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30 TIPS for Writing Delightful Children’s Books Day 10

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WRITING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TIP #10: HUMOUR

Children love to laugh!! Do you want to write stories that children will love and read over and over and over again? Do you want to delight your readers and make them crave your stories? Yes?

Make your stories funny! Yes, make children laugh!

TIPS FOR WRITING HUMOUROUS STORIES FOR CHILDREN

  • Use humorous experiences from every day life. Think of funny things that have happened to you, your friends and family. Tweak them a bit and use them! See picture book, The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral.
  • Please please please keep the jokes as short as possible.
  • Surprise your readers! See picture book, We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
  • Bathroom humour: Stories featuring body sounds are a hit with younger children especially books with farts and burps! See chapter book Gangster Granny by David Walliams PS: Don’t go over the top!
  •  Stories where children play pranks on or triumph over adults: See Captain Underpants
  • Exaggerate, yes, stretch regular situations to the point of absolute silliness!  
  • Create absolutely totally ROTFL funny whacky characters
  • Wordplay!! Try these and some sarcasm too to score high points with your readers!

Remember, don’t try too hard! There’s nothing more annoying than an overstressed joke.

NB: Humour can also be used to write about tough topics to make them easier for young readers to digest. The best example of this is Stephanie Lucianovic’s The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral.

Here are some of my all-time favourites:

Picture Books

  • B J Novak. The Book with No Pictures.
  • Mo, Willem. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.
  • Ryan T Higgins. We Don’t Eat Our Classmates

Chapter Books

  • Dav Pilky, The Captain Underpants Series
  • Peggy Parish, The Amelia Bedelia Series

Middle Grade

Louis Sachar, Sideways Stories from the Wayside School

  1. Action: Read like a Writer

Identify the funniest books you’ve read and try to figure out the elements the author utilized to make you laugh. Can you see any of the tips above?

2. Read.

So, want to write a funny story? Start reading. You can start with some of the books on my list. 😊

Want to write a story for children, don’t know where to start? Tell me all about it and we can figure out the theme and some mentor texts for you!

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30 TIPS for Writing Delightful Children’s Books Day 5

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WRITING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TIP #5: THEMES and MISSIONS

Today, I want to write about a subject that is very dear to my heart: Themes.

You see, for the longest time, I didn’t really understand the relationship between themes and writing a truly memorable story which readers will read OVER AND OVER again.

The relationship is really simple: You cannot write a best-selling novel without an overarching theme.

The theme is the backbone of every story, it is the central idea behind your story. Basically, it is what your book is about. In the last post, I described the theme as

“The heart of your story. The story itself. Often the reason why readers will love your book and return to it over and over again.”

The most important things you need to know:

  • The best themes are based on emotion because, like it or not, human beings are creatures of emotion. The books that lasts longest in their minds are the ones that made them feel something. According to Lisa Cron in her best-selling book, Story Genius:

“In a story, if we’re not feeling, we’re not reading. It is emotion, rather than logic, that telegraphs meaning, thus emotion is what your novel must be wired to transmit, straight from the protagonist to us.” (Cron, 23)

Some emotion based-themes: revenge, love, fear, hope, war.

  • Themes also usually represent a universal truth. It is this universal truth that will resonate with your reader. This truth comes alive through the life/actions of your characters. Some very popular universal truths: Love conquers all, unity in diversity, good vs evil, bravery and confidence (The Harry Porter series by J.K Rowling), etc.
  • Themes can also reflect social justice issues like racial injustice (Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi), gender equality, poverty.

Without an emotion-based theme, your story will be a series of actions holding little or no interest for you and your reader. I know, because this has happened to me. I once wrote a 27,000 first draft of a middle grade novel and when I returned to it after a few months, I felt nothing. At first, I didn’t know why. The description of the setting was exquisite, the action scenes were wonderful with the right amount of tension, sweat and blood, but that was all it was, a book with a lovely setting and series of scenes, nothing more.

It took me 6 months to realize …. that the emotional core of my story was missing … that before my protagonist could go on a meaningful adventure in the 16th century, she had to deal with her major problem: “How to believe in herself when no one else will”

To determine the theme of your book, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the point of my story?

Why should my readers care?

  1. Action: Identify the theme(s) in the book(s) you love.

Is there a book you have read more than once? Yes? That’s the one you need. 😊

  1. Can you figure out the theme(s) using the questions above and below?
  2. What did you like best about this book?
  3. Which character’s story resonated with you and why?

