Complete Writing For Children Course: Develop your children's writing from idea to publication by Clémentine Beauvais

Author:Clémentine Beauvais [Beauvais, Clémentine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: John Murray Press
Published: 2014-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

This is what good action books do: make you feel the ‘bite of incense on the breeze’ as a reminder both of where you are and of the sting of the action.

Key idea

Play on your intended audience’s curiosity for places they’ve never been, objects they’ve never seen – but link them to the demands of your plot.

Action stories are generally realistic, although some of them include elements of magic, spirituality or technological mystery. Believability isn’t at the centre of everyone’s concerns when writing or publishing such books; as long as they’re internally coherent and, above all, spectacular, the story will work. They are an opportunity to have fun, in the best sense of the term.

Going back to the idea that books for this age range stage the transition between childhood and adolescence, it’s worth thinking about how your action story presents its young protagonist. Is s/he going to be fully formed already, a perfect spy, a black-belt in judo, an expert user of firearms? Or is s/he going to be still learning, still in apprenticeship, but gradually getting a taste for independence? The presence of protective or pedagogical adult figures isn’t a necessity, but it’s a possibility. And you can play with the protagonist’s awareness of their flaws as well as of their strengths.

Finally, don’t forget to give your protagonist some friends. We’ve been through this before, but it bears repeating: lone heroes and heroines don’t fare well in children’s literature. Give them allies, give them best friends, give them siblings, give them sidekicks. They can’t be on their mission alone; they need voices to reply to theirs, people to care about, and shoulders on which to lean. It will also make your life easier by allowing for dialogue, which can tell much of the story, instead of resorting all the time to first-person internal monologues.

Workshop: the moment when authority collapses

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