Writing for Children: The fully fluent reader

 

 

 

The reader

The reader is aged roughly 9-11 and often in the second two years of junior school. They are no longer dependent on the reading scheme and want to choose books that look like the ones adults and older children read.  They are firmly in Piaget's concrete operational stage; they can measure and calculate. However, they are not yet into abstract thought. They recognise make-believe for what it is. They understand and expect the normal patterns of story.  

What the books look like

They will usually have a thick spine and on average contain 45,000 – 60,000 words though there are many exceptions outside of this range. The text is usually blocked. The font is usually seriffed, with difficult 'a's and 'g's. There are few pictures though some may have decorative icons at the beginnings of chapters. Occasionally the font and the line-spacing may be a little larger than in books for adults and older children. The books certainly look like "proper" books for these readers.     

What to think about when producing the text for the fully fluent young reader

As these children know what to expect from a story you need to make sure your story has a firm structure.  

Sub-plots

Also for the first time we are likely to have a story with several sub-plots. The relationship between the main plot and the sub-plot is important.

We can see this in Palacio's Wonder(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wonder-R-J-Palacio-ebook/dp/B00755MHXG ) :  

Main plot: August gains acceptance

Sub-plot 1 – circle of friends

Sub-plot 2 – friendship with Jack

Sub-plot 3 – attitude of family

Sub-plot 4 – Amanda

Sub-plot 5 – hearing-aids   

Have a go

Now have a go at planning a story. You will find now that you will devote several chapters to each of

Inciting incident:

Growing complexities:

Crisis point:

Climax:

Also similar arcs will be making their way through the sub-plots.

How will you set your plan out?

Suggestions:

·         Mindmap

·         Spreadsheet

·         Filing cards

·         Writing software such as Scrivener.

If you really are a "panster" and can't be bothered with this amount of detailed planning, try analysing a book for a fluent reader instead.

Some books to study

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston  (2022)

The House of Serendipity: Sequins and Secrets by Lucy Ivison and Catharine Collingridge   (2021)

How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino (2020)

Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders (2014)

Inkspell  by Cornelia Funke (2005)  

Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders (2014)

Christopher Booker’s Quest- Odyssey

 

Christopher Booker spent a big chunk of his life writing his book about the seven basic plots and it is well worth a read.  There are many theories about story and they complement rather than contradict each other. Here you have details of several types of story.

The cover of Booker’s book reminds us of what the seven plots are.

He also recognises an overall story arc but he adjusts this for each one of his story types.

Here is just one of them. Can you create a short story or a short script according to this template?

 

Christopher Booker’s Quest- Odyssey

Problems encountered:

Monsters – maybe these can be metaphors?  Could the monster be problems at work or difficult people with whom you are forced to have relationships?  Perhaps they are politicians or someone who has power and abuses it? You are not likely to have any control over this.

Temptations – these can be all sorts of things: Affairs, chocolate cakes, taking something that isn’t yours where the pathway to that has been too easy.   

Deadly opposites – don’t they get to attract in fact. Are the enemy and the hero different aspects of one person?  Often we despise our enemy because they show traits that we fear in ourselves.   

Journey to the underworld – this may not be a literal underworld. We may suspect an unseen pattern lies beneath what happens in life. What if you confronted that pattern and began to understand it?   

Story arc:

Call – you might slip in here as well a refusal for the call. This is a story trait that really works and readers have come to expect.  

Journey – and on this journey your hero will encounter those monsters, temptations and even their deadly opposite.

Arrival and frustration – yes, getting there can be frustrating; it’s never quite what you expected. The journey after all is often more rewarding than arriving at your destination. Does this come from looking for what you want rather than recognising what you need?  

Final ordeals – and yet there is more to come.  

Goal – perhaps this is about fulfilling a need.

Have fun writing and why not submit some if it here for an online critique?

 Find your copy of  Christopher Booker’s book here.  

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you,  may go to Bridge House Publishing.  

