Children's Stories – the Essentials

Written by Ann Harth


There is no specific formula for children's fiction. There are, however, some necessities. Whether you are writing a humorous picture book or a coming-of-age novel for young adults, you will need: a main character, a setting, a problem or goal and a satisfying ending.

*Main character

Develop protagonists that your readers will care about. Create characters that arerepparttar same age or a little older than your target audience. Make them real and believable. Allow your characters to make mistakes and have embarrassing moments. Children aren't perfect. They can't identify with a protagonist who is. Give Molly Squinch an obsession with worms orrepparttar 150651 inability to complete anything. Make Henry Steed stumble and turn red when a certain teacher comes near. Develop a character who is real enough to be living next door.

*Setting

Your setting has to be clear, but incidental. This is where show, don't tell comes into play. Weave an awareness ofrepparttar 150652 setting through action and dialogue. Don't allow description to putrepparttar 150653 brakes on your pace. Children's eyes tend to glaze over when faced with blocks of description. You may have written an award-winning paragraph about a mountain backdrop – save it. Most ten-year-olds will not be interested. Use it for your next adult novel.

*Problem or goal

This is your plot. Give your character a problem, or a wish. Push him gently towardrepparttar 150654 solution to his problem orrepparttar 150655 fulfillment of his goal. Then toss in an obstacle. He must overcome it using his own ingenuity and/or skill. When he's succeeded, throw him another one and then maybe a third. You can make things really interesting by making each hurdle a little higher thanrepparttar 150656 last. The most important thing here is to allowrepparttar 150657 protagonist to conquer his own problems or achieve his own goals. Try not to depend on coincidences and avoid allowing an adult or older brother to swoop in and saverepparttar 150658 day.

Your article headlines will make or break your business

Written by Chris K.


Most people with an online presence will have to regularly deal withrepparttar issue of coming up with an appropriate headline. The problem is that most people do not take it seriously enough. Many do not realize thatrepparttar 150107 headline is so important that no matter how goodrepparttar 150108 content is, it will never get read ifrepparttar 150109 headline does not beckon surfers to it.

The power of a headline

Inrepparttar 150110 offline world ofrepparttar 150111 tabloid press, one headline can sell a few hundred copies while another inrepparttar 150112 same publication, can sell several million copies. Online headlines are even more important as quite often somebody will not have an opportunity to leaf through, like they do in a print publication. Quite often, even a summary will not be available and allrepparttar 150113 prospective reader has to go on, isrepparttar 150114 headline.

Most of us forget that we are motivated to read almost everything that we read online throughrepparttar 150115 headline. Open any news page and you will only click onrepparttar 150116 headlines that you find interesting. Even on a page of search engine results, you will tend to go for a lower ranked page with a better headline.

What this clearly means is that every little tiny headline that you place on every small piece of content is important and will have an impact on how often that item gets read. Ultimately every little headline will contribute towardsrepparttar 150117 success or failure of your site.



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