Young Writers Society

I have noticed that there's hardly anyone on here that writes for a younger audience. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough though. Lots of stuff on here is pretty dark and serious as well.

Anyway I've been working on a novel for kids 8-12 about a gray fox. It starts with his first day out of the den and goes from there. He faces many dangers in the world by himself. He makes some friends, kinda. (I typed up a whole summary but decided not to post it. If you want to read it lemme know)

So I'm just wondering if anyone else writes for kids. Personally I think it's really fun. Do you guys have any tips? I've got a little sister that's 10 and gives me feedback, which is helpful, but I also want to chat with others who write similar stuff.

Ahh, a person who aspires to become a children's author (or somebody who writes for kids for fun)! How exciting. I don't write for children although I am going to suggest playing around with that gray fox of yours going out into the real world and experiencing what it's like out there. Maybe there can be a point where he's upset by the real world because of an event or incident that happens around him but in the end he learns not to dwell on that because of his friends and what he learns.

The story sounds fun! My tip is to keep that feedback chain up with your sister and to study other children's books and see how far they'll go and what they do right. c:

I don't write kids fiction often, though I have done a couple stories in the passed. It is a lot of fun because kids are a bit more open to ridiculousness, which is awesome!

I work with kids, so my advice would be 1. Get your sister's friends to give you feedback as well! And 2. don't write for an age group. I remember reading some of those pre-teen novels as a kid and thinking how belittling and nearly insulting they are- kids are not dumb, and I've read too many books where it's written like... for a very young audience- I can't describe it better than that.

Hopefully this helps! Keep it up! C:

The best advice I've been given on this topic is exactly what Holysocks said. Try it out on younger audiences. Their culture is built differently to ours in that most things that they are aware of is filtered down through layers of adult talk and external influence. Their voices are under-represented and quite often novels will, like Holy said, belittle them because they'll be based on a stereotype or an adult's perception, rather than what actually matters to them.

Another thing I found really useful is doing a bit of research into childhood development and look at what stage your age-group is at in life. It's no co-incidence that so many popular YA novels have protagonists who are separated or orphaned from their parents (Narnia, Harry Potter, Treasure Island, Anne of Green Gables, e.c.t.) It's a time when they're ready to start discovering themselves independently of their immediate surroundings.

I would also highly recommend checking out this quote from Hiyao Miyazaki as one of my go-to nuggets of wisdom when it comes to understanding young readers. It refers to college students, but the principle of taking something and incorporating it into one's own private world, independent of parents, is a really important aspect of children's fiction.

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