In your first week, we will be challenging some assumptions about children and the books written for them. You’ll work through many examples of writing for children including the current trends for each age group and why publishers are making these choices. This process will help you choose the kind of story you want to write. You’ll receive feedback on a point of view exercise.

This is a key part of writing for children. We’ve all been a child, but capturing the appropriate voice to suit the age of our reader is not always as easy as it seems. To do this, we build on the idea of point of view of your characters, including making them as believable as possible – complete with back stories, appearance and motivations that drive their decisions. You’ll receive feedback on a character dialogue assignment.

Having established characters and points of view, we have all the kindling – we just need to figure out how to get the story fire roaring. We’ll explore contemporary examples to see how they launch their characters into the story and why the decisions you make here are crucial in capturing your reader’s attention. You’ll receive feedback on writing the beginning of your own story.

Once the story is up and running, it’s all about three things – character, plot and pace. In this week’s module, you’ll look at how to manipulate each of these elements to create desired narrative tension that will keep your young reader engrossed (under the covers, with a torch). Along the way, you’ll look at the three-act structure and controlling pace, as well as why the number of scenes is so important. You’ll also receive feedback on writing the climax to your story.

Previous weeks lessons were universal to all children’s fiction, however this final module takes a look specifically at the Young Adult (YA) segment – as most children’s authors will write YA at some point. You will explore what YA publishers are looking for and how to handle topics like sex, romance, violence and more. Even if you don’t plan to ever write for teens, you’ll learn a lot from understanding this age of readers – with feedback given on writing in a teenage voice.