3 Tips for Teen and Child Authors, How to Write an Entire Novel

If you are an aspiring author under the age of eighteen, I’ve written some tips I’ve learned from my experiences writing when I was younger, and my current experience of actually being on the cusp of finishing a book. I hope these tips will help you succeed where I didn’t, and finish a book by 18.

1) Outline the book before you write it. This is not a fun step, but for me it’s the difference between actually writing an entire book and writing a couple chapters and losing interest. Figure out what’s going to happen before you start writing. Then once you’re writing, you don’t have to stick strictly to the outline, but at least you’ll have some idea of where you’re going. Here’s how you do it: On several sheets of paper, write the numbers for your chapters, leaving several lines between them. A good standard number of chapters is 20.

Then write a few words next to each number about what happens in that chapter. You can sort of make this up at random. There are really no unique plots, just unique ways of using the same old plots. For instance, it could go something like this: 1) A scene from the regular life of the main character. 2) Something weird happens. 3) The character meets someone new. 4) The character goes on a trip, etc. Keep in mind that the conflict of the story needs to be rising until near the end when the climax happens, and then in the last part of the book there’s the resolution (the ending) of the story. At this point you might just write climax by number 18 and resolution on 19 and 20.

Next put in more detail. This is when the story becomes unique and your own. So your character goes on a trip in chapter 4? Why? Where to? How? etc. You may feel a need to reorder your chapters at this point. Maybe it’d be better if the character was already on the trip in chapter 2 when something weird happens. Maybe the character doesn’t go on the trip at all. That’s fine. Do whatever works with your story.

Don’t get discouraged if it takes you a long time to come up with your story. In my experience it takes a lot longer and is a lot less fun than it should be. It took me a month to plot out my novel, and I still didn’t know everything that was going to happen. Let me offer a small tip that may make this easier on you. If you’re anything like I was, and have a lot of boring minutes to kill each day at school after you finish your assignments, then you can do this at school. Making an outline doesn’t require a computer, whereas, at least for me, writing the novel does.

2) Drafts. I hated rough drafts and all that when I was taught writing in school. Why write out a entire draft, when you can just change things as you go on the computer? This is probably an ok question with short stories, but not with novels. I attempted many novels, trying to make the writing perfect as I went, and I never got anywhere. I found that it worked much better to write an entire, bad, messy draft as quickly as I could. Why? Well, it’s probably just a mental thing. If I’ve been writing a long time and all I’ve managed is one really good chapter, what’s to keep me from giving up? I have 19 whole chapters still to go. Whereas, if I’ve been writing a long time and I’ve finished an entire draft, I have something to show for my effort. Surely I can keep going and make the draft better.

Keep in mind, it’s going to take you a lot more than two drafts to get your book just right. In fact it’s going to take you a lot more drafts then you think should be necessary. When you finish writing a draft that you think is pretty good and may be the finished product, set it aside. Don’t read it for a few weeks or a month, then read it again and see if you really think it’s good enough.

3) Talk to People about Your Novel. There are two reasons you should talk to people about your book. The first is that it will help keep you motivated. The second is that you need honest (but kind), trustworthy people to give you feedback. If other people read your novel they’ll be able to tell you that a paragraph which makes perfect sense to you doesn’t make any sense to anyone else, or that something happens too suddenly, or a scene drags too long, etc. You don’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) agree with everything they say about your book but it’s important to hear a different perspective. Here are a few suggestions of people you might talk to or ask for feedback: your parents and other family members, a teacher you respect, your friends. Hopefully, all these people will be kind and trustworthy, but they may also be biased. You might also consider joining a writing group. Don’t get discouraged if people criticize your book. It’s impossible to write a book that everyone will like.

My Experiences Writing as a Child and Teen

I intended to write and publish a book before I reached adulthood. In my elementary school’s library, there were a number of books written and illustrated by children. I was very impressed by this and would have written one myself, only I’ve never been able to draw worth a darn, and the publishing company required that you illustrate it as well.


I entered a children’s writing contest in a local magazine three times in elementary school and never won. This drove me crazy, especially in the 4th grade, when another girl in my class won. She read her story in front of the class, and I didn’t think it was as good as mine. The pretentious part of me likes to believe that I never won because the judges didn’t believe that a girl my age could write such great stories…Right…Anyway, though I lost, writing the first of those stories, a mystery, when I was six years old, was what made me decide I wanted to be an author when I grew up (or sooner.)

