Hi! I’m Jon Bard, Managing Editor of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter For Children’s Writers and Fightin’ Bookworm in Chief at the CBI Clubhouse, at cbiclubhouse.com, the amazing new community just for children’s book writers. Today, the topic, should you start writing or start over? You wake up at 2AM with a fantastic idea for a book. Since you’ve put pen and paper next to your bed for just this purpose, you scribble down your inspiration and fall back to sleep. In the morning, the idea still looks pretty. So the next step would be to start Chapter 1, right? Well, not so fast. Even if you never write an outline or a detailed character sketch, the fundamental ideas behind your writing should be put through a test to make sure they're solid enough to support a whole book. While there's no fool proof method, the following checklist might help.
Does it excite you? First and foremost, you must have passion for this idea. You got to love it or you’ll never sell it to your readers. Is this idea something you can live with and work on for months or perhaps even years? Why do you want to write about this idea? If you have a genuine interest in the underlying topic of your fiction or non-fiction book, great! If you think it’s good because it’s the type of thing children should be reading, you’re headed for trouble. Write for yourself first.
Sometimes ideas are assigned to writers by magazine or book publishers who are looking to fill a specific need. It’s fine if the initial idea comes from somewhere else but you must find a way to make it your own. Perhaps it’s a subject that’s always interested you. Maybe it gives you a good excuse to dig through a photo archives at a local museum or a chance to write about your hobby while getting paid.
Is this the first idea that popped into your head? Brilliant ideas rarely come to us full blown. Most need to simmer a while and be looked at from different angles before they’re worth writing about. Even if you think your idea is perfect, try pushing it further. Ask yourself, “What if?” What if this character had an older sister instead of being an only child? What if his sister was a genius and finished college at the age 15? What if my book about frogs didn’t cover all frogs but just those found in rainforests? What if I wrote this non-fiction book as an easy reader?
Fiction writers in particular can be guilty of not stretching their ideas in enough directions before they start their stories. Are you qualified to write about this idea? With non-fiction, are you willing to research the topic as much as necessary? Do you have access to proper materials? Are you prepared to become an expert in this subject in order to write about it? With fiction, is the setting familiar to you? Will the main character be encountering situations you can portray from personal experience? If not, are you able to learn about these things?
Finally, are you writing a story or sending a message? Your primary goal in writing fictions should be to tell a good story. If the reader learns something because of the characters’ act, great! But if your intent on teaching the reader a lesson, you’ll manipulate your characters to perform in ways that aren’t true to their natures. In creating non-fiction, your job is to present information that exposes the reader to new ideas and inspires them to find out more.
If you’re inspired to find out more about writing children’s books, we invite you to stop by the CBI Clubhouse, the online home for children’s books insider readers and it is also the home of the Fighting Bookworms. Here, you’ll find our monthly newsletters, children’s book insider, along with tons of audio, video, articles, e-books and lots more. Plus, we now have the CBI challenge, our ongoing writing course that’s free to all Fighting Bookworms.
Come by us and see us at cbiclubhouse.com. Until next time, this is Jon Bard, reminding you, keep writing!
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