Writing for Children and Teens: A Crash Course

By Cynthea Liu

Strap on your helmet. Buckle up! Writing for Children and Teens: A Crash Course has been updated in 2023 by Disney and Marvel author and coach Cynthea Liu. If you're dying to know how to get your children's or teen book published, hop in this fun ride and rev that story engine. Please note: this book is not only suitable for adults but also for determined young writers (age 12 and up, middle school and high school grades, too). If you have younger writers in the family or classroom, this is a fun resource for you to learn from to help answer their questions about how children's book publishing works.

Nowhere will you find a more comprehensive, current, and detailed reference guide designed specifically for writing children and young adults, written by a bestselling, award-winning children's book author who is in the field today.

Writing for Children and Teens is a ten-step course that addresses the nitty-gritty details of the business and covers core principles for picture books, chapter books, middle grade, and young adult novels, including ...

• How to stress-test your book ideas for the marketplace for any format
• How long your manuscript should be for any format
• How to format your manuscript
• How to write and revise your manuscript to make your book great including topics such as target audience, target market, character, plot, theme, setting, and description
• Common writing issues to avoid along with possible solutions
• How to determine if one should pursue major trade, small press, self-publishing, independent publishing, or hybrid publishing
• How to physically or electronically submit to literary agents and editors
• How to write a cover letter, query, synopsis, and author bio designed to entice
• Submission strategies for just about any situation for writers who have little to no experience
• How to interpret confusing submission guidelines, complete with advice on how to communicate professionally with agents and editors using their lingo
• Where to seek valuable input and help from the writing community
• Important resources, tools, and organizations every children's and teen book writer should know about

Book coach Cynthea and her pooch crew from her website of the same name (Writing for Children and Teens) have been hard at work on this latest edition to deliver practical, current advice for you, your family members, your friends, and any of your fur-babies interested in writing for children and young adults.

Praise for Writing for Children and Teens: A Crash Course

"There are lots of books about writing for children out there. Many are good. Some are great. What sets this book apart is Cynthea Liu's straightforward, take-no-prisoners approach to teaching writing. There's no fat or fluff or baloney in this book; no long philosophical rants about writing. Instead, you'll find a distillation of how to write for kids written in clear, direct, language that's fun to read. It's like having a friend explain something to you over a plate of brownies. If want to learn how to write for kids, then this is the book to get." - EQ ★★★★★

"The number of books lining the shelves on writing for children is mind-boggling. This is THE ONE you should pick up. Cynthea teaches the ins and outs of writing strong books for children with humor and excellent examples. Though this kind of expression may usually be reserved for novels, it is appropriate to say that this book is a page-turner. Once you start you can't stop reading it." - Stephanie G. ★★★★★

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cynthea Liu
• Release date: Mar 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9780999033265

Cynthea Liu

Cynthea Liu lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Book preview

Writing for

chilDren

and teens

A Crash course

Cynthea Liu

Logo Description automatically generated

Chicago

Copyright © 2023 by Cynthea Liu.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the publisher.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher.

[e-mail]

Writing for Children and Teens / Cynthea Liu. – 2nd ed.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023900776

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9990332-6-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9990332-7-2

Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-9990332-8-9

To Clara,

Stories require revision, much like life.

Make your own life story better than ever.

I love you.

Mom

A special thank you to

… all the writers who allowed my countless pets to shred their manuscripts during free-tique events,

… my students who have taught me more than I could ever learn in a single book,

... the editors and agents who survived the revision process with me,

… the clients who thought that I might know something about this,

… and my family and friends who constantly pressured me to get my books out there.

Thank you all!

Cynthea Liu

Table of Contents

Introduction

Step One: Have an Idea

Step Two: Know the Market

Step Three: Write

Step Four: Make It Good

Step Five: Decide What’s Next

Step Six: Find an Agent

Step Seven: Find an Editor

Step Eight: Submit Your Work

Step Nine: Wait

Step Ten: Get a Response

Don’t-Skip Resources

Additional Materials

About the Author

Introduction

Thinking about writing for children? Let me help you get your feet on the ground or, better yet, give you a running start!

Other books and the Internet have loads of information about writing for children and teens, and you’ll find different opinions about everything. This crash course will be one place where you can get a single answer—Cynthea Liu’s answer. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned and what has worked for me.

