Writing for Children

NONFICTION ARTICLES YOU CAN WRITE, PART 2

Last week, we talked about how many magazines are looking for nonfiction articles. We covered four types of nonfiction articles including the how-to, the fact piece, sports, and the arts. This week we offer up five more nonfiction topics for magazine articles, including biography, profiles, self-help, history, and personal experience.

Remember you also want to check a magazine’s website, previous issues, and even a market guide like the one in our bookstore so you can direct your articles to the publishers most likely
to buy them.

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

NONFICTION ARTICLES YOU CAN WRITE, PART 1

Magazine articles can be a great way to get your foot in the door in the publishing industry while giving you professional credits for your query letters. And, since most magazines pay, it can be a nice opportunity to supplement your income. Magazines are commonly looking for nonfiction articles. The categories of nonfiction are not hard-and-fast classifications, since a given article may contain elements of several types. Over the next two episodes we’ll give you a rough breakdown of article categories according to market terminology. We’ll describe the main features of each type and give you some tips on how to make the most of your material for an editor’s eye.

This week we talk about writing nonfiction articles with these themes: how-tos, fact pieces, sports, and the arts

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR CHRISTINE TAYLOR-BUTLER

Christine Taylor-Butler is the author of over 75 books for kids. Before writing for kids, Christine earned two degrees from MIT and worked for the likes of Harvard University and Hallmark Cards. She has contributed to numerous nonfiction series for Scholastic writing about planets, states, our founding fathers, how our government works, and more. Her YA series Lost Tribes is now available.

WE DISCUSS…
• Best practices for research
• How to research
• Traveling for research
• Organizational issues
• Confirming veracity when doing nonfiction research
• Researching for fiction…and more!

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

ANSWERS TO YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS

It's a whole episode of your listener questions! Editor and Publisher Eileen Robinson is back answering your questions and giving it to you straight. We discuss:

• How many and what kinds of errors are okay in a submitted manuscript?
• Does punctuation really matter?
• How long should an ending be?
• What makes for an interesting/well-developed character?
• What makes a character unlikable?
• How do you create an unreliable narrator?
• How does dialogue shape character?
• In picture books, how do you shape a character in just 32 pages?

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

WE CELEBRATE WITH OUR MOST POPULAR EPISODES

To celebrate our 100th episode, we’ve edited together
some of our most popular episodes, all in one easy-to-listen to package:

002-Three Keys to Writing Nonfiction for Children
004-Don't Tell Us a Story
005-Picture-Books-101
032-How Submissions Work

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

In this episode, Katie interviews Editor and Publisher Eileen Robinson. Editor/Publisher Eileen Robinson loves the power of stories and helping authors revise.  She feels once the draft is done, the revision process is where an author’s skill, inventiveness, and individuality begins to shine through. She has worked in children’s publishing as an editor for over 20 years, in-house and independently at both Scholastic and Harcourt — in educational publishing, school and library, with has trade, magazines, book fairs and clubs. She now owns  f1rstpages.com, partners with Harold Underdown in Kid’s Book Revisions, and publishes book through Move Books Children’s Publishing.

START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

4 TIPS TO TAKE YOU TO THE WINNERS' CIRCLE

If you want to know how to win a writing contest, take it from someone who has judged a lot of writing contests. Here are four things that will almost automatically get you past the first few rounds of judging. They seem like simple things, but it is amazing how many folks don't do them.

1. DON'T ENTER SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T FIT THE CONTEST

Honestly. You just cannot win if it doesn't fit the contest parameters.

If it's a picture book contest and you send the first chapter of your novel, you simply cannot win.

If it is a contest for children's mysteries and you send a mystery with an all-adult cast, you're not going to win.

If it is a children's poetry contest and your poem is about the frustrations of retirement or the pain of your divorce, winning is not going to happen.

Even if your work is brilliant, can you imagine the firestorm of protest if the winner of their contest didn't match the theme of the contest? So, save your time (and the judge's) for contests where your entry fits.

For three more tips, listen to the full episode!

What's your question?

Tell us and we'll answer your writing questions on the podcast. Go to this link and leave your question: http://www.writingforchildren.com/speak.

START WRITING YOUR BOOK.

Learn how to write publishable manuscripts with your own one-on-one mentor, an experienced professional author. To see if you qualify, go to writingforchildren.com/iamready

DECIDE THE TURNING POINT

A good mystery becomes clear and is solved only when the main character employs a new way of looking at the problem or discovers his own pre-existing weaknesses that have been pushing him in the wrong direction. For most mysteries, solutions come by some kind of change—a change in how we look at the problem, or a change in the main character's beliefs.

Listen to the full episode for examples on how to make this work and don't miss part 1 in episode 096.

What's your question?

Tell us and we'll answer your writing questions on the podcast. Go to this link and leave your question: http://www.writingforchildren.com/speak.

IFW Critique Service
Don't waste your chance! Before you send your work to an editor, get professional feedback to make sure your manuscript is the best it can be. Get a full critique of your manuscript whether it's a picture book, middle grade chapter book, YA, Memoir, Fantasy, or Adult Fiction. Go to https://www.instituteforwriters.com/critique-service/

TO BUILD A GOOD MYSTERY JUST ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION

This episode is based on a post from Jan Fields, a ICL regular contributor. The experiences I refer to are hers, not mine.

At this point, Jan has sold well over two dozen mystery novels for adults and has written and sold mysteries for children, both as short stories and chapter books. In fact, many of her adventure stories have a strong mystery structure along with the adventure. This is because

• mysteries are puzzling and kids love puzzles
• a good puzzle has a clear question and a "right" answer that requires careful thought
• good puzzles are challenging but not frustrating
• good puzzles are fun.

But your first mystery story can feel overwhelming to plan and write so today's episode reveals how Jan does it, using a method she’s honed through all these published books and stories.

What's your question?

Tell us and we'll answer your writing questions on the podcast. Go to this link and leave your question: http://www.writingforchildren.com/speak.

IFW Critique Service
Don't waste your chance! Before you send your work to an editor, get professional feedback to make sure your manuscript is the best it can be. Get a full critique of your manuscript whether it's a picture book, middle grade chapter book, YA, Memoir, Fantasy, or Adult Fiction. Go to https://www.instituteforwriters.com/critique-service/

INTERVIEW WITH A CONTEST JUDGE

In this episode I interview frequent ICL contest judge and longtime instructor Nancy Coffelt. As well as being a multi-published picture book author and illustrator, Nancy is a fine artist and has been showing in galleries across the country since 1984. Her work is included in personal, public and corporate collections around the world. She works in both 2D and 3D, primarily in oil pastel and in paper mosaic. Animals are her main subject matter and Nancy welcomes custom orders! 

Nancy also writes and illustrates books for children. Her books include Catch That Baby, Fred Stays with Me, and The Big Eclipse. 

What's your question?

Tell us and we'll answer your writing questions on the podcast. Go to this link and leave your question: http://www.writingforchildren.com/speak.

IFW Critique Service
Don't waste your chance! Before you send your work to an editor, get professional feedback to make sure your manuscript is the best it can be. Get a full critique of your manuscript whether it's a picture book, middle grade chapter book, YA, Memoir, Fantasy, or Adult Fiction. Go to https://www.instituteforwriters.com/critique-service/