Young Writers Society

Hey guys. A little help please? I am writing a children's story, and I want it to be good. But I think it might be too dark... I can't tell. Maybe it's just me but I don't want it to be dark. I want it to be GOOD. I want these 6-10 year olds to learn about courage and truthfulness blah blah blah. I just want my story to be good. So how dark is too dark? I can't even tell. Seriously I can't. If you have any tips, please share them.

The story is Prince Derek and the Road to Nothyng. I think it took a turn for the worst in chapters 6 and 7.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Rachelle

People dying in children books is too dark, unless its in a comical way. Look at Hansel and Gretel as a good basis point. It's a story about two children abandoned by their parents to fend for themselves in the wood, stumbling upon a witch and, well, it ends up with her being thrown into an oven. If you read it and go "Wow, this probably isn't appropriate for children." then, you need to change it. For a 6-10 year old, i'd say try to stick away from just generally darker themes in general, but, it's up to you.

It's too dark when you can't see the ground and step on a Lego piece.

@Bloodsrain do you think that a couple of sword fighting scenes would be okay? No one dies, but it get's pretty intense.

and @Pompadour hahaha I agree

Blood isn't a good idea, but, intense sword fighting i'd say is fine, as long as its more like "Ah, you can't get me!" or some like, oh, he hits him on the side and cuts some of his shirt, but don't mention blood at all, i'd say, in a childrens book XD

Okay! And thanks for the review as well!

Hi! I'm Adrian, and I'm eleven. The audience you're aiming for is 6-10, right? At that age, they know about blood and death, however that might be a little dark. In Harry Potter, the story deals with death, neglect, and magic. Depending where you take it, that could turn extremely dark.

Blood in the passing probably wouldn't be that bad, but in full detail that might be frowned upon. Death in passing isn't that bad either! I just wouldn't recommend painting gory images. So: She wiped the sweat off, unfortunately smearing some blood on her forehead in the process. that would be okay. It's mentioned in the passing, but not in that much detail. And, He sniffed, trying not to think about his dead aunt. That's okay too! Or even outright saying, They died.

If you can have it in a Disney movie, it's probably alright. (Disney movies can be somewhat dark as well.)

However, I do have a question. What did you do to "take a turn for the worst"?

Thanks @AdrianMoon It took a turn for the worst because as I was writing it, I could tell that it wasn't quite as good as the rest of the story. It just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. I edited out a lot of it. Some scenes were changed and I actually got rid of a character. When I am done, I plan on submitting it to a publisher, and got a bit self conscious because they only accept "quality writing".

For children's books, I'd definitely stay clear of blood and gore, sure. However, there's a lot of ways you can writer your children's story darker, without it upsetting the reader. Think psychological or metaphorical.

Instead of trying to go on about this, I'm pretty much going to link you an article about this amazing, beloved children book called 'Where the Wild Things Are', by Maurice Sendac, which my father read to me as a kid.

Psychology in 'Where the Wild Things Are'

Just an example of how you could expand on your writing.

You don't want blood and gore. Pretty much.
Don't go in detail with how bloody things are, or what exactly the gash looks like on his stomach, or anything of the sort that would creep one out.
Look at Star Wars - many people enjoy that, from four year olds to ninety year olds. And it is scary, in some sorts, but not gruesome.
You can have blood, death, and intense scenes. Just not scary, gruesome, gory, etc.

If you have a sword fighting scene, and one of them jabs the sword in the others stomach and pulls it out, blood covering it - I'd say that's the limit.

Thanks guys:) you really dulled my fears.

I wouldn't mind a little bit of blood and gore in it, as long as it is briefly described and not gratuitous. Blood is a part of life. Heck, the last time I trimmed my baby's nails (she likes to flail about while I clip her nails, which can be highly problematic), I accidentally caught a bit of her finger and she bled a tiny bit. She was surprisingly gung ho about it... tough cookie, she is!

But yeah. I think adults are more horrified by the concept of death and such than kids are. They just don't understand it like we do.

If anyone could answer this question as well, when do kids start reading chapter books? I mean I started in like first grade, but there were a lot of kids that couldn't read that well. When is the average time? Stuff like Magic Tree House or Judy Moody? Thanks a bundle!

I read my first chapter book around first grade late pre-k. Of course, they weren't very advanced. 6-10, one should have read a chapter book or have a very good understanding of how to read such things.

So, I've been doing a fair amount of research on children's books myself...

If there's one thing you should know about the market, it's that it's very competitive. It's also not one giant block of generic children's fiction: it's subdivided into three main categories.

The age group you're aiming for seems to be the lower end of middle-grade, and word counts for MG books tend to be between 20-50K. Shorter is better than longer because most children in the age bracket you're looking at don't have the attention span or patience to read longer books, unless they're speed readers and devour books in single sittings (like I was). I wouldn't count on the majority of young MG readers being speed readers though.

If that seems too short for your story, you can always shift your target audience to an older one. Upper MG and YA are possible options, and considering the ages of your characters, I'd suggest aiming for YA. Generally, with children's books especially, the ages of the characters are the same as the target audience's, and 12 is generally the cut-off point between upper MG and YA. You'll also have to worry less about appropriate levels of gore and such if you target your story towards a slightly older audience of 10-12+.

On a side note, it sounds like you haven't finished writing the first draft of the story yet. If this is the case, I'd strongly recommend against worrying about appropriate levels of gore and the quality of your writing at this stage in the process. Get the first draft written, and then worry about all those things. A completed first draft will help you better assess things like the intended vs. realized target audience, levels of appropriateness, and such like that. You can always edit out inappropriately gory scenes and topics that crop up, or, if you choose to shift targets to a slightly older audience, you have the basic material to refine further.

Worry about making your story good after you have a full story to make good, otherwise, you might just cripple your ability to write the story at all.