For Christians new to writing novels for kids and teens. Creative writing tips, encouragement and inspiration from Janet Wilson, writer, speaker, and publisher of Christian fiction for young people. Get ready to take your writing to the next level! You can do it - all you need is a bit of help. Don't miss out!
This may sound like a daft question, but knowing who you want to write for, and why, is an important foundation for our writing.
We can have what we think is a brilliant idea for a story, but will it resonate with our target audience?
This episode will help you narrow down your target audience and get your mission statement sorted... resulting in clarity - and that's a wonderful thing!
Oh, and do leave a review on your podcast app - it really does help a lot. Thank you! :-)
SPEAKER_00
Hello and welcome to the Write for a Reason podcast. My name is Janet Wilson. I'm founder of Durnier Publishing and of Write for a Reason, which is a resource for Christians who write fiction for kids and teens. So today on the podcast, I want to have a little think about who you want to write for. Now that might seem like a daft question, knowing who you want to write for and why, but it is an important foundation for our writing. We can have what we think is a brilliant idea for a story, but will it resonate with our target audience? If we know exactly who our target audience are, it's going to help us so much more as we write. In my job as a publisher, I've received many unsolicited manuscripts from enthusiastic writers who've written a story that they thought was fun and sometimes had a great message, but they hadn't put enough thought into whether their story would engage today's young readers. Times have changed, as we all know, over the last 20, 30, 40 years, even 10 years ago, the young people are very different. So unless you want to write purely for yourself, and nothing wrong with that, if you don't mind what anyone else thinks of your story, that's fine, but it's good to get to know as much as you can about your potential readers if you want them to love your book. This will make your story relevant for them, because if it's not relevant for them, they just won't read it. If you can approach your writing with your readers in mind, you're much more likely to finish up with a successful story than if you only have a vague idea of what today's children or young people might like. So who is it that you want to write for? If you target your readers specifically, that's a great thing. The thing is, teenagers are unlikely to enjoy reading a book with a nine-year-old main character who visits moon in a space rocket. So you can't say this book about a nine-year-old who visits space in a kit is suitable for anyone. And you might not want a nine-year-old reading a book about teenagers who fly to the moon because the issues may be totally unsuitable for them. If you're writing animal stories, say, they will be very different for a six-year-old than a twelve-year-old. Issues will be different, the story will be a different length, the characters will need to be different, there will be different elements of danger, of language, and even the concepts. So if you're a youth worker, teacher or a parent, you'll already be well ahead of the game. You know your children well. If you only meet with your target readers occasionally, you'll need to work harder to make sure that your story is really good for them. But don't let that stop you. It if you feel called to write, there will be somebody who's waiting for your story. You just need to get to know your kids better. So thinking about a mission statement. Before you start writing, think carefully about what age group you want to write for and why. Perhaps you want to write for seven to nine year olds, ten to twelves, or young teens, older teens. Do you want to write for girls, boys, or both? Do you want to particularly write for church children, uh kids who are being brought up in the church? Or do you want to write for children who know nothing of the Christian faith? What is the main reason you want to write? Do you have a specific topic you want to address, like divorce, perhaps stepfamilies, disabilities, loneliness? It may be something that you've been through in your life and you know that you can bring it out really well in a story. Thinking about your genre as well, what kind of book do you want to write? Do you want to write a funny story? Is it going to be comical? Or is it going to be quite serious? Although you have to have some humour even if it's serious. Is it a crime novel? An example of a mission statement might be: I want to write for 9 to 11 year old boys who know all the Bible stories, but think being a Christian's not cool and find church boring. I want to write exciting adventure stories that include prayer and the relevance of Bible stories to everyday life to show them that it's great to be a Christian. And that's just an example, of course. Your reason for writing might be very different. So why not spend some time this week writing out your mission statement, who it is you want to write for, and why? And that will help you so much with your writing. Pray as you mull over the reason for your writing, who you want to write for. You may need time to think these things through, jot down notes, come back later, and that's fine. Take as long as you need and enjoy this process. If you want lots more creative writing tips, hop on over to writeforareason.com. We also have a membership group, we'd love to welcome you in, and the Write for a Reason Academy. There's also a free course gripping beginnings. Hop on over to Writeforareason.com and sign up. You can start that straight away. So it's time to write. If you've been called to write, someone is waiting for your story.
