So, you’re looking to write the next best-selling children’s book? You’ll have to start with choosing a target audience and adding captivating elements alongside aesthetical illustrations. This article will dive deeply into all these factors and a few other splendid ideas for writing a children’s book.
How To Start With Writing A Storybook For Children?
There is more to writing a successful children’s book than expressed in this article. Despite how widely spread the topic is, we shall be sharing some basic principles and ideas for writing a children’s book.
Numerous writers find it difficult to where to start? The primary question remains; how to start writing a children’s book, which is the most crucial part of the whole procedure. But, if you understand the process and have a straightforward idea, you shouldn’t struggle with it.
But even if you fail to figure it out, worry not because we’ve got you covered with our book writing services. Or you can even read further to write it yourself.
Ideas For Writing A Children’s Book
1. Bedtime Stories:
One eternal favourite that never seems to fade away is a bedtime story. Why do you ask? Accredited to the fact that it’s very close to children. From day one, children have this routine developed. The familiarity of the routine makes this their absolute favourite.
They know that alongside bedtime comes a bedtime story. And with children, parents also love them. Because it helps them unwind and relax the children to sleep. Hence, making it an absolute favourite for both. Additionally, the familiarity element makes it a strong candidate for children’s book ideas.
2. Farm Books:
One of the earliest things a child is taught is about animals. What sounds do they produce, to be precise. Alongside this, children are shown huge animal pictures in farm books. Even if a child has never visited a farm, they are still connected with it, thanks to huge farm books.
Another reason why this is an absolute favourite of children is because these books have huge pictures and illustrations. And at that age in time, nothing captivates a kid more than a huge colourful illustration.
Moreover, children really love to take pride in the fact that they can recognize animals, and parts of a farm, without even visiting one. And before they can even read a proper sentence.
3. Concept Books
Concept books are those that help children learn concepts like numbers, alphabet, or colours. Such books are always a popular choice. However, of all of such books, the alphabet ones remain at the top.
Parents love to teach their children about the alphabet from a young age because of the fact that parents love to teach their children about the alphabet. Parents love to encourage their children to recognize the alphabet to enable them to develop reading habits at a young age.
4. First Day At School
With the increasing age, most children experience their first days at school; kindergarten, or preschool. This can be an overwhelming experience, spending the entire day without their parents and in between strangers they have no clue about.
To induce a sense of familiarity, parents often turn to such books. The idea behind them is to prepare the children for a change and keep them calm while they’re at it. That is why this children’s book idea is fairly popular too.
5. Dinosaur Books
Show me a kid that does not like a dinosaur. Even though they’re loud, huge, and scary, they remain a children’s favourite. In the past, too, we’ve witnessed dinosaur books top the charts, like Tiny T. Rex, Dinosaurs and their world, and Land Before Time.
These books provide a source of entertainment and an opportunity for learning and development. Making it loved by not only children but parents too.
6. Imaginative Play Books
Children are all about imagination. From imaginary games to imaginary friends, they love it all. Like playing pirates, princesses, space, and superheroes are the most popular imaginary games. Children love pretending to be these characters.
This is all thanks to illustrations from their favourite imaginative playbooks. In addition to playing these games, children love to read about their favourite characters; to know them more closely. This makes it an excellent idea for writing a children’s book.
With the idea figured out, let’s jump onto the next step:
How To Write A Children’s Book In 9 Easy Steps
Writing a children’s book is not similar to writing a novel. It involves a different writing process. Hence, we’ve summed up a few of the best strategies for writing a children’s book.
1. Determine Your Targeted Audience
Everything about your book depends on who you’re writing it for, from the idea to the layout, page count, illustrations, and even the depth of your story’s plot. All of these factors depend upon your audience.
For instance, a farm book or a similar picture book is typically read by parents out loud to their children. Since the child cannot read, they’re just captivated by the illustrations while relying on someone to read them out to them.
If you’re not sure about the age of the children you’re writing for, you may fail to captivate their interest. But don’t worry, because we’re attaching a guide below to help you figure that out.
- For children 0 – 4 years old: you should be writing a short concept book filled with captivating illustrations. While keeping it as simple as possible.
