We’ve all been there.
You start a story, typing furiously in an attempt to get the words down as quickly as they are flashing through your mind. Then your fingers come to a screeching halt. Staring at the screen, you are stuck in the middle of the story wondering what happened to that inspiration. Get it back.
Here are 6 “cheats” that can pull you out of the glue when all you see is stuck.
How did I find out about Jeff?
Well, his self-publishing success story was featured a couple of weeks ago on Amazon’s home page. And when a self-publishing kids’-book author is highlighted right up there in lights, I sit up and pay attention.
You’ll be happy I did.
It turns out that his Jack Templar Monster Hunter series of kids’ books aren’t the only self-publishing Jeff has done.
In fact, two of his novels have brought his AuthorRank up to #52 in Kindle eBooks for Horror, a very crowded genre (to give you some idea of who he’s up against, Stephen King is at #1).
That’s why we need to pay attention to what Jeff’s doing right. Jeff’s done two things (at least) to set himself apart from the crowd:
How long is a children’s book?
Figuring out how long your kids’ book should be is easy: you start typing at the beginning, and stop when it’s long enough. Or do you?
In the first post in this series, Basics, Part 1: What is a children’s book? we looked at the most simple definition of a children’s book:
I’ve talked a lot over the last little while about points 2-4, but not so much about #1, namely – how many pages should be between your covers?
I’ll tell you in a second. In fact, I’ll go one better and give you a handy chart.
But first – I want you to remember that word lengths and all this technical stuff has NOTHING whatsoever to do with #4, “all about story.” Your children’s book is primarily about story, and when you’re writing your first draft, just write. Don’t even think about word length.
You know what breaks my heart? When I hand my story to a reader (an honest proofreader, please!)… and they read the story.
Here I am, and I I love the story, so I’m all, like, “well? well?” … and they say, “I liked it.” That “like” breaks my heart. That is the “like” that is not love… it means my story’s not good enough.
Has that ever happened to you?
Sometimes, little changes aren’t enough to bridge that disconnect between the story unfolding beautifully in my mind and the story on paper that will make readers say “wow.” That means your book (and mine) needs a big change.
Don’t be afraid to overhaul your book. If they can pull up scaffolding and repaint the Sistine Chapel, surely you can take a pen – or keyboard – to your story and have it, too, emerge renewed, recharged and more brilliant than ever.
Here are seven big changes that can take almost any story and make it stronger. Save your first draft so you can come back to it if you need to… and then plunge right in to make your story better and stronger than ever.
1. Who’s the main character?
This one may be the scariest change to make. At one point, I was working on a story with a child as the main character, except I was stuck with the story… until my teacher suggested making the main character an adult instead.
Read, written or reviewed a great Jewish book lately? These bloggers have!
Welcome to the June / Sivan Carnival of Jewish Books, a monthly roundup of all things bookish in the Jewish blog world. I’m going to quote one of the previous hosts here:
If you blog about Jewish books, you can play too! Visit the Jewish Book Carnival HQ for info about submitting your links to upcoming carnivals.
Let’s hop on a magic carpet and take a tour of what’s happening in Jewish book blogging this month.
If you’re here for the book tour, come on in, make yourself at home… and come meet Stacy Nyikos, a writer who says she’s “hooked” on writing kids’ stories.
As a children's writer, I get to create worlds as spongy and delicious as marshmallows, soar through green oceans with talking sharks, and float on misty air currents riding the backs of ancient dragons. It's an amazing place to live in. And it changes on a daily basis.
You can see why she’s had such success so far.
Stacy’s new book, Toby, illustrated by Shawn Sisneros (Stonehorse: 2014), is about the journey of a turtle hatchling, who emerges from his egg to find himself all alone. Where are the other turtles? Toby’s journey gently explores the often-perilous reality facing a solitary baby sea creature, but with fun verse that really works well with Shawn’s appealing illustrations.
As you’ll see, sea creatures are a bit of an obsession for Stacy, and with very good reason.
Have you written your story already, but have no idea what comes next? Everybody says the sky’s the limit, but what if that sky looks impossibly out of reach… and you’re scared of heights?
The first time I published my own kids’ book, I had no idea of what to do when. What steps came first, and which could wait until later. And I made a lot of mistakes. The layout looked funny, I ordered black-and-white instead of colour, forgot to put in the copyright information at the beginning.
I made those mistakes because I couldn’t find a a ladder: a guide that told me what to do when, or at least, gave me some idea of what needed to be done to reach the top.
