Writing Advice from a KidLit Rebel

Rule Number Two from the author of Casey Grimes

Hubba hoy, adventurer.

Rule Number One got a good response, so we’re back with Rule Number Two for aspiring authors.

When I started seriously trying to write my first children’s novel in 2013, I had a couple things going for me. I was a good writer, generally—essays, blog posts, editorials, articles, marketing copy. And I’d followed Rule Number One, which gave me a serious head start.

But there was a problem.

The kids’ books I’d read, I’d read for fun. I read them to enjoy them, to get lost in a good story. That’s the best way to read anything, obviously. But if you want to be a writer, you don’t get to do that all the time.

You have to read and pay attention. When you read a sentence or a scene that really works, that grabs you or makes you smile, you have to stop and ask yourself why. The answer is always right there in front of you on the page, but it can take some work to see it. It takes more work to take the thing that worked and learn how to do it yourself.

This brings us to Rule Number Two.

Learn To Play With Words.

After I started writing my first book—which by the way was Dark Sky’s Ashes, and had to wait its turn to get published—I realized how blissfully unaware I was of the tricks of the kidlit trade. I was like Gloria and Casey wandering into a weapons closet and having a wonderful time playing Mace Versus Sword without knowing how to use weapons.

For several drafts, I had a wonderful time crashing around too. I wrote wild and confusing action scenes. I wrote dialog that was too silly. I struggled to get my characters’ thoughts on the page.

Luckily, I caught on to this after a while, and I had some help. This is why you need to have at least one good beta reader who cares about your writing and has the guts to point out problems. I’m fortunate enough to have six young beta readers (my kids) who answer questions honestly, and one older one—but not old (my wife)—who can really pick things apart.

With their help, I was able to get a handle on the holes in my writing. That’s when I started going out of my way to play with words.

Here’s what I mean.

I started reading books with a notebook beside me. When I read a sentence I really liked, that caught my attention, I wrote it down. Then I asked, why do I like this sentence? What does it do that works so well? What is the secret of its swagger and charm? Then I wrote my own version of the sentence. Then I’d write a few more. Sometimes I’d move clauses around to see if the sentence could still do its thing with its parts rearranged.

For this post I was going to pull out my leather-bound writing notebook and give you some of the sentences I copied down. Unfortunately, I already packed that notebook and haven’t seen it for weeks. If you missed the post where I explain we’re packing up our lives to move to Arkansas, here it is. So…pulling any of those sentences out of my pencil-smudged pages or taking pictures of my work is out of the question.

We’ll have to improvise. I’ll make up an example.

Luci stabbed Casey with her dagger eyes. He’d known it was coming because of how quiet she’d been when he arrived five minutes late to Magic Club and the way she was squeezing her scythe-staff.