Writing Children’s Books: How Magical Stories Come to Life

How do you win a marathon? You run really fast for 26.2 miles without stopping.

Like winning a marathon, writing is easy to describe, but hard to execute.

Writing a good book is a magical art that blends creating interesting characters, placing them in intriguing settings, and weaving an engaging plot with page-turning action and authentic dialogue. Easy, right? Not so much.

And if writing well wasn’t difficult enough, writing picture books puts additional limits on the author. These children’s books are shorter than adult books, so there’s much less time for story arc or character development. The author is further constrained by the audience’s age; most kids won’t understand adult vocabulary, scenarios or themes.

Think you’re ready to try your hand at this creative project?

Here are a few tips for how to write a children’s book.

What exactly is a children’s picture book?

Picture books are typically, but not always, 32 pages. They are published in larger trim sizes (e.g. 8.5” x 11”) and can contain anywhere from zero to 1,000 words. Fiction picture book word counts under 500 are most common.