That’s why I’m so excited about sharing my process. This is an evolving process; with every book I do, it generally gets easier, now that the basics are familiar.
That will happen for you, too. The first time is always an adventure; sometimes a scary one. And while each book is a new ladder to climb, you’ll be able to climb to the top a little easier each time.
Suddenly, terribly, painfully ripped from our new home in Israel yesterday after getting the call nobody wants – a death in the family and a very, very long trip across the ocean.
If you’re interested, here’s my eulogy for my brother Eli.
We will be in Canada for the next little while…
Mea culpa. I have been there and I have done that. I have written awful children’s books; not just book but books, plural. And no amount of “Hail Mary”s can fix the bad writing I’ve done (plus, I’m not Catholic).
Phew. Feels good to get it off my chest. These days, I sometimes turn up an old file on my hard drive and open it up, only to discover an ugly early attempt at a kids’ story. I’m nowhere near perfect yet, but it has become easier, at least, to spot where all those early attempts went wrong.
If I ever wanted to write an awful kids’ book again, let’s just say I now know all the steps to get me there. And having been there and done that, I’m happy to share this twelve-step plan to help you, too, create a children’s book that truly stinks.
What? You want to write a great kids’ book?
Don’t worry… for each of these twelve steps, I’ve offered a few tips (many from painful personal experience) on how to do it right. You know… just in case you want to write this book:
Instead of this one:
You decide which you want to write… and then follow these twelve simple tips.
Most people have a story somewhere deep inside. Some of those people believe that they would be good at telling that story. A tiny portion of those actually get their story written down.
Think you’ll get to it “later”? It’s all too tempting to put off writing until some undefined time when you will feel more inspired, but if this is your dream then stop waiting and start writing. Here are ten tips that will help you get that story and those characters out of your head and down on paper.
Why share reviews on a blog about writing kids’ books? Aren’t there a ton of great book-review blogs (not to mention professional publications reviewing books) out there already?
Yes and no.
Most publications, and even some of the blogs, won’t touch self-published children’s books. They figure the world is flooded with self-published books, and most of them just aren’t any good (they’re not entirely wrong).
I see a ton of self-published kids’ books these days – most of which are not extraordinary (unless they’re extraordinarily bad).
So when I come across somebody who’s doing a great job in every way – writing, illustrating, publishing, promotion – I feel like we ought to carve out a small space to highlight their accomplishments and see what they’re doing right because:
a) they deserve the kudos for doing something great, and
b) maybe we can all learn a thing or two.
Meet Mark C. Collins!
And Mark C. Collins is doing just that – writing terrific books that kids love (and testing them on his own kids). It helps that he’s his own illustrator, too, with a bright, compelling style that – according to his bio – he’s been perfecting since age 2. (Me, too, but my art is still a long way from being presentable.)
Two of Mark’s brand-new books,
Want a cool FREE way to check out your book’s competition? Download it free from Amazon. And sometimes, even if a book is not at all like yours, you’ll learn a thing or two.
I’m planning a full-fledged review of Emma Child’s high-quality self-published Kindle books (also recently featured in this post about using Internet and stock photos in children’s books)… but in the meantime, I didn’t want you to miss out, because her Dinosaurs book is FREE from Amazon today and tomorrow (June 4 and 5) only.
Click here to “buy” this e-book – absolutely free before June 5th.
Not to spoil the review but – though I have found several typos in her books – Emma’s doing a lot right and we should all take a look at her books if we’re planning to publish Kindle e-books.
In particular, what I enjoy (compared to some other Kindle e-books) is that the captions are part of the photographs, so they never scroll off the page. Also, the facts are truly interesting, and don’t talk down to kids.
Anyway, it’s free, so get clicking, quick… you’ll never regret putting in work on those “comps”, I promise!
(a guest post by Amanda)
Yawn. Is that your reaction when you think about history books?
Now think about the challenge of writing it. How can you make important facts into an interesting read?
This may be easier to do in the much adored genre of historical fiction where a writer is free to fill in some gaps and develop lovable characters, but don’t worry – even in non-fiction, you can still create great stories.
While you’ll still need to be creative in writing non-fiction history books for kids that make them want to read and learn, here are some things you should avoid.
1. Anachronisms
You wouldn’t have a Biblical character glance at his wristwatch… but what about Ben Franklin?
Publish your own children's books with this free DIY cover template.
