Joining writing groups will speed up your arrival at the “published author” gate. More importantly, along the way you will make wonderful friends who share your passion for writing for children. Professional Organizations in Alphabetical Order: American Christian Fiction Writers This organization is comprised of fiction writers publishing in the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association). They [...]

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The Pros? Readers hear the narrator speak in her own voice and, if she has an interesting voice, they feel attached to her right away. It’s like sitting across the table from her as she tells the story. You hear her side of the story, and you are prone to believe her. If she’s cute [...]

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So we’ve determined that a story must move. Hero has to move from point A to point B. But those letters can’t represent just any old points. You can’t move Hero from the bed to the breakfast table and expect anyone to care. Unless, perhaps, he has to fight a man-eating tiger along the way. [...]

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In children’s books, especially,  we see this sin. So many people choose to write for children because they want to educate readers, after all. So, I’ll give the red ribbon of second place of the Seven Deadly Sins to the sin of reportage. Yep, reportage. Lot’s of people call this author intrusion, or an info [...]

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Which Came First, the Characters or the Plot? Without plot, a piece of writing is not a story—it is a static description. Plot is what gives the story locomotion. And stories must move or they are not stories at all. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, and they have characters that stretch and grow. So [...]

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The Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators has a reputation for excellence and this year’s SpringMingle (put on by the Southern Breeze Region) did nothing to tarnish my perception of the organization. Keynote Speaker: The Keynote speaker was Deborah Wiles who has won, among others, E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, Bank Street Fiction Award, Coretta Scott [...]

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Omniscient You might have an omniscient narrator tell the story. This fellow is like God—he sees all, he knows all—he even peers into the depths of the characters’ hearts and discerns their motives. He’s the storyteller and he often tells us things the characters don’t know. Polly rolled over in bed with a groan. A [...]

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This is not new—this advice I give you. None of this stuff is new. Someone else said it somewhere and I glommed onto it and filed it away as useful. Study the markets. We’ve all heard it. If you want to write for a magazine, then get several back issues and study the style and [...]

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There’s been so much written on it that I wonder if I have anything fresh to say on the topic. And yet, I still meet writers weekly who struggle with POV. If you don’t get POV, you are not alone. So let’s discuss it. First off, what is POV? POV stands for point of view. [...]

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I just got back from a writing conference where I met with a mentoring group for the purpose of critiquing and being critiqued. We were led by Gayle Roper, who has published many books and has a great eye and ear. She caught a pile of mistakes in our work! Some of our errors seem [...]

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