comparing the way a butterfly flits and swoops through the air to different types of dance. She used strong, descriptive words, and made every word count.

We love rhyming poetry, but a lot of what comes in simply isn't polished enough; the meter and rhythm is off. Writers should remember that when reading rhyming poetry aloud, they shouldn't stumble. It should flow from beginning to end.

Writing rhyme is not as easy as many people seem to think it is. Beginning poets should study the form, especially the aspects of meter and stress. Participating in a poetry critique group is also a great way to learn.

And although we enjoy rhyming poetry, that doesn't mean we're not interested in seeing more diversity in the poetry coming in. We encourage authors to experiment with other poetry forms such as free verse, haiku, acrostic, etc., and send it in!

In short, when it comes to poetry, we urge writers to think out of the box. Give us an unexpected twist at the end and make us laugh and we'll take notice.

[Note: Dragonfly Spirit is currently closed to poetry submissions until 2008. It will be closed to fiction and nonfiction submissions during the month of November, but will open again in December.]

We are in desperate need of nonfiction geared toward writing and arts.

We received a lot of inquiries from writers because they're not quite certain what this means. We urge writers to familiarize themselves with the nonfiction sections of our publication.

In short, we would be interested in articles on subjects such as writing poetry, creating characters, finding ideas for stories, different drawing and painting techniques, step-by-step how to's on drawing specific things, etc.

If it relates to any aspect of writing or expression through art, we will consider it; however, please note that we do not publish craft-type projects.

Most writers send in their story, and we end up deciding what age we think it's best suited for. If we feel it's too long to keep the reader engaged, we'll pass.

But yes, sometimes it is difficult to categorize material. We do have general world limits for each age group listed on our submission guidelines page (http://www.dragonflyspirit.com/submissions.html).

Writing tight, writing tight, and writing tight. *grin* Many beginner writers tend to be verbose in their prose. It's as if they think the reader must know every minute detail about the character and the story. They add unnecessary things that do not forward the plot, or help in character development, and sometimes go off on tangents. Some do not understand correct use of point of view and do a lot of telling versus showing.

Writers should remember that what seems like an insignificant event to an adult can be a critical moment in a child's world. Things like fitting in, being accepted, and making friends hold vital importance to children. For a young child, even succeeding at tying their shoelaces for the first time is a victorious and notable affair.

We also encourage writers to take a look at the writing for children guide we have posted in our writer's resource section for great tips and insights (http://www.dragonflyspirit.com/for_writers.html). It's called "Kidding Around" and was written by Justin Stanchfield. Definitely worth checking out.

That is something that we are not aware of most of the time, as most authors who submit material do not state their age. So at the moment, no, we do not use different criteria to evaluate their work.

Eventually, we would like to set up a different area where we could publish work from young authors, but we simply haven't had a chance to look at that yet.

As far as poetry goes, submissions go directly to our poetry editor, Christine Tricarico. She reviews everything and selects the poems that hold the most potential, then sends rejections for the others. Sometimes, poems may get rejected at this stage because we already have a similar poem on hand, or the issue it would go in has been recently filled.

Then together, we decide which ones from the "maybe" pile make it through. From here, they either get rejected, accepted, or Christine sends out revision requests. We don't usually ask for revisions unless we feel the poem shows great promise and needs only a bit of tweaking.

As for fiction, it depends on how busy we are at the particular moment. Sometimes, we -- me, the fiction editor, Heidi Fraser, and our assistant editor, Angie Strother -- divide the subs between us for the first read through, and then share which ones we liked and why. Then we choose the ones we all feel strongly about.

This process can take some time as we discuss issues we may have with certain submissions and decide whether revision requests are needed. The revision requests are usually handled by Heidi.

Sometimes I will do the first read through myself and then the process continues in the same fashion.

Nonfiction is usually handled by me and Deb Marshall, who is also an assistant editor and staff writer. Response times for nonfiction are a lot shorter since we get so little of it.

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