Writing Your Children's Book 2024
Are you crafting a story for young people? Do you aspire to write children's and middle-grade books that will sit on bookshelves next to writers such as Jacqueline Wilson, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Emma Carroll? Or powerful YA novels reminiscent of Angie Thomas and Malorie Blackman? The stories we read when we are young shape us.
This May, join us for a six-week online course (including a reading week) to help develop your craft and work towards the publication of your children's book. Lesley Parr, award-winning writer of children's fiction including The Valley of Lost Secrets and Where the River Takes Us will be using practical exercises, discussion and sharing opportunities to help you shape your book.
She will be delving into the writing process, helping you create memorable characters, build a world, and structure your story, while students can also expect her to share insight into the children's book market and how to improve your chances of getting your work published. The course has been designed to benefit children's fiction, middle-grade and YA authors* at all stages of their writing journey, so whether you have an initial idea and want to know where to start, or have a full draft and need help with revising and making it the best it can possibly be, this is the course for you.
The sessions will run online via video conferencing software, with homework assignment deadlines in place for the following week.
All attendees will receive a complimentary copy of the latest edition of the Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook as well as Lesley's latest book.
Schedule
Week One: The Children's Book World - Wednesday 8th May
- What it is and how your writing fits in
- Age ranges
- Word counts and content
- Themes, trends and genres
Week Two: Getting Started and Keeping Going - Wednesday 15th May
- To plan or not to plan
- Stimulating ideas
- Ways to get unstuck
- Building confidence
- Finding a community of writers
Week Three: Character Development - Wednesday 22nd May
- Creating memorable and believable characters
- Viewpoints
- Authorial and character voice
- Dialogue
- Character motivation
Week Four: Reading Week - Wednesday 29th May
This will not be a teaching week. Instead, students will have an opportunity to read a short children's book set by Lesley, and encouraged to work on their writing, prompted by this.
Week Five: The Story - Wednesday 5th June
- The messy first draft
- Plot and structure
- Settings/ worldbuilding
- Pace
Week Six: Shaping up for Publication - Wednesday 12th June
- Editing
- Query package
- Improving your chances
- Synopsis
All sessions will include exercises, discussions and sharing time. You will explore and analyse the work of others (including published authors) as well as your own.
The key details of the course are below, as well as the link you’ll need to join each class.
When: 8th May - 12th June, 6:30pm - 8:0pm UK Time
Where: Online
You can download Teams free on your computer, or join via the web: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-teams/download-app
As part of the course fee you receive a complimentary copy of the latest edition of the Children’s Writers & Artists’ Yearbook, as well as Lesley’s latest book, Where The River Takes Us. Please do send over your address by 31st May and we will get those in the post to you!
Lesley will be asking you all to introduce yourselves and let the group know which age range and genre you’re interested in writing for, so she can get a sense of the needs of the group. This will be very relaxed and quick!
She will also be setting a short writing task during the session and would appreciate it if you can come ready to share and give feedback!
Finally, we will be using Slack during the course, which is a free, easy-to-use platform that enables everything related to the course to be stored in one place. Please click on the below link to gain access to the Slack workspace that we’ve created for this course:
https://join.slack.com/t/writingyourch-bgf7515/shared_invite/zt-2h08y0629-yt1nWaPwVWN5DrXaj2TQTQ
When you arrive in Slack you’ll see the workspace is called ‘Writing Your Children’s Book’, with several channels within that workspace. A quick bit of guidance on how these different channels will work:
- Course Etiquette: We’ve put together some course etiquette guidelines. Please have a read and comment to confirm that you’ve seen them.
- General: This is a general discussion board. James and myself will have access but it’s not something we’re going to get involved in. This is for you guys to chat amongst yourselves, discuss, share advice and book recommendations! A great way to start would be to introduce yourselves, share info about your writing journeys so far and let the rest of the group know what you’re working on and why you’re here.
- Writing Your Children’s Book: We will be sharing recordings & homework in here, as well as any reading materials Lesley would like you to take a look at. Feel free to discuss the reading here, ask questions re the homework and share any reflections as we go!
Everyone involved in the course will have access to all channels by default. It’s therefore important to make Slack work for you, so please take a bit of time to manage your notifications. You can do this by right-clicking on the channel and then selecting ‘Change notifications’.
We will also be sharing recordings and homework by email, but this is a space for you guys to connect with each other and build your writing community. Myself and James will also be available via email so if you’d prefer to reach out to us via email then please do get in touch.