2. Read.

Here are some of my favourites:

  • How to Find What You’re Not Looking For (MG) by Veera Hiranandani for themes of racial and religious discrimination, thriving in spite of disability, coming of age and of course the overall message that love conquers all.
  • Because (PB) by Mo Willems for themes of chance, kindness and its domino effect, finding inspiration through others, dreaming. This one made me cry. I write because Enid Blyton did. This book reminded me that I can dream today because someone else dared to dream.

More about Themes and Missions in the next post.

Want to write a story for children, don’t know where to start? Tell me all about it and we can figure out the theme and some mentor texts for you!

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30 TIPS for Writing Delightful Children’s Books Day 4

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WRITING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TIP #4: ELEMENTS OF FICTION 

What is the difference between a book that stays on the Bestseller list for years and the one that is dumped after the first three chapters? What is the difference between the book that keeps you up all night, flipping the pages, when you have 1001 things to do and the one that you need to be bribed to read? What is the difference between the truly memorable and unputdownable books and the bleh ones?

5 elements!!!

Like a good pot of soup, every story needs some essential ingredients (elements) to create a memorable sensory feast for the consumer. Can you imagine making tomato stew without tomatoes? 😊 In the same way, you cannot create a good story without these elements.

Here they are: The five MUST-HAVE elements of a good story.
 
Character: Every good story must have a character or characters. These are the persons, animals, creatures or things who perform the action in the story. Our stories revolve around them. There are two main types: the main character(s) (the protagonist) and the supporting character(s) (secondary and tertiary characters). You can have multiple main and supporting characters. 

Plot: In simple terms: What happens in your story? The plot is the series of related actions that make up your story. What happens to the characters in your story? What do they do?

Setting: Three things to consider: Place, Period and Mood. Place: Is your story set in Nigeria, Japan, your village? Earth, Mars, an imaginary world? What about the period: 2000 years BC, 3014 AD, the 16th century? Some place where time means nothing? Mood: Is the atmosphere ominous? dark? hopeful? peaceful? tense?

Theme: This is the heart of your story. The story itself. Often the reason why readers will love your book and return to it over and over again. What universal truth does your story proclaim? Love conquers all? One good turn deserves another? Unity in diversity?

Point of View (POV): Who is telling the story? A narrator? The main character? The main character and several supporting characters? Or wait for it!! The narrator, the main character and the supporting characters? How is this person telling the story? Are they talking to themselves? Talking to another character? Telling a story or talking directly to the reader? There are 3 types of POV: First, Second and Third person point of view.

Other important elements:

Humour: Is your story humourous? If yes, what type: dark? satirical? ironic? hyperbolic? Juvenile? The Magnificent Mya Tibbs by Crystal Allen
Literary Devices: Do you employ literary devices to make your words sing or to make your story lyrical? The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
Scenes: Are the scenes in your story action packed? Do they have a clear goal and a beginning, middle and end? Love, Sophia on the Moon by Anica Rissi
Poetry: Is your story in verse: that is, structured like a poem? Is it free verse or does it rhyme? Star Fish by Lisa Fipps
Structure: What is the layout of your story? Does it use the rule of threes? Is it a parallel story featuring 2 stories playing out at the same time? Meanwhile Back at the Ranch by Trinka Noble. Does it feature the 3 or 4 act structure? Or the hero’s journey? Is it an epistolary? Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School by Mark Teague

1. Action: Identify these 5 elements in the books you love

Is there a book you have read more than once? Yes? That’s the one you need. 😊 
a.	Identify the 5 elements in this book
b.      Figure out how the author used these elements to make this book memorable.

2. Read.
Here are some of my favourites:
For characters: Children of Blood and Bone (YA) by Tomi Adeyemi: Prince Inan and Amari and The Junie B Jones Series (CB) by Barbara Parks: Junie B Jones.
Note that books with memorable characters will most likely be part of a series. Memorable characters form the backbone of most series. 

For setting: Zahrah the Windseeker (MG) by Nnedi Okoroafor and Amari and the Night Brothers (MG) by B. B. Alston; Tristan Strong Punches A Hole in the Sky (MG) by Kwame Mbalia

For Theme: How To Find What You’re Not Looking For (MG) by Veera Hiranandani and Echo (MG) by Pam Munoz Ryan

For POV: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (PB) by Mo Willems and Hello Universe (MG) by Erin Entrada Kelly

For Plot: Holes (MG) by Louis Sachar and All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team (MG Nonfiction) by Christina Soontornvat

Some of these books ticked multiple boxes for me. 

Want to write a story for children, don’t know where to start? Tell me all about it and we can figure out the theme and some mentor texts for you! 

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