Feedback – giving and receiving it

The simplest form of feedback

Give someone your work to read and ask them what they’ve understood rather than inviting them to give an opinion.  Making this clear at the beginning avoids the situation where they may feel that they have to say they like your work even if they don’t.  Do you get any surprises? Do they think an old man was a young man, for instance? Do they find your story funny when you had meant it to be deadly serious? Is the picture you have in your head as you wrote the same as the one they get in their head after they have read your work?

Critique groups

These are really useful but it is important to find the right one. Do you just want to celebrate each other’s work?  Do you want some aggressive criticism? Or something in between? Do you need to be genre specific? You will find a list of UK based writers’ groups at  https://www.nawg.co.uk . There is an added bonus in using this site to find your writing group. Groups listed here will be member of the association and that offers even more opportunities.

It’s a good idea to find a genre specific group e.g., writing for children, poetry, science fiction, memoir etc. However, joining a mixed group is also useful as looking at different forms of writing can be enlightening. Is this an argument for belonging to more than one group?

A workable pattern

Critique groups work better if you all negotiate the rules first.  This is one I like: you send your work to each other in advance. Everyone reads everybody else’s work and points out:

·         What works well

·         What works less well

·         What the writer might do to improve

·         Sometimes a writer may have asked you to look at some specific  aspect of the text, so you comment on that.

It’s best to only make a few points for each section. It becomes a little like peeling off layers. You might correct typos and spelling mistakes etc. but perhaps you won’t mention these when you give the feedback.

You go round the group. Each person gives a little background to their work, then going round the table three people give feedback but avoid repeating anything that has already been said. After three people have given feedback anyone who has more to add is invited to speak.

If you’ve annotated the text, and I recommend that you do this, give it back to the writer at the end of the session. 

The group doesn’t need to be large. In fact, an hour and half for a group of about eight working as described above is just right.

How to react to feedback

Try to resist defending your work. Just listen carefully to what each person tells you. You may find that you can’t agree with the suggestions. This is fine; it is your work and it is yours to do with as you please. But if several people are saying the same thing, it’s probably wise to listen.

You may find that people are saying different things.  For example, one person may ask you to make a small character more significant and someone else may tell you to get rid of that character altogether. This can be confusing.  In this case they may be saying the same thing: the character doesn’t seem to have a role. Give them one or get rid of them.

You will often find that your critic is right that there’s something out of kilter with the text but their suggestion about how to fix it may not be right. This is where you need to take your work back home, study all that has been said about it and then make your own mind up about what to do.  This is also good practice for working with a publishing house’s editor later.

Beta readers

You use these to test out a whole manuscript. They should be the type of people who would read your published book. So, you may be looking for someone who likes romance, someone who is interested in antiques or someone who likes fell-walking.  It all depends on your type of book. They read as if they had bought the book and let you know what they think.

Again with these you might ask them specific questions about certain aspects of the text.

Professional edit

These aren’t cheap. They are essential if you are going to self-publish.  Getting a professional edit will give your manuscript a much better chance of being accepted by a publisher and some of them actually have a relationship with agents and publishers and may recommend your book.

Cornerstones https://www.cornerstones.co.uk/ is one of the leaders in the field. Check out also my Dream Team: http://www.gilljameswriter.com/p/my-dream-team.html Two other sites that may be helpful are:  https://reedsy.com/ and https://www.fiverr.com   My business partner Debz Brown also runs her own editorial service: https://debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/       

 

   

Writing Prompt: the old diary

You find an old diary.

Maybe it is one of your own. In it you find a wish list. Have you managed to achieve what you’d wanted to back then? How did you succeed or fail? Has it turned out as you’d expected? 

Could you write a letter to your former self?

Or perhaps it tells of some the events you had forgotten – the crush you had on that girl at school, what it was like when you started your first part-time job, or how infuriating one of your teachers was.

Does it remind you of places you used to go to? The swimming pool with the uncomfortable changing rooms? The park on a summer’s evening?  The fish and chip shop?

Perhaps it’s someone else’s diary. Maybe a parent’s or a grand-parent’s. What do you find out about them that you didn’t know before?

