Naima B. Robert – Childrens Book pt 4
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Welcome. This is your sister Naeema b Robert
here, award winning author of almost 30 books
now for for children, teens, and adults. And
I think I've said before, children's books, well,
I have a special weakness for children's books,
And so in this series,
I am walking you through
what I teach my clients and my students
about how to write for children.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing
with you one of the most common mistakes
that we found
when working with sisters who want to write
for children.
Now that mistake is
writing for the wrong age group.
If you remember a few videos ago, I
talked about the who. I talked about different
age groups and the expectations
for different age groups in terms of length,
in terms of story style, etcetera.
As long as you're familiar with all of
that information, Insha'Allah, you'll avoid making this mistake.
But what I found
when we really don't spend any time thinking
about who the book is for is that
we find authors who write a story that
is not suitable
for the age group that they have in
mind.
Sometimes it's because the story is
too long or too complex for a picture
book even though in the author's mind it's
aimed at 3 to 6 year olds.
Sometimes
the story is not complex or long enough
for the age group that the author has
in mind. So say, for example, you're thinking
of writing for 7 to 11 year olds
and your manuscript is a 1,000 words.
It's not going to cut it. That's picture
book length. And we don't we don't we
don't make picture books for 7 to 11
year olds. It's just not industry standard. And
the thing is that's not to say that
7 year olds will not pick up a
picture book.
They may. But if you're going to put
this book out there,
whether you're going to traditionally publish or you're
hybrid publishing or you're going to do it
yourself,
you do need to be aware of the
industry standards. So
again, not writing for 7 to 11 year
olds under a 1000 words and expecting it
to fly. Because 7 7 this is the
thing. A lot of our authors again forget
that 7 to 11 is a very wide
age group.
There's a lot of development that takes place
in that age group. So a 7 year
old is so different to an 11 year
old. And remember that
from the 7 to 11 year old who
read books,
they are reading
books of a 100, 200, 300 pages.
They're reading
big books.
Those big books have got
developed characters.
They have very interesting, exciting plot lines.
When there are challenges, the challenges are very
real.
When there's a payoff, it's a big payoff.
So what I would say to you, Sis,
if you do want to write for 7
to 11 year olds or 7 to 10
year olds,
stop playing it safe.
I remember a sister who came with a
story and it had the word length of
7 to 11 year old, so like a
chapter book. It had the number of words,
the characters were the correct age,
But the story itself was far too simple
to appeal to that age group. As I
said, that age group has quite sophisticated
tastes. And if you want to appeal to
them and you want them to actually, you
know, feel excited about reading your book, you
almost have to rise to meet their expectations,
which doesn't sound very nice but that is
what it is. So if you are determined
to write chapter books,
then I would say push yourself. Get out
of your comfort zone. And
especially for the moms out there,
you just have to be brave enough to
make things a bit difficult for your characters.
I I know we don't like to do
it because we see the characters as our
children and wanna protect them. But if there
is a story that has genuine
interest and has a genuine payoff, you have
to be brave enough to let your characters
face it.
So those of you who are writing for
an older age group, don't make the mistake
of pitching your story at a younger demographic
because you will lose the older demographic completely.
And then when it comes to those of
you who are writing stories
that are, you know, for young children, remember
that if it's a picture book, the main
character should be between 3 to 6 years
old.
Writing a picture book where the main character
or the narrator or the protagonist is 9,
again, doesn't work.
So that's one of the biggest mistakes that
I found that many people make is they
write their story and they pitch it to
the wrong age group. So bear that in
mind, go over the details in the video
about the who, and get super clear on
who you're writing this book for.
And remember,
just because you have a certain demographic in
mind doesn't mean that no one else is
going to read your book.
So
if it's a picture book, your demographic is
3 to 6, does that mean that a
2 year old toddler is not going to
ask mommy to read it? No. And does
it mean that a 9 year old is
never going to pick it up and flick
through it? No.
But your main audience will be 3 to
6. Similarly, if you're writing for an older
age group, it's not to say that younger
or older will not pick up the book.
But if you are clear
on exactly who you're writing for, you can
speak directly to that audience
and what they care about.
Another thing that I've seen with sisters is
superimposing
adult concerns
on a children's book,
making the children in the book
think like adults.
It doesn't work. Children don't think like adults.
They don't have the same concerns as us.
They don't have the same lens as adults.
So if you are going to write for
7 to 11 year olds or even teenagers,
remember that your job as an author is
to get under the skin of your characters.
You can't use a a chapter book as
a vehicle to express what an adult would
do, what an adult would like, or even
making the adult's main characters in the children's
story. I've seen that happen as well before
and it does not work. Children do not
want to read about a teacher doing whatever
she was doing. Okay? They wanna read about
the students. They wanna know what the students
were doing. So bear that in mind, inshallah.
See how that impacts, you know, have you
made this mistake before? Have you ever come
across a book where you felt, oh, this
was a bit off? Or in the story
that you're working on now, have you got
it right? Are you writing the right story
for the right audience? And are you fitting
with the genre?
I hope that you are, Insha'Allah.
We'd love to hear more about your book
idea. Do tell us about it in the
comments. And if you'd like to work with
my team and I to make sure that
you've got it right, simply go to naimah.naimarobert.com/services,
send in the form that's on there, and
tell us more about your book. We'd love
to help you be one of the 222
Muslimah authors that we celebrate at the end
of the year. Till the next video.
Go do your
homework.