Recommended Writing Guides

The Best General Guides to Writing for Children

Thanks to the absolutely brilliant 'Read Liverpool Online Library', I could enjoy (and learn a lot from) the following books:

Absolutely crammed full of good, practical advice as well as plenty of idea examples to help give you a kick start. Cleaver covers all the fundamentals of children's story writing from setting, character and plot to structure and content.

There are endless vocabulary suggestions while there's also quite a comprehensive section on getting published, too. The layout of this guide is concise yet very informative and if this isn't enough for you, there's relevant further reading recommendations in each section of the book as well.

Coppard and Newbery co-wrote this book to great effect, covering just about every aspect of writing that any new children's author would need to know. They speak of their own experiences whilst also drawing on that of other esteemed writers.

It is a well structured and quite comprehensive guide and -along with the other books featured in this post - stands head and shoulders above similar 'guides' I have come across. If you need more than this as a general guide then you will probably need to read a number of books covering the specific content subjects.

Reading this guide from cover to cover is as rewarding as any online course I have seen and it even sets you tasks to help with your ideas and structure.

Some writers refer to this book almost like an aspiring writer's bible and having had a good look through it I can begin to see why.

Full of good advice from authors who have 'been there, done that' - such as JK Rowling and Eion Colfer - it also contains comprehensive listings of publishers and what they publish. I found this dedicated children's writers' edition to be much more useful and inspiring than the general 2015 yearbook which I also recently borrowed from the elibrary.

If you know of any other useful guides to writing for children please share them in the comments box. Also please refer to the 'Writing Guide' page on this blog for more useful hints and tips...

The online Writing Guide is here!

The online Writing Resource Guide is here!

I've been writing for a while now but only as a hobby. However, having taken a break from the day job to be able to spend some time finally producing a few stories, I first had a look all over the web for hints, tips, guides and courses that would help me hone my craft and learn more about the publishing process.

There was so much information out there it took a while to separate the 'wheat from the chaff', and to help save other writers precious time (which would obviously be better spent writing), I've compiled the best courses, links and resources I could find into a list that can be found in the page entitled 'Writing Guide' at the top of the screen.

There's something for everyone in there, covering everything from the best free online writing courses to advice on all aspects the writing process. There are also resources for poets and plenty of valuable information on marketing and publishing.

I've also created a page full of links to fun and effective language and literacy resources for young learners to check out.

Ok, that's enough from me, just click on the 'Writing Guide' page at the top of the screen and away you go!

P.s. If you have any other such useful links, please add them in the relevant comment sections, thanks! And if you're still struggling with the whole thing, just remember...