My process of writing a children's book.

 By Diane Mae Robinson

As a children’s chapter book author, the first and most important aspect of my writing process involves finding my “child voice”. “Child Voice” is a term in children’s literature that interprets into the author being able to get inside the heads of their children characters; think and act as those children characters would think and act and, thus, be able to write about them with ease.

Through all my years of studying children’s literature and children’s behavior, a major lesson I have learned is that to write for children the writer must have a certain level of immaturity along with the ability to remember the art of play. In my case, this is very doable, and when my friends call me immature, I take that as a compliment that I am on the right creative track.

King and Queen

When I am in the first stages of planning a new children’s book, I do a lot of note keeping, character building, and mapping out the fantasy world that the characters will be having their adventures in. Once I know my character’s world and know each character as much as I would know a good friend, then the plot creating process begins.

The creating of their story starts out as a movie playing in my head. This movie plays a scene, re-winds, re-plays the scene somewhat differently, builds the next scene only to re-wind, re-build, and re-plays that scene. As day and months go by, the movie keeps building, re-playing, strengthening the plot; it’s just about like the characters take over the making of the movie to get their story told.

King and Petra

Then one day, the movie in my head is complete and that’s when I get down to the business of writing. When I’m in the writing phase, I write with a frenzied passion for days, weeks on end, often writing non-stop for 12 hours at a time until the book is written.

Once the story is written in the first draft, I leave it alone for a few weeks to give the characters some time to settle into the story.

Then it’s on to editing. Editing phase will last another several weeks where I edit in two or three hour intervals every few days.

When I feel the book is at least 90% well written and well edited, the manuscript is submitted to my publisher. I am published with a traditional publisher, so the book will be scrutinized by their editor and the editor and I will work through several more stages of editing before the book goes on to production.

Finding Your Child Voice In Writing

Finding Your Child Voice

When writing children literature, finding your own child voice is the only way to create realistic characters, believable dialogue, and succinct narrative that will grab your reader’s attention and keep them involved in your story.

Students often ask me: So how does a writer find their child voice?

My answer to students is this: Before you can find your child voice, you must think like a child. To think like a child you must play like a child, even if it is only in your mind.

Seems like a relatively simple thing to do, right?  But as adults, we often let go of (or lose completely) our childlike attitudes and behaviors; tuck them away, in a memory box.

So, open the box. Remember. Put on a costume and dance around the room, go to a park and cruise down the slide, visit a classroom, read children’s literature, or hang out with some kids and just observe. Soon enough, your own childhood memories will come flooding back about what it was like to be that age: what was important, what wasn’t important, how you acted and how you talked, what the world sounded like, felt like, and tasted like.  

Once your own inner child is awakened, you will be able to immerse yourself into your child character’s head with more freedom; with more pizzazz.

Another exercise I have my students do to get into child-mode thinking is to look at things, people, situations and emotions; write down all the different ways to express it with originality. Then, break the sentences down again and again until the emotions and situations are expressed simply, with the innocence of a child’s heart.

 Here are some examples of my child voice that I’ve used in my own stories:

Excited:  He felt as if a herd of jumping bugs were doing cartwheels in his stomach.

Sad: My heart fell sideways and stayed lying down all day.

Descriptive dialogue: "I know grandma can fly. She has that flabby, flapping skin under her arms that turns into her after-dark wings."

Descriptive narrative: The wind pricked him, jabbed at him, finally becoming so mean with all its yelling and howling that he decided the wind just wasn’t worth playing with any longer.

So if find yourself dancing and twirling around the kitchen, doing cartwheels across the yard, or finger painting like a four-year-old, and somebody comes along to tell you that you are acting immature, take it as a compliment and start writing.

Illustration by Samantha Kickingbir

Copyright Diane Mae Robinson, 2014

For more information about my dragon books for children: http://www.dragonsbook.com

Getting Inside My Character's Head

In writing fiction for children, getting inside the head of my characters is one of the most important things I can do.

I am definitely a character writer over the plot-driven writer. Don't get me wrong, plot is very important. But to me if my characters are real, solid, and living through me, the plot will come naturally through those characters just because of the type of characters they are.

I write children's books, so I have to immerse myself into the child character just as the child character has to be immersed in me. To do this, I have to remember what it was like to think, act, and talk like a child. Then, go beyond the thinking until I can feel it, taste it, see it, and be in the moment again before I can express it.

The way my child-self  thinks is a lot more fun than the way my adult-self thinks. My child-self says things with a lot more pizzazz. It's also important that I express those feelings or situations that I want to convey in the story in my own words. This is what livens up the prose and makes it stand out and become memorable for the reader.

 Here are some examples of emotions I've used in my own stories:

Excited:  "I had a bunch of jumping, swirling bugs in my stomach that couldn't wait to get out."

Feeling content: "I felt all warm and fluffy, like cake."

Sad: "My heart fell sideways and stayed laying down."

The way a child views a situation is also different from the way an adult would view it.

Here are some examples I've used also:

"I know grandma can fly. She has those flabby, flapping arms that are her after-dark wings."

"The ferns tickled the smaller flowers, making them wiggle and giggle."

"The wind was yelling and being just plain mean."

A writing exercise I like to do to get into my child mode of thinking is to look at things, people, situations and emotions, then write down all the different ways to express it with originality. Then try to express it simpler and with more innocence, just as a child would. The longer I think about it and the more I write down, the better the expressions become. The more childlike I become.

So when my friends call me immature (which they all do, believe me), I take it as a good thing, a compliment, and an affirmation that I can do my job as a writer of children stories.