I made my first attempt at writing a novel when I was in the 5th grade. It was a story about kids who were shrunken and put into little pebbles on the school playground. I don’t know how the kids ever got out, because I only wrote the first chapter or two. I continued beginning (and not getting very far on) novels throughout my pre- and early teens. Two that I put a lot of work into were a story about a gay vampire, and a story about a girl who sees auras and realizes that a woman she sees in a shopping mall is about to die. As you can see, even then my stories tended to be in the fantasy genre.

In my late teens I didn’t work on novels for two reasons. One was that I took several English/Writing classes in one semester in order to graduate from high school a year early and it burned me out. I didn’t feel like writing for a while. The second reason was that I was going through sort of an identity crisis and I was trying to find out who I was as a person, and I was unsure of what kind of story I wanted to tell. However, I did write a lot of poetry and a few songs during this time.

I never did complete a book during my adolescence, but the experiences I had writing during that time have helped build the foundation for the writing I do now. Maybe someday I’ll return to my childhood story ideas and actually complete some of them. I have already reused some of the poetry and songs I wrote as a teenager, altering them slightly for the novel I’m currently work on, The Magicians’ Chorus, in which spells are cast through music.

Child and Teen Authors

There are a (small) number of really phenomenal books written by authors under the age of 18. Two really great examples are Eragon by Christopher Paolini and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The Outsiders, though not in the fantasy genre, was written by a girl, and as a girl myself, I found it truly inspirational when I read it at age 12. Eragon is a more recent book about a young man who finds a dragon egg, and from there embarks on an epic adventure. I am very impressed by young people who have the talent and determination to write great books before they turn 18. I plan to feature some fantasy books written by teen and child authors in my future posts. Watch for my comments on The Conspiracy of Calaspia, by teenage twin brothers, Suresh and Jyoti Guptara, soon.

Review of Everlost by Neal Shusterman

Everlost by Neal Shusterman is the story of a boy and a girl, Nick and Allie, who are in a car crash (in different cars) and are both killed. They collide with each other on the way to the light and don’t make it. They awake as afterlights, children who died but didn’t make it to the light (adults do not become afterlights.) They make their way to the city and to the twin towers which still exist in Everlost and where many children live led by a girl named Mary.—Don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you don't like spoilers--They eventually get captured by a monster named the McGill, which turns out to be Mary’s brother, who sunk into the center of the earth then crawled back out, in the process forgetting what he looked like and becoming the McGill. Mary shows him a picture of himself and he’s restored to his old appearance. Nick discovers that if you hold a coin in your hand the light will appear and you have the option of going into it. Mary knew this and was hiding it. At the end of the book Nick and Mary are enemies. Nick is working to give every kid the knowledge and option of going into the light, and Mary is trying to keep them from it. Allie is off with the McGill, now called Mikey, doing her own thing.
I really enjoyed the book. I thought it was an interesting premise, an afterlife of only children. I think it’s good that it deals with death and the afterlife, without getting into very religious terms.
As a writer, I learned from this book that you can deal with all sorts of subjects in writing for kids. It’s just your approach. Also, I learned that a new twist on an old theme can be really interesting. Ghost stories have been around forever, but this book really seemed new and intrigueing.

My 1st Post

Hi everyone. This is my very first blog post. My name is Erin Burr, and I love fantasy novels. I have always, always, loved them. When I was younger I would raid my dad's bookcase to get them and they would very often have a ridiculously big-breasted woman on the cover in a leopard fur bra and a ripped skirt. It was obvious from the cover art that I, a young girl, was not the intended audience.

Luckily it's not like that anymore. Now there are countless fantasy novels written for girls and with girls as main characters. I love it! I love these books, and I've created this blog to talk about them. I'll be reviewing and recommending the books I read. I'll also be talking about other forms of fantasy for girls like TV shows and movies, and about fantasy events and websites.

Finally, I love these books so much that I decided I had to write one myself. I've been working on my novel, The Magicians' Chorus, aimed at 10-14 year old girls for about a year and a half now. I'm now in what I hope is the final revision, and I'll be posting updates about my novel and about my progress in finding and agent, a publisher, and all that good stuff.

I hope you like this blog, and that it helps you pick the best fantasy books. Your responses are always welcome. If you'd like, please feel free to e-mail me at Erin.A.Burr@gmail.com .