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!
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
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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Ever thought of the story structure of most of the books you’ve read? Or the structure of the book you’re reading or writing right now? In other words, how is the story laid out for the reader?
There are many types/structures of books but in this post, we will discuss the 3 most common types, and my personal favorites.
1. Traditional. This is the easiest and most popular story structure utilized by most kidslit authors. It is usually laid out as follows; main character has a problem, he/she tries to solve the problem, faces an obstacle and fails. He/she tries again, faces another obstacle and fails. Then just when they are convinced that they will never solve the problem and the worst is about to happen, eureka, they figure out how to solve it. The main character experiences some form of emotional growth and the story ends. Think of some of your favorite books: picture books, chapter books, middle grade, YA, even adult, most of them are structured in this manner.
2. Parallel: This is my absolute favorite. How does it work: the author tells multiple stories with multiple plots at the same time. However, these stories are usually connected/intertwined and sometimes, finding the connection between the stories enables this structure create indescribable suspense. The best examples for this structure are Holes by Louis Sachar (middle grade) and Meanwhile Back at the Ranch by Trinka Hakes Noble (for picture books).If you want to learn more about this structure, read my essay here.
3. Hero’s Journey: Here, the main character starts the story in Point A, goes to Points B, C, D and or E and returns to Point A at the end. Most stories which utilize this structure are adventure stories featuring a hero/heroine who leaves their home, goes on a journey to achieve a goal (usually to save someone/something or the world and returns to their home having experienced some form of emotional growth. Think Harry Porter, Percy Jackson, etc. See also Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (picture book), and Children of the Quicksands by Efua Traore (Middle Grade).
Extra
Cumulative: The classical form of the cumulative structure is peculiar to shorter works, especially picture books. It features a story with a plot that builds upon itself using repetition and sometimes, rhyme. It is particularly loved by writers of poetry or lyrical picture books. Some prime examples are most Room on the Broom and other picture books by Julia Donaldson, The House that Jack Built and The 12 Days of Christmas poems. For Igbo kiddos who grew up in the 1990s, think of the folksong Nwanyi Iga.
Note that for picture books, the list of story structures is even longer; Question and Answer, Alphabet, Timeline, Counting, Circular, etc.
1. Action: Read some of the books listed above to get a feel of the types of story structure.
2. Read (Like a Writer) and then Write!
Determine the type of structure you would like to try and read as many books as you can written with that structure. Then try writing one. You can start with a short story and then try longer works. Good luck!
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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Today, we’ll talk about missions and why they should NEVER be mixed up with themes.
The mission is the goal of your story. The reason why you want to write a story. Sometimes, the mission and the theme are one and the same, but many times, they are not.
You can write a successful story without a mission but it is near impossible to have a successful story without an emotion-based theme.
You see, where the mission is your story’s head, the theme is its heart.
I’ll give you an example.
I want to write a book that celebrates a Nigerian heroine, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti. I want Nigerian girls to understand that FRK is a big part of the reason why women can aspire to political power in Nigeria today. I want them to know that she fought for the social, economic and political rights of Nigerian women. I want them to see her for the trailblazer she was and perhaps find a role model in her.
This is the head of my story. My mission.
To get this story across to my readers in the most powerful manner possible, I must find an emotional angle to it. Herein comes the theme. What themes/universal truths can many people immediately identify with?
I can use any or all of the following: Fighting for one’s beliefs against all odds, courage, discrimination …
If I can find an emotional angle to FRK’s story, my readers will read her story over and over again and hopefully share it and then, mission accomplished: people, especially young girls, will know her name.
Many times, your theme is embedded in your mission. Ask yourself the following questions:
Why is this mission important to me? Why should my reader care about my mission?
Using the example I gave earlier about FRK, my question to myself would be: Why do I want to celebrate FRK so much?
Because she dared to fight where many women could not, because she showed unbelievable courage in the face of serious adversity.
In the answer to that question, I found my theme.
Action
Action: A. Identify the theme(s) and mission(s) in the book(s) you love.
Is there a book you have read more than once? Yes? That’s the one you need.😊
Can you figure out the theme(s) using the questions above?
What did you like best about this book?
Which character’s story resonated with you and why?
Can you figure out the mission?
Go online and look for author interviews to see if you were right! Good luck!
B. Now think about your own story: What’s your mission and what’s your theme?
2. Read.
Here is one of my favourites:
Amari and the Night Brothers(MG) by B.B Alston
Mission: Create a killer adventure story with a black female protagonist so that little black girls can see themselves in adventure books!
Themes: Courage, friendship, family and the overall theme of racial prejudice.
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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WRITING CHILDREN’S BOOKS TIP #1: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW –
Ernest Hemingway
This could mean, write about the things you’ve seen, done, heard, loved, felt, basically experienced. If you’ve flown upside down in a plane, that could be the beginning of a story set in year 3054 with human characters who walk on their heads! If you’ve felt sadness over the loss of a pet, you can write about the loss of a loved one.
Basically, take what you know, add sprinkles of salt and pepper to it and voila! Your story!
I have always loved stories! Long before I discovered stories in written form, I found love in oral stories, particularly Igbo folktales. I heard tons of Igbo folktales as a child. I know Igbo folktales like the back of my hand. Naturally, when I started writing seriously, my first thought was to recreate Igbo folktales. But I couldn’t reproduce all the folktales I’d heard, could I?
… Enter Fractured Folktales
A fractured folktale is a folktale that is revised or rewritten to appeal to a contemporary audience. It can be laced with humour or restructured to a deliver a social justice message.
Action: Take that folktale you know and love and change something about it.
Give it a different main character (or rewrite it from another character’s point of view) or change the human characters to animals or vice versa OR
Change the theme OR
Give it a different beginning or ending OR
Give it a different setting. Take it from year 1601 to year 2075!
2. Read:
Picture Book:
The Greedy Ostrich by Olusayo Ajetunmobi (Original Folktale: Yoruba)
The Missing Chicken by Ugo Anidi (Original folktale: Igbo: How Tortoise Married a Wife with a Grain of Corn)
Chapter Book:
Afro the Girl with the Magical Hair by Okechukwu Ofili (Original fairytale: Brothers Grimm: Rapunzel)
These books are available on the Farafina Books website.
3. More research: Read my blogpost on creating contemporary stories from Igbo folktales here
Want to write a story for children, don’t know where to start? Try a fractured folktale (or fairytale) today. Tell me all about it.
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U G O . . . .A N I D I 
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