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| I’m just starting to draft my first children’s book, and I’d love to hear about the steps others took early on or any advice you’d offer. So far, I have my characters, I have a story line, and I have a couple pages written. I keep finding myself getting stuck on small details or dialogue, and I am wondering if I skipped some steps in the process. This book is geared towards kindergartners. I don't want to over think it, but I am. It is an important project to me. What did you focus on when you first started writing? |
It all depends. Sometimes I'd write, get bored, write something else, and then come back.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/alockwood1 | ||||||||||
| This is what I would do: First, decide on what kind of a kid, say an average five-year-old, in mind. Is this kindergartener already reading or will this story be read to him? Let's say, you have that average kid in mind who is now in the first stage of the learning process of reading and writing. Keep it simple, both the plot and the characterization. Also, don't overload the language with too long words and complicated sentence structures. Then, as you write, imagine that each page will probably have pictures. So keep the sentences to the minimum length, but make each word count rather than explaining anything for too long. Best wishes with your project!
 
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| Over-explaining is something I’ve struggled with in my writing, so I’ve been especially mindful of it in this project. To keep things concise, I’m aiming for a maximum of 40 words per page. There will be plenty of pages that have less than this. My target audience is brand-new kindergarteners. At this stage, we're focusing on name writing, letter recognition, and letter sounds. I’ve incorporated early language arts, math, art, and science concepts from the first two months into the outline. The goal of the book is to serve as an additional resource that helps reinforce their learning. One thing I am struggling with as well is the dialogue. Giving my characters their unique voice feels extremely clunky and insincere. I'm hoping that just comes with time though. It may take some refining. |
This has been my current method. The problem I have with it is that I forget about the project for weeks and even months at a time  |
Know the feeling.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/alockwood1 | ||||||||||
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