- For children aged 3 – 8: the word count may vary from less than 100 to 700 and 1000 at maximum. These children also love pictures, so make sure you add a bunch of beautiful illustrations too
- For children aged 5 – 7: to develop early reading habits, parents encourage children in this phase to read short chapter books ranging from 200 to 5000 words
But keep in mind that children are still developing reading habits, hence requiring simple language to understand and read them solo. Keeping chapters short while developing a sense of achievement in children.
With the increase in age, word count, and depth of the story, the plot increases. Also, decrease illustrations alongside increments in the word count. Ideally, stop including illustrations around the middle grade.
2. What Makes A Good Children’s Book?
Children’s books are unique; because they are a source of learning and development for children. At this point in life, learning is very crucial. So, try to make this learning process a captivating one. Follow the following tips to write a good children’s book:
- Should contain an important lesson worth learning
- The story must be easy to follow, with less confusion
- Must include professional and high-quality illustrations
- Can resonate with a wide range of children
- Must entertain and captivate the adults’ attention too
These ideas for writing a children’s book can assist you in structuring a good story setting. Moreover, it can even aid in ensuring that you’re achieving your targets for writing a good children’s book.
3. Refer To Loads Of Books From Relevant Genre
There are multiple different genres from which you can choose. And the best way to write is by reading loads of books from that specific genre.
If you’re not certain of your genre, we’ve narrowed down a few for you:
- Realistic Fiction: these stories sound real; however, they never actually occurred
- Historical Fiction: these stories are based on and inspired by true historical events
- Biography: these stories are based on real-life figures. They’re also referred to as memoirs.
- Fantasy: these are made-up stories that sound too impossible to happen in actual life.
- Science Fiction: Imaginary stories involving science and technology. These have no link with reality.
- Poetry: rhyming or not, these poems tell stories in the form of verses.
- Non-fiction: these stories are based on actual life stories and events.
- Folklore: these stories are initially told orally. They include a historical, cultural, or mystical touch. Such stories are often retold, as the original authors are unknown.
Reading books from your targeted genre can assist you in understanding how to structure the story. How to start, mature, and conclude your storyline.
4. Story Ideas For Kids
Ideas for writing a children’s book may be silly, inspiring, zany, weird, deep, hilarious, or even serious. They can make the audience laugh, gasp, giggle, cry, squeal and even guffaw all at the same time.
Book ideas for kids may generate from various places; children, adults, nature, movies, videos, animals, books, articles. As long as you’re a good observer, you can find story ideas for kids anywhere.
These few places can help you come up with children’s book ideas:
- Fractured Fairy Tales: these legends or myths are often retold in unique, creative ways. For example, stories like Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs or The True Story of The Three Little Pigs
- Far-fetched settings and characters: throw in two highly unlikely characters and settings together, like, Dora the Explorer vs. the Lion King.
- Adding Characters to Child-like Settings: adding characters in child-like circumstances, like Tom & Jerry’s first day at school. Or, like, is Barbie ready for kindergarten?
- Take the message of an adult book: alter a previously written adult book to cater to the children.
5. Focus On The Details
Begin with choosing a genre and how well you’re going to present it; in prose or poetry. Decide upon a speech delivery tone as well; first or second person, in the form of past or present tense? To decide upon a standard, you may refer to similar books too.
With poetry, you need perfection; if you can’t, then drop the idea. Writing poetry is greater than rhyming; you also need to consider pacing and timing. If either one of them is off the track, it may repel the readers and can risk dishonouring the book and your writing skills.
6. The First Draft
The biggest barrier to writing a children’s book is finishing the book. Accomplishing the task can put you a step ahead of a vast majority of writers. Here are a few suggestions on how to complete your draft:
- Schedule a time to write
- Appoint a partner for accountability for motivation externally
- Set a cut-off time
- Eliminate distractions
- Focus on ending rather than editing
These tips can aid you in completing your first draft.
7. Revise The First Draft
Does your draft not make sense? Does it need a cut down on words, or maybe an addition of words? Add or remove as per the necessity:
- Is the story plausible?
- Does the story contain any plot holes?
- Did it overlook any rules?
