"My novel is YA / cross-over" - GAH

The reason for the GAH is that a novel is hardly ever genuinely cross-over and your claim that it is is rather like the claim in my recent post about age ranges. It induces much eye-rolling from the agent you've submitted to.


Every YA/teenage writer wants her book bought and devoured and loved by adults. Of course. Every adult writer wants the increased sales that would come from having

"My book is suitable for children of all ages"

In other words, you haven't a clue about the needs of specific groups of readers and you have no sense of what sort of book you've written. You need to get reading, get learning, get analysing. Become an expert. It shouldn't be too difficult because you are, are you not, a passionate reader of the sort of books you write? (If you aren't, notice my most crabbit expression looming over you.)


If

Spinach, strawberries, and the Society of Authors Children's Literacy Campaign

"Reading for pleasure" is a phrase we hear a lot. It's become a bit of a cliché and the real problem with clichés is that we stop thinking about their meaning. They lose their power.

The other problem with the phrase is that "pleasure" often implies less importance or worth. It implies that perhaps we shouldn't do too much of it, that we should make sure we've done the "work" parts of our

Cheers for children's reading - with a healthy dose of spinach and strawberries

Today I'm in Stirling, giving a keynote speech at a conference of literacy specialists. I used to regard myself as a literacy specialist, one who especially specialised in reading difficulties such as dyslexia, but it's a while since I spoke about it very much and I don't feel expert any more, although you never forget what you feel passionate about, and I do feel passionately about reading.

A young reader visits and wows me with awesomeness

Writing for teenagers is a tough way of earning a living. Virtually impossible when you write stand-alone books like mine. Most teenagers understandably tend not to buy books, preferring to borrow them from their school library - which is FAB from a cultural, social, emotional etc point of view but from an earning-a-living point of view, not so much. (School library borrowings don't provide

CHILDREN'S WRITING - HELP FOR YOU

I'm delighted to bring you some advice on children's writing from two experts, Sarah Stewart and Cat Clarke, who have combined to form a specialist consultancy for writers of children's and Young Adult fiction, The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse offers editorial guidance and manuscript appraisal for both published and unpublished writers.

A little about Sarah and Cat
Sarah was Fiction Editor at

WRITING A BOOK FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

Do you think it would be easy to write a children's picture book? Do you have an idea for one but you're wondering how to go about it? Well, wonder no more, as I've found you an eye-opening explanation of the process. Ree Drummond was already a cookery writer so she did have an "in" with a publisher but her approach and all the steps she took along the way are exactly as they would have been if

WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS

At the York Festival of Writing I promised to make a version of my notes for each talk available as a free download. Here's the one on Writing for Children and Teenagers. Please respect the copyright note on the document. In fact - *frowns severely* - it would be against the law not to.

Soon, I'll post the notes for my What's Wrong With your Manuscript? talk at the York Festival, too.

I have to

THE SECRETS OF WRITING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE...

...are many, important, interesting and often surprising. So much so that I'm organising a Write to be Published extended workshop on June 9th especially to try to cover them all and give participants a really strong handle on how to enter this tricky market with confidence.

Writing for children isn't easy but it's wonderfully rewarding. It's also much harder than it used to be many years ago.

QUESTION RE ILLUSTRATION

This question was posted on the Contact page above, where anyone can request a blog post from me. I thought I'd put the request here, answer the question, and make an extra, unasked-for, comment. For clarity, I am only reproducing this here because the writer put it publicly on the blog; I would never do this to something sent to me as a personal email.

Greg said...
Hi Nicola, I'm a new writer

TOP TIP 1 - WRITING FOR KIDS / YA

Here begins a series of brief points, in no particular order. It's a handy way of keeping you on your toes while I attempt to write four books simultaneously and have a life.

(By the way, you don't seem to have noticed that, although I said I was going to take a bit of a break, I didn't... Yep, I just couldn't stay away.)

Anyway, my first Top Top for writing for children and teenagers is this:

PICTURE BOOK NOVELTIES

When I can't offer expertise in something, I find a person who can. So, to tell you about the ins and outs of writing picture books and novelty books, I turned to Anna Bowles.

Anna started in children’s publishing as an editor at Egmont, where she worked on Winnie-the-Pooh sequel, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood and the relaunch of Rupert Bear, amongst many other projects. Since going

AGE-BANDS: WHO DECIDES?

A post relating to YA/middle grade writing today. Needed for two reasons: 1) Amanda Acton, loyal blog-reader, asked for it, and when a loyal blog-reader asks, I tend to leap. 2) David Belbin, who is in charge of the YA Creative Writing course at Nottingham Trent University, has just told his students to go read my blog, and since I'm doing a lecture there next month I felt I should look like the

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 8: picture book

This is the first picture book submission I've put up for a Submission Spotlight.

 (All illustrations copyright Beverley Johnston)


The 500 word rule doesn't apply for this, so I am showing you the covering letter, synopsis, and half* the text, along with some sample pictures. Please respect Beverley's copyright, particularly for the pictures: you may not reproduce them without her permission

WRITING FOR TEENAGERS

I did a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival today about writing for teenagers and I promised** the participants that I'd put a fuller version of my notes here on my blog. Of course, devoted as I am to you all, I have not actually rushed back from Charlotte Square to do this - by the wonders of modern technology and forward-planning, I scheduled this post back when I wrote my notes. God, I'm

A LITTLE PRESENT FOR YOU

Hah! that got your attention. No, really, there is a present for you herein.Two happy things happened to me today. First, I'm proud to say that my 100th follower registered on this blog. (Welcome, Suzette - but you do realise that the rules say that you have to take part in an initiation ceremony? I will let you know what we want you to do, once we've all decided behind your back, OK? Ideas,

ANTI-GUFF RANT POSTPONED BY PLEONASMS

The best laid plans, etc. There I was, all set to have a good old rant about the guff spouted by arts organisations, and along comes something from an arts organisation that is actually useful and to the point. My guff-detector was rendered silent. Honestly. I was sent some info about a project or three by an organisation called Hi-Arts (Hi = Highlands & Islands - as in "of Scotland") and found