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Welcome!

Welcome to The Kidlitter! This blog is partnered with my Writing for Children workshop, but it's available to anyone who wants to check the posts. Hope you find some nuggets you can use here! Our young readers deserve the very best of our efforts. Writing for kids is not preparation for writing for adults. It’s a special skill with special needs. Many of the same techniques apply, but there are important differences. For one thing, you never have to ask, “How old is my reader?” when writing for adults. But reader age level is very important when writing for kids. Reader age will determine your subject matter, your word choice, your sentence length and overall word count. If you market your work to a book or magazine publisher, you’ll need to know who your target reader will be. The writer needs to meet the reader at the right level and not ‘talk down’ from an adult perspective. So, let’s look at the different kinds of children’s books which target variou...
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It's Showtime!

Don’t you just love it when a writer makes you feel like you’re right inside the story? You are THERE, in the scene with the characters. Next time you read something that transports you, stop and take a look at how the writer practiced the skill of SHOW DON’T TELL. Telling, instead of showing, comes out flat. For example: It was a windy afternoon with a dark and threatening sky. The clouds were thick and grey over the canyon and soon it began to thunder. Showing makes it more alive: The wind roared up the canyon that afternoon, whipping dry cottonwood leaves into dancing whirls of yellow. Dark clouds rolled in soon after, bringing deeper and deeper rumbles of thunder.   Here are some ways to SDT (Show Don’t Tell): USE VIVID, ACTIVE VERBS: Notice in the second selection the verbs: roared, whipping, dancing, rolled. See how they replaced the weak use of the “to be” verbs? You can’t always avoid using ‘was,’ ‘were,’ ‘is’, ‘are,’ in your writing, but watch for...
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Good Analysis of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing

There's a lot to read here, but if you're set on self-publishing, it's worth the time to read all the way through and check out some of the links. It's noteworthy that the article cautions against the "self-publishing" imprints connected (however slightly) to traditional imprints like Simon & Schuster. Writer Beware! http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/pod/
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