Story Telling & Children's Literature

Alex gave us a great lesson this week on Children's Books - Here are my notes:
This is going to be very helpful information for our service project, writing children's stories for some orphans in Mexico.

Story Telling in general –

Why is story telling so effective? How especially for children?

Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm

-          Part of our nature to tell stories

-          Life is a roller coaster of conflict & resolution (stories mirror life)

-          Most important thing about stories is: Stories make us feel.

(the information that makes you feel is the most important. It makes it interesting.)

How do they affect children?

Meaningful context -

Familiar context -

Stories connect with us by presenting something familiar (anything familiar) in a meaningful way.

i.e. The Kissing Hand – we can relate: has a mom, kisses from his mom, going to school, afraid to first leave home, etc. Meaningful way

i.e. Pokemon: First Episode Pikachu is afraid/dislikes the pokeball. Ash lets him stay outside of the pokeball. In the beginning episode, he doesn’t like Ash. Ash is all excited to be a poke master, but his day is kind of an epic failure. But then Pikachu decides to join Ash’s side and they win.

- they didn’t get along, had to work with someone

- have the dream to be the greatest, but things aren’t working out perfectly for you

- faced with a hard moment, make sacrifices genuinely and work together & come closer together

- facing your fears

- dealing with bullies & things that don’t go as planned

Allows children to insert themselves in the story. (Pokemon has created many many more aspiring poke masters in real life)

Imitation Paradigm – they imitate what they see

-          You are great at imitating at age 1-2 years old (better than older children). Interesting…

-          That’s why these stories have such an impact on young minds

Law: You can’t have advertisements for a dora backpack before/during/after the dora episode – because the child feels like they have to i.e. learn their numbers AND get a backpack

Scientific Picture Books:

-          How to’s

-          Fictional books

-          Nonfictional books (i.e. learning about dinosaurs or bears)

Teach science in a lasting way:

Prepare – by teaching scientific principle (Possible lessons: observation, comparison, communication)

                It could be about anything – dinosaur bones or the Apollo 11 mission/space travel.

Involve – involve the children into the context learned in the story

(takes the connection that was formed when the child read the story)

Then they see how something in real life connects with what they learned in the story

Possible Lessons: measuring, classifying, predicting

Reach – only 10% of all scientists are black..

Minority groups are unmotivated – it goes back to prejudices/slavery/poverty stuff

targeted to racial minorities

*the main character needs to be the age of your targeted audience

- babies: baby animals/animals; children – children; pre-teens – preteens

*In general you want to put in as many things as possible that are familiar to them

 - i.e. use Mexican style for the houses – bright colors

*fables & legends

- maybe ufo stuff?

There is a distinct difference between the good & bad (clearly beautiful & then bad & ugly)

-          Snow white – evil queen turns into ugly hag (it’s kindof a true representation of her self/who she is)

-          Might have contributed in our society to seeing beautiful people as good & better

-          It’s a subconscious thing

-          Things that are gross are kindof bad

-          i.e. Tangled – the guys in the bar: they’re kinda ugly and rough and tough - but if you really know them, they’re great.

Great Books to Look at:

                Where the Wild Things Are – targeted to 4 or 5 year olds.

                The Polar Express – it’s got about a paragraph, 5/6 – 10 year olds

                Up (Jim LaMarche) – This has got more text on each page also, also 5-10

They can’t be toto complicated, but you can take a simple story and put something meaningful into it. I.e. Where the Wild Things Are: child is wild, sent to his room without dinner.

There are lots of children’s books that younger kids love, and they understand more when they’re a little older too. It’s fun to be a wild thing, but you can only be a wild thing for so long, til you get lonely, and he went home to be loved by his mom.

Publishing Panel - Great Info on Publishing!

Publishing Panel February 26, 2013

Here are some notes, thanks to Deirdre Paulsen...

Chris Crowe BYU English Department, has published over 100 articles and 15 books:  “Editors don’t publish what editors don’t publish.”  Be familiar with Writers Market so can find out what publishers publish.  Amazed that writers submit pornographic material to Deseret Book!