It might be the diary of a complete stranger. What do you find about the person who wrote the diary? Or about hare they lived? Or what the times were like that they lived through?

Now for your story:

Will you tell the story of you finding the diary and what you do with the information you giant and what indeed you do with the dairy itself?

Or will you tell the story that the diary offers you?  

Will you need to do more research?

Are you tempted to start keeping a diary or a jounal?

Will you write a poem, a piece of flash fiction, a script, a short story, a novella or a novel?

 

Endings- getting them right

 

Ones to be aware of:

Take care that your ending isn’t:

• ·         Too melodramatic
• ·         A bit of a damp squib
• ·         A deus ex machina

The latter relates to when a God in a machine is propelled on to the stage and creates an almost impossible ending over which the main character has no control.  There are some stories however where strange coincidences occur; see Dickens, Molière, Shakespeare and most pantomimes for details.  If you choose such an ending you still have to work hard to make it believable.  

 

What leaves the reader satisfied

·         The main character has grown and is visibly different at the end of the story from at the beginning.

·         There is some sort of closure – no matter how subtle.

·         The ending is plausible – but not too predictable.

·         All loose ends have been tied up.

Some useful types of ending

Happily ever after

You don’t have to actually use these words but the readers know that everything has turned out very well indeed.

Epilogue

This is a scene added on some time after the end of the story. This will show how the main character is getting on with their new life – or not. It may even open the next story.

Leaving the reader to decide

Even though the ending is upbeat the reader is left to decide exactly what will happen to the main character now. And even exactly how they got there anyway. Whatever the author has presented must still make sense but the reader has some choice about how to interpret the main character and their actions. 

Homecoming

The main character comes back home or at least to a point of stasis.  However they find that the problems they have been fighting in the outside world are still there at home and they have one last battle. Examples of this are in Lord of the Rings and Wind in the Willows.    

Find more tips like this. 

Editing your work

 

In the industry there are three phases of editing and it’s an idea to replicate that in your own editing practice.

Structural edit

This is the overall edit. Is the structure firm? Is the ending satisfying? Do the characters work? Are they consistent? Are they balanced? Are they speaking the right way? Does the setting work? Is any world you’ve created consistent? Is time behaving? Is there a good narrative balance? Is there pace and tension? Are there times where the reader can relax a little?

 

Line edit or copy edit

Look again at narrative balance. Are you telling where you should be showing? And do you occasionally need to tell instead of showing?  Have you used too many clichés? But remember clichés are clichés because they work.  Have you used an even voice throughout? Can you get rid of any bits that are too clever? (Kill off your darlings – that old cliché). Are you repeating yourself?  Can you find some alternatives for words you are using a lot? Check to see that you’re not overwriting. Can anything be more succinctly expressed? Look out for awkward phrasing. Have you got the right combination of shorter and longer sentences?  Check your paragraph length. Reading aloud can help here. You’ll more easily notice what isn’t working.

 

Proof read

This is where you look for typos and grammatical, spelling and punctuation mistakes.  Could you read your work backwards?  Reading aloud may also help here.  It’s useful to get another pair of eyes on your work. Swap proof-reading with a writing friend.

If you are self-publishing you might seriously consider paying professional editors and proof-readers.

 

Extra tip 1

Put your work away for a while between edits.

 

Extra tip 2

Write yourself a checklist based on the above. Also include the mistakes you always make and devote one edit to that. My example: I often type ‘form’ instead of ‘from’.

 

Extra tip 3

Change font and formatting for each edit. It makes you see the text better.

 

Extra tip 4

Start each edit at a different part of the text.  

Find more tip sheets here 

 

Writing Prompt: Spider chart

Take a sheet of A4 paper and write one of these words / phrases in the middle:

·         M60

·         My grandmother’s house

·         A traffic jam

·         Signs of life in the garden

·         Morning sounds

Now draw branches form your word and write down words that you associate with your first word.  Then draw branches form those words and add more words.

Keep going until your paper is reasonably full but not too crowded. Does anything suggest a story?