How To Write In The Children’s Market (Part 3)

This is going to be my third article of many to come. The article series is the how to when it comes to writing in the children’s market. It is going to be a considerably long series so keep checking back for new updates.

Children hate it when they can’t check out the book they want because it’s going to be too hard for them to read. That as why as writers we write what’s called easy readers. There for kids that are in the in between stage of reading. There still developing their skills but they want to read. So we have to get them reading a good story through easy readers and then we will have them reading for life.

Easy readers are books that are a step up from picture books. Even though adults are still the primary buyers of easy readers the books themselves are intended for children in kindergarten to grade 3. An easy reader usually runs about 64 pages long and is formatted very differently. The story is usually divided into sections that are meant to resemble chapters.

There are some pictures in easy readers but they don’t mean as much as they did in picture books. Plots are kept simple by focusing on one main character and only one event. It is important to know that the characters must be children and children will always solve all conflicts. Kids at this age don’t mind reading cross gender stories.

You have to use humor, suspense or action to keep the children interested and keep the stories moving. You have to remember that these kids are just starting school so there is a whole new world opening up to them. There are so many topics to write about at this point. All you have to do is open your eyes and you can write about what you see.

Dialogue is used very freely when it comes to easy readers. Dialogue is a very important way to keep the story moving. It also helps to keep a lot of whit space on the page thus making it easier for the children to get through a page. You have to still use proper sentence structure but you have to keep them simple. There are no specified vocabulary lists because children are learning how to sound out words at this age. However you don’t want to make things too difficult.

To sum it up while developing an idea for your story make sure you keep the plot simple and limit your main characters to no more than 2. Once you are done your manuscript should be 20 to 25 double spaced pages.

Dale Mazurek

Dale works hard to help new people to the world of making money on line. You can go to his blog at http://dalesblogs.blogspot.com/ or check out the best program on line to get started with http://InsiderBlueprint.com/?id=1347 and http://mymoneydragon.com/member.php?id=8180