Tag Archives: kidlit

The Art of Making Mood Boards for Your KidLit WIP

A mood board is a type of visual presentation or ‘collage’ consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. It can be based on a set topic or can be any material chosen at random. A mood board can be used to convey a general idea or feeling about a particular topic.

Outlining Your Kidlit Novel

It doesn’t matter what age you write for, writers will always debate whether it’s better to be a plotter or a pantser. A plotter is someone who outlines their novel completely before beginning to write it (sometimes overly so); a pantser is someone who “writes by the seat of their pants,” completely winging their novel.Continue reading “Outlining Your Kidlit Novel”

Let’s Talk About Dialogue: Tags and Beats

As an editor, I see a lot of new writers attempt to break their dialogue up with beats. Beats are handy for adding rhythm to the dialogue and forcing natural pauses where you want action to happen, but when you use them incorrectly they become a burden on the reader, and, before it even gets there, the editor.

🎧Genre VRS Audience in KidLit

I could say this with a single sentence but I plan to go on a tangent. Young Adult and Middle Grade are not genres of children’s literature.

But they have their own sections at the bookstore.

No kidding. Kids have their own sections at the department store too, but it’s not meant to do anything other than dictate what sizes the pants are.