Articles, interviews, and industry insight for children's book writers.
Writing Craft
How to find the process that works for you You have an idea for a children’s book story, you sit down at your computer (or pen and paper, if you’re old school), but where do you start? It’s vastly different for each person. Some writers plan obsessively before they type a word, mapping every beat […]
Writing Craft
Voice, structure, and everything in between Middle grade fiction occupies a specific and sometimes tricky space in children’s publishing. It sits between early chapter books – simple, short, designed for newly independent readers – and young adult fiction, which deals with the concerns and experiences of teenagers. Getting it right means finding the right balance: […]
Writing Craft
A guideline to use as a useful starting point Picture books are a form with a particular shape, a fixed number of spreads, a text that works in partnership with illustration, and a read-out-loud experience. That shape has a natural word count that tends to go with it. It’s not a rule so much as […]
Writing Craft
Why most publishers prefer non-rhyming texts, and what Julia Donaldson tells us about when rhyme is worth the risk Ask any literary agent or children’s book editor what they dread seeing in their submissions inbox and rhyming picture books will appear on almost every list. “Please, no rhyme” appears in submission guidelines so frequently it […]
Writing Craft
The craft, the structure, the rules – and the exceptions to the rules Writing a picture book might seem, from the outside, pretty straightforward. You might think that because it’s short, simple, and illustrated, it’s an accessible form of writing – but it’s precisely because of those things that it’s a challenging art form. Every […]