I bring to you nearly twenty years of writing experience. During that time, I became a blogger, an author, a ghostwriter, a freelance editor, an independent publisher, a book coach, a publishing consultant, and a university teacher.

As an author, I’m published with major trade publishers like Disney and Marvel, Penguin Random, Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, and Sterling, to name a few. My books have been translated into French, Korean, Chinese, German, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese … and I can’t remember what else. It’s a long list!

I’ve packaged up all the foundational knowledge I have gained into one crash course that will take less than a few hours to read. I hope that this book will spare you years of confusion and heartache.

Please keep in mind that this book is an essential crash course on how this whole thing works for folks who are just starting. It is not meant to be a craft course on writing itself (though there will be tips for this); it is a crash course designed to jam loads of important info in a short amount of time that will lead you to resources to learn more for deeper dives. It is the book that will save you loads of money and time as a newbie writer stepping into the jungle that is children’s and teen book writing.

It is the book I wish I had when I started.

Now let’s get cracking. Below I’ve laid out ten steps to publishing your children’s book. Here’s a quick summation of how this crash course is structured.

Ten Steps to Publishing Your Children’s Book

… unless you land a contract. Ticker tape flies.

A marching band plays!

You're a winner!

Now back to reality. Chances are, you’ll rack up a decent pile of rejections before you sell something. So, within this crash course, I hope I can tell you everything you need to know to keep that pile of rejections as tiny as possible. Let’s proceed to Step One.

STEP ONE

Have an Idea

First, it doesn’t hurt to jot down ideas or keep notes on your phone or your computer for your book-worthy gems. Maybe you aren't ready to act on all your projects now, but that doesn't mean those ideas won't come in handy for you in the future. Now let’s say you have one idea you’re very excited about.

What do you do with it?

How do you know if it’s marketable?

Will it be appealing to anyone at all?

Here’s my take: don’t worry about it. You can’t possibly judge what will sell and what won’t, and believe it or not, agents and editors don’t have crystal balls either. When Harry Potter came out, market experts said, You can’t write another wizard-school book. Well, guess what? A bunch of people did. Some of those books did well while others didn’t.

How many counting books are out there now? A ton. Alphabet books? A billion. Animal books (anthropomorphic books)? A billion and one. Rhyming books? A trillion. Does that mean you won’t be able to sell yours because the shelves are already crowded with them? No, it doesn’t. I firmly believe that it’s a good idea if you have the passion to write it. It’s a bad idea if you don’t.

Note: There are some things you might want to do to ensure your idea has its best chances of success before you begin to write, but before I go into that, first let’s talk about anthropomorphic characters, also known as talking animals, in case you're thinking of using them in your story.

Anthropomorphic characters (a.k.a. talking animals)

Let me clear up a myth about anthropomorphic characters. You might have heard it before from other writers or even read about it in printed books about writing for children: You shouldn’t write about talking animals. That’s a big no-no. Yet you see hundreds of stories starring them. What gives?

According to some folks, talking animals are hard to do. So? What if you’re a natural at it? Does that mean you shouldn’t write them? My pooches say, Heck no!

Anyone can master this specific skill if they study it closely.

Note: I do have some words of caution when it comes to writing novel-length talking animal books. Finding an editor or agent who works with anthropomorphic novels can be more difficult. These special people rarely advertise their secret love for yapping wombats because so many of these manuscripts are written poorly. But if this is your passion, you must write your book anyway. Be on a serious lookout for editors/agents who have worked with them before.

I also think people believe that the no talking animals rule applies to picture books. It seriously doesn’t. How many picture books have you seen come out with animals as the main characters? Need I say more? Have no fear. If your characters must have four legs, write away. Most editors won’t even blink when they see that you’ve written something about an alligator who’s lost his security blanket.

Plenty of animal picture books are bought and sold constantly by major publishing houses. I have watched a friend of mine sell three talking animal books within a year. I, myself, have sold at least five talking animal books. Please don’t stop yourself from writing stories with animals in them because you read or heard that it was a no-no. That’s wrong—now move along!

Wait … what about personification?