Tighten up your copy. The editing process may take some time because you want to ensure that you deliver high-quality content. The process will clean and tighten up your draft.
8. Get It Critiqued And Edited
Get your book edited and critiqued by a professional. The dimensions you want an opinion on are:
- The content
- The marketability
- Grammatical errors
No matter how professional and experienced you are, it is always better to get a second opinion. One set of eyes can never suffice for a flawless manuscript.
9. Hire An Illustrator
To add life to your storybook for children, you’ll have to hire an amazing illustrator. The illustration is one of the most crucial elements of a children’s storybook. You need to picture the illustrations while trusting someone with the ability to bring them to life.
Illustrators can be hired from various platforms, like:
- Upwork
- Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
- Fiverr
- IllustrationWeb
Or, you can even connect with illustrators via your social circle or social media. New illustrators can assist you as well, that too at reduced rates because they’re looking to develop their portfolio.
By now, you’ve learned all steps required to write a children’s storybook. Nevertheless, there are some guidelines you should consider to enhance the quality of content.
Do’s And Don’ts Of Writing A Storybook For Children
Each sort of writing has its own set of guidelines. Similarly, so does writing a children’s book. And the ones that comply with rules generally win. So, today we are sharing with you some set of do’s and don’ts you must consider while writing a children’s storybook.
- Don’t – don’t directly preach or lecture the audience.
- Do – write a story with at least one moral teaching a lesson at the end.
- Don’t – don’t belittle the audience. Don’t make it sound like the children are idiotic and dumb
- Do – make the audience feel celebrated and powerful
- Don’t – don’t write story-less and meaning-less books
- Do – make sure your book has a good start, plot, and moral to end with
- Don’t – don’t use inappropriate or irrelevant illustrations
- Do – add illustrations that captivate the reader’s attention, alongside supporting the story
- Don’t – don’t pack the book with loads of texts
- Do – add illustrations, icons and make use of fancy fonts too
- Don’t – don’t develop boring and unnecessary characters and stories
- Do – make creative and captivating characters and interesting yet simple stories
Using this set of rules can help improve the quality while captivating the audiences’ attention. And if you’re still looking for inspiration to improve your content, read further on.
5 Famous Children's Book Writers To Take Inspiration From
The first place to take inspiration is always your favourite childhood writer; on that note, who were they? But even if you don’t have one, don't be alarmed; we've got your back. Following are five popular children’s storybook writers you can take inspiration from:
1. Roald Dahl
Starting off our list with our absolute favourite childhood writer, Roald Dahl. The former world war two fighter has sold over 250 million books globally. He’s greatly known for his warm literature features, humour, villainous adults, and climax endings. There have been filmed adaptations of several of his stories.
2. J.K. Rowling
The first self-made billionaire author, J.K. Rowling. The woman gave up her billionaire series with huge amounts of donations. Apart from the best-selling Harry Potter series, she’s also written several crime fiction for young adults.
3. David Walliams
Best known for comedic acting, featuring in Little Brain at BBC, David Walliams started children’s story writing in 2008. He’s also boomed to success in the UK. He’s so popular among children that his stories have been translated into as many as 53 different languages. Several of his writing has also been adapted into tv and theatre plays.
4. C S Lewis
C S Lewis is an author of over 30 storybooks. Additionally, he holds academic positions at Oxford and Cambridge. He’s known for showing his Christian beliefs with strength in his writings. The Chronicles of Narnia is one of his must-reads.
5. A A Milne
Creator of Winnie the Pooh, A A Milne, is a celebrity in the children’s literature world. Fought in both world wars, the veteran was also a playwright. The original manuscripts of his global famous Winnie the Pooh are still archived in the Trinity College Library.
To Wrap It Up!
This comprehensive article guided you from ideas for writing a children’s book to simple steps on writing a children’s book, along with do’s and don’ts of writing a children’s book and famous authors for inspiration and motivation.
If you’ve successfully followed the guide and implemented each idea and tip discussed, you can undoubtedly write a best-seller children’s book; however, if you fail or simply cannot due to various circumstances. Then worry not, because the Writing Services Hub has got you covered. Contact us right now to help you write the next best-seller children’s storybook!