Naima B. Robert – Children’s Book Training HOW Should you Write Your Story JOIN the FREE CLASS

Bismillah.

Assalamu alaikum.

It's your sister Naeema b Robert and I

am here with the next video in our

series on how to write for children.

If you know anything about my work, then

you'll know that I'm the award winning author

of almost 30 books now for children, teens,

and adults, and I love me some children's

books, Alhamdulillah.

So we've already covered the what of writing

for children,

the who of writing for children, and now

it's time for the how.

How could you

tell this story? How? What are the different

ways? What are the different genres? What are

the different types of book that you could

be writing? That's what I'm going to be

sharing with you today.

So a lot of people come to me

wanting to write a book and as I

said, the picture book is the most common

idea that people have when they are interested

in writing for children.

But there is again

a huge range

of ways of writing for children. So I'm

going to break it down for you in

this video,

mainly to give you an idea of what's

possible, but also for you to start thinking

more concretely

about how you're going to take that idea

that you came up with

to bury in mind who it's for and

then looking at exactly how you're going to

explore this concept in a children's book Insha'Allah.

We want to see some books coming out

of this series. Okay. We're not here just

to waste time and have

fun. So, let's look at the 2 main

divisions,

fiction and non fiction.

Fiction

is a story that is, has imaginary elements,

okay. It could be a very realistic story

but it's not a necessarily true story. So

that's fiction and it's it's basically has made

up elements to it. Then you have nonfiction

which is fact based. Okay. Based on facts,

based on knowledge, etcetera.

A lot of people do not think that

they can write non fiction for children. They

think that children are only interested in stories

and that's not true.

Children

will listen to a story

whether it's a story or a prose poem

or even just an exploration of a theme

as long as you grip them with the

topic. Okay. And with the language and the,

you know, whatever it is that you're doing

when it comes to the craft of writing.

So I'd like you to bear in mind

that the topic that you have in mind

could be

approached from a fiction

lens or from a non fiction lens.

In the non fiction area, what's very popular

for children is creative non fiction.

That's when you find stories that are

told like a story but it's factually based.

Okay. Or it's a story that is there

to teach,

because it's full of information. You see this

very commonly when people are teaching about animals

or about nature.

The story is a vehicle for teaching about

whatever information

and knowledge that the book wants to try

and transmit.

So that's an option.

Other examples of nonfiction,

particularly in the Muslim area, are books of

Dua, for example. When you see books of

Dua or hadith for children, when you see

stories from the Quran or stories from the

seerah, these are all basically

nonfiction

but are told in a way that is

hopefully engaging for children.

So that's something that you may want to

explore.

There are many, many ways of

going into a subject which is factually based,

which is knowledge based, but is still appealing

for children. So I'd like you to think,

if your topic fits,

how you could do this as a non

fiction book.

The other side is fiction, which is we

are a lot more familiar with, where you're

telling a story. The story could be inspired

by real events. The story could have come

directly from your imagination.

But within that story,

there's different ways of telling it. There is

the character based story where there is a

main character

who will go through a journey and their

story has a beginning and a middle and

an end. But there are also stories

that are, you know, there's also in fiction

that is

not told in that linear way.

If you're familiar with my book, Ramadan Moon,

then you'll know that there is not really

a protagonist

in that story. There isn't really a beginning,

middle, and end to the story.

The child's voice

is the narrator

and the child is sort of narrating the

story of Ramadan. But it isn't your typical

beginning, middle and end scenario.

So

your homework today

is to go to your children's library or

to your children's bookshelf

and pull out a few of your favorite

titles

and see if you can ascertain

what approach the author used.

Is this book fiction? Is it nonfiction?

Is it, a story with a protagonist and

a beginning and a middle and an end?

Or is it more of a poem? Is

it more of a prose poem? Have they

used a completely different technique?

Have a look and hopefully draw some inspiration

from the different titles because

the reality is,

whatever you want to put out into the

world, you need to have the language to

do it. You need to have the raw

materials.

And what I always say to all my

clients is if you want to write for

children,

you need to read children's books.

You need to be familiar with that genre.

Be familiar with how other authors approach the

topic and see which ones are your favorites.

And you may find that your favorite authors

and the way that they tell their stories,

the way that they get their message across

will influence you when you now want to

tell stories and get your message across.

So

read the very best children's books out there,

get familiar with your children's favorites,

and Insha'Allah, you'll find that when now you

go to write your story,

those aspects and those elements that made those

other books so successful

will transmit to your writing too, Insha'Allah.

So,

today we talked about the how. And again,

really important for you to know what's possible

and then start to make some decisions.

What's making sense to you right now? What's

speaking to you the most?

Have you been inspired on this quest to

say, I think I could do it this

way or I could do it that way?

I hope so because by the end of

this series, like I said, we want some

stories, we want some books.

So that's your homework,

go and do some research

and, start thinking about how you are going

to tell the story, how you're going to

explore the topic that you came with, came

up with a few videos ago.

I wanna hear all about it in the

comments. And if you know that you would

like to work with me to develop this

further and actually write this story, get it

edited and published,

I would love to work with you and

have you be one of those

222 Muslimah authors that we celebrate at the

end of the year.

So click on the link by this video

or simply go to my website, naimarobert.com/services,

and get in touch. Make me excited about

your idea. I love children's books. My team

and I love working with children's authors, and

we would love to toast your success inshallah.

So until the next video,

go off and do your homework right now.