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Writing Creative Fiction for Children | |||||||||||||||||||
| Story Length | |||||||||||||||||||
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How many words should a story contain for each of the different age groups? Well it varies but here is a rough idea. PICTURE BOOKS This is one of the hardest markets to write for. What? I hear you say, but they are only short stories, nothing to them. Well you'd be surprised. Because they are so short, they have to tell a story in fewer words, which is more demanding. The text and the pictures are just as important as each other. You do not have to supply the text and illustrations, unless you are top-notch at both. You can just supply the text and will be matched up with the publisher's own illustrators. Picture books are always of a certain amount of pages, eg- 24(0-2 ages) or 32(3-4 ages) or 40(5-6 ages). But not all these pages are text. The story usually does not start until the 6th page and usually ends on the forth last page. So a 32 page book might only have 24 pages of text, a 24 page book may have only 16 pages of text. Picture books are rarely more than 1000 words, usually a lot shorter. To set out your work for submission, you don't have to start a new piece of paper for every new page (you may not have much text on each page) just type 'page break' where you want to clarify what text will go on what page. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Series Reads | |||||||||||||||||||
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Young Readers/Middle Readers/Older Readers Age range 4-7 years - these are between 1000 - 3000 words. Illustrated with black and white line drawings. Age range 6-9 years - these are between 3000 - 7000 words. Age range 9-12 years - these are between 7000 - 12000 words. These are all usually series fiction. Each book is under a specific publisher's series and usually each book is by a different author. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Novels | |||||||||||||||||||
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Fiction for 8 - 12 years (novels) 20,000- 25,000 is a good length to aim for but they can be anything between 15,000 and 40,000 words. Anything longer than 40,000 words will be hard to place as it will have to have a high mark up price. Back To Home Page Search Amazon Books below. | ||||||||||||||||||
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