Learn to cut. . .the editor should never be the first one to see your work (and your mother doesn’t count as a critical reader!).

 “I’ve written one children’s book and doubt that I’ll do another.”

Steve Cantwell vp “Writers-at-Work”:  “Have fun with failure.”  Have a thick skin – eventually you’ll start getting nice notes rather than nasty ones from editors.

Highly recommends Poets and Writers – “pulls together all deadlines.”  Also recommends all the “Best” books series. . .like Best American Spiritual Writing.  These books give the sites where the stories were published.

Glimmer Train is looking for new writers (a lot wind up in anthologies).  Great place to submit if just starting out.

Kent Minson BYU Academic Press: Talked about some of the dangers of self-publishing.  Usually when you self-publish it will cost you $10,000 for 1,000 to 2,000 books – then you still need to find a distributor and do your own marketing.  Most people wind up with a garage full of undistributed books.

BYU Academic Press on the other hand offers a la carte publishing:  cover design and editing for example.  And there is no minimum on how many books you have printed (you could submit a printed and bound copy of your work to a publisher to impress them).  You can also purchase a Press Package for $75 to have your book on the BYU Bookstore list.

Deseret Book publishes only 3% non-solicited manuscripts – they are looking for known names.  If  your work is fiction, try Covenant or Cedar Fort.  The better you know a publisher, it helps you get published and to understand why when they don’t publish.  They want return on their investment. 

Self-publishing a children’s book is very expensive since they have so much color plus they’re hard back.  It’s a very difficult market to break into – parents are very careful when purchasing childrens’ books. . .much more careful than when they buy a paperback for themselves in an airport. 

Marissa Widdison, Church Magazines, Friend magazine: Read the magazines you want to submit to first so that you know what stories they publish and how the topics are treated. (This seems simple, but there are lots of people who obviously don’t do this before they send things to us!) The Friend accepts the most freelance.  The other magazines accept articles from non-commissioned authors, but as donations only. Commissioned authors are usually experts in their respective fields (like the dean of a department at BYU).

For guidelines specific to each magazine, visit that magazine’s website and look for a link called “submit material” or “writer guidelines.” For the Friend, go to lds.org/friend and the link is at the bottom of the page.  If you send a message to friend@ldschurch.org, we will send you a list of topics that we are currently looking for.  If your work needs a lot of editing, or if you don’t have prior experience, we will often ask for the work to be donated rather than purchased.

I see success in this field as a combination of ingredients pulled from two wells. First, the well of life experience. Get out there and enjoy adventures, big and small! Look for stories in the world around you. Second, the well of knowing how to write well. Increase your knowledge of styles, treatments, literary devices, etc. Keep a journal where you practice sharing the stories you see each day. If both of these wells are kept full, the time will come when you will find a magic combination that someone will be thirsty for.

Come to fairs and conferences whenever possible—like the upcoming Publishers Fair. It makes a difference for editors if they have met with the authors. 

Colleen Whitley author and editor, established the BYU Publishing Lab in 1997:  Read your rejection slips and learn from them.  Become familiar with all the books like Writers Market so that you know where to submit certain genres.

Among the many opportunities facing new authors are some pitfalls, and as in every other area, the digital age has expanded both. Among the resources to help writers navigate these difficult waters is the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website:  sfwa.org.  It is not limited to Sci Fi and Fantasy, but is open to the public, frequently updated, and offers a range of good sites for writers at no cost.  Their For Authors page, sfwa.org/for-authors/information-center has information on preparing and submitting manuscripts, contracts, and writing techniques. The Writer Beware section sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware alerts authors to publishers, editors, agents, and outright scams that have a track record of abusing writers. 

 When you are looking for places to publish, consider short non-fiction works such as travel articles in Travel magazines.

Children Literature

Here's a great website to check out if you're writing for kids!
http://kidlit.com/