Great news! The days of the flying toaster are not over! More and more picture books feature everything from yapping yams to chatty chairs. I have written a personification book myself for a major publisher. Just about anything goes. Remember, it’s not about the idea so much as it is about the execution. Now let’s keep going!

STEP TWO

Know the Market

The next thing you might want to do is to familiarize yourself with the market. You might say, But didn’t you just tell me that the market doesn’t matter?

I sure did!

Let’s make something clear. Say you have an idea about a dancing giraffe. Cute idea. Okay, now go search Amazon for dancing giraffe and see what happens. Yup, someone has already done your idea and done it quite well. Does that mean you can’t write the giraffe story? Nope. But do you think it might be a good idea to change your giraffe to a beaver? Maybe. Perhaps your beaver ought to try hockey instead. Would this hurt your story idea? Probably not. Next check out the giraffe book from your library. Analyze the storyline. Were you thinking the same thing or something entirely different?

Doing research like this will help you spin your great ideas into something more unique. Remember what I said earlier—execution is everything.

However, if your dancing giraffe idea is significantly better and not at all like the one that’s already published, then write it, but don’t be surprised if it's harder to sell your story.

Here’s another reason to do your research.

You’ll need to know what type of book idea you have. For example, do you know …

what format matches your book idea best?

what genre would best describe your book?

what markets apply to your book?

Agents and editors will want to know these things, and you should, too, before you shop your manuscript around—and hopefully—before you write it.

Let’s start with format. Do you know the difference between a …

Board book and a picture book?

A short story and a picture book?

Picture book and a chapter book?

An early reader or an independent reader and a middle grade novel?

A young adult novel and a cross-over or new adult novel?

A graphic novel and a comic?

Whenever I work with new clients who are eager to see their stories published, one of the major lessons we go through is identifying what format (or product) would be the best match for your book idea.

To start to figure this one out, my clients might have some inkling about their target audience (or reader or customer); they might imagine a young child reading it with their parents just before bed. In this case, the readers are the parent and child, and the customer is most likely the parent who bought it.

I might ask my client, Would the child see pictures in this book? On every page? Or just a few things here and there?

Exploring these kinds of questions will help identify the proper product that an agent or editor may also envision. Some books are made specifically for parents and gift-givers of young children—for example, bedtime stories. Some may be also designed for the classroom and purchased by librarians and teachers, like a book about seasons. Some books are designed for the home and school, like a manners book.

Books for older readers can also fall along these lines. Is this book something appropriate for school and at home? Or not? Would your reader buy this directly themselves or rely on someone else to buy it for them?

Considering who will purchase your book will help you zero in on tailoring the content of your book for the context in which your book will be used. If you skip thinking about this, you might inadvertently craft a book that’s purpose is either too narrow or a mismatch for your target audience (either the customer or the reader or both).

Put it this way. Would you make a car without any deep thoughts about who will buy it? Try selling an eighteen-person passenger van to a Manhattanite who wants a tiny car that looks like a roller skate. It just won’t work!

The market for children’s and teen stories is very much like any market for any product. As an author, understand the customer you are serving and the product you are making.

Now let’s talk about that product using words within the industry. We can begin with the term format.

Format is generally organized by age of the target reader in the children’s book world. However, the stated age offered by publishers in their book catalogs and online can be a point of confusion for writers, so let me help you by providing C. Liu definitions that could make more sense to you and then translate that into publisher-stated ranges.

Again, the following are C. Liu definitions. They should never be quoted outside of this book, or folks may argue with you about the ages. This is strictly insider info that will help you understand ages and readership when translated as book products.

C. Liu Age Groups for Book Formats

Board book (ages 0-3) – babies and toddlers; these books mainly function as appetizers for readers, - both metaphorically and literally. They are generally made of hard paperboard and can withstand a good chewing.

Picture book (ages 3-6) – imagine kiddos who are still doing circle time at school where a teacher is sharing a book filled with pictures. Think preschoolers through 1st grade, mainly.

Early reader (ages 6-7) – kiddos who are learning to read – think Frog and Toad, Henry and Mudge, Elephant and Piggie, or any other famous pair. Pictures are still a big part of these books to help with reading comprehension. Think predominately first and second grade.

Chapter book (ages 7-9) –