Write a Children’s Book: What’s Your Idea?

Before you write your first word in a children’s book or young adult novel, you have to know what your idea is. For some, this begins with a question:  What would happen if you invented a machine that could answer any question – ANY question? What would happen if you thought your family was perfectly normal, only to discover they were actually spies from another country, or aliens from another planet? What does it mean to be an American?

An idea is a great thing, but it’s not a book. No matter what idea you explore, someone else has either already explored it or is thinking about exploring it or is writing the book right now. But that’s okay. Ideas are not books, and it’s the book that matters most. But how do you know if your idea will be enough to base a book upon? All by itself, it’s probably not. After all, the idea could probably be summed up in a few sentences and the book will be over 25 thousand words (at the minimum for kidlit novels). It begins with an idea, but you’re going to need a lot more.

Let’s talk about what you need to take that idea and make it into a story.

Listener Question of the Week

Shauna Garcia asks:

I’m just starting out in this process and feel like I have  some great ideas, but just don’t know where to get started in the whole publishing thing. What is the first step to getting publish, other than the writing itself?

Listen to the answer in the podcast!