Amazing authors worldwide publish thousands of incredible children’s books each year. If you want to be one of them, getting your foot in the door can be intimidating and challenging. Children’s books usually feature gorgeous illustrations and valuable life lessons appropriate for a younger audience. There are always exceptions to these rules, however. The first step to writing a children’s book is understanding what makes successful children’s books. What sets them apart from the rest? What pitfalls should you avoid?
Forcing Yourself to Rhyme
Rhyming is an excellent way to make reading fun for kids. Rhyming also teaches kids how to pronounce words and enjoy the excitement of language. However, your plot or characters can suffer if rhyming is your sole priority in a children’s book. If you are sacrificing or changing your plot to rhyme, consider going without the rhyme scheme. Many successful children’s books do not rhyme, and there are infinite ways to play with language outside of rhyming, like alliteration, repetition, or puns.
Not Reading Out Loud
Sometimes, a book can flow on paper but lose its luster when read out loud. Children’s books are frequently read out loud by children and their parents. Ensure you read your story out loud to make sure it flows well. Don’t be afraid to make the writing sound better when read out loud, even if there are minor changes.
Editing While Writing
Writing continuously is one of the best ways to draft a book that flows well. If you’re chopping up your writing momentum with frequent editing, you can lose sight of the big picture (book). It’s fine to make minor spelling corrections or reread a sentence to track where your writing is going, but avoid majorly editing as you go. Editors will take care of significant change suggestions for you.
Not Hiring a Team
Many writers make great editors, but it’s tough editing your work. Marketing also comes with a set of expertise that writers may not have. Additionally, editing, publishing, and marketing your book is a lot of work on top of writing tasks. Hiring a professional team, like an agent, editor, and publishing company, can reduce your workload, increase your book’s chances of success, and hit more shelves.
Hiring the Wrong Team
If you’re writing a children’s book that delves highly into the fantasy genre, your book will go much farther if you look into hiring fantasy book editors and publishers. The same goes for nonfiction or any other genre. You will want to hire a team that has previously worked with your genre, especially regarding children’s books. Children’s books are read and edited differently than books for adults, so your publisher and editor should be experienced with this.
Lectures in the Writing
Most books about kids or teenagers have a life lesson or educational takeaway. There is nothing wrong with this; allowing children to learn through reading is a great idea. However, some books may come off as lecturing if they enforce the ‘lesson’ in the story too much or too obviously. Your life lesson should be subtle and applicable to the story’s world you’ve created. Telling kids to ‘brush your teeth’ on every page out of nowhere does not make for a good story. Including the life lesson subtly also encourages critical thinking practices. Less is more. Go for the subtle lesson within your writing; let it speak for itself. Instead of encouraging kids to do their homework for no reason, show what can happen to your characters when good habits are followed; your characters can find out that studying can rescue their friend from an evil witch.
Unfamiliarity With Other Children’s Books
You can gain a lot of inspiration and wisdom when you subject yourself to other children’s books. When you haven’t read any other books in the genre, you won’t know what works and doesn’t work for these young audiences. You may write a disjointed or inappropriate plot for a specific age group. Learn from other beloved children’s authors and books. Immerse yourself in the realm of children’s literature. You can write a more appropriate and authentic story when you understand the genre.
Not Writing an Intriguing Story
Some children’s authors focus too much on rhyme or teaching lessons without creating an intriguing plot. Others don’t develop characters enough, thinking that children don’t care about these sorts of things. They do! Characters with quirks, personalities, passions, and hobbies resonate with children more than a generic princess or hero. Why would a child be interested in your story? How will you go about creating this interest? Children can comprehend a lot more than people may think.
Conclusion
Writing a children’s book is difficult. You’ll need an intriguing story, an excellent and experienced team, and a way to hook the audience in. Your story should flow well, sound great out loud, and inspire some sort of lesson or takeaway for a child to learn from. There are many mistakes that children’s authors can make, from being too generic when creating characters and plots to being too lecturing in the writing. With some research, help from a good team, and learning from other books in the genre, you can avoid many first-timer mistakes.