This is part thirteenth of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Choosing a genre if you haven’t started writing yet If you’re still at the early stages of the planning process and you’re not sure what you want to write yet, you can start by narrowing down the genres you’d…

This is part twelve of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts.   Already written your manuscript? Why you need to identify the genre now If you’re already written a novel and still aren’t sure what genre it is, don’t panic – now’s the time to give it some thought! Being…

This is part eleven of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Why should you pick a genre before you start plotting? It might sound strange to think about your genre’s categorisation and how you’ll market it before you’ve even started writing. Where’s the fun in that? You can worry about…

This is part nine of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Pitching agents I’ve talked about why understanding your manuscript’s genre is important, particularly when it comes to pitching your book to publishing professionals. They’ll want to know quickly what sort of book you’ve written so they can ascertain whether…

This is part eight of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Combining genres Some subgenres are so ubiquitous they’re like genres in their own right. Romantic comedy, dystopian sci-fi, urban fantasy. But what if you feel your manuscript contains elements from more than one genre that don’t usually go together?…

This is part seven of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Set the mood Don’t get so hung up on genre definitions and tropes that you forget to think about the feel of your book. What vibes will it give readers? What’s the overall tone? When they curl up to…

This is part six of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Genre is super important in kidlit! Genre labels help children make choices and I truly believe genre is even more important in kidlit than anywhere else because young people are still discovering different types of books and learning what…

This is part five of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. Do children’s books even have genres? Middle grade and young adult (and chapters books, ‘junior fiction’, ‘teen’, new adult and adult fiction) are not genres, they’re audiences. When booksellers, reviewers and even publishing professionals list middle grade and YA…

This is part four of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. What’s a trope and how does it relate to genre? In the context of literary genres, tropes are common motifs or literary devices that crop up in stories so regularly that readers become familiar with them and even expect…

This is part three of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for lessons with videos and transcripts. What’s a subgenre? A subgenre (or sub-genre if you prefer) is just a more specific category within a wider genre, like ‘steampunk’ within science fiction or ‘cosy’ within mystery. It helps to narrow down types of stories even further…

This is part two of my serialisation of my kidilt genre course Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! I’ll be sharing the content here every week over the coming months but you can grab the full course now if you just can’t wait! Read on for two lessons with videos and transcripts. No rules, just guidelines Before I dive in, I want to say that you should always trust your gut and ask questions. Everything in these lessons is based on my experience, training, education and values and I guarantee…

Last year, I created my biggest course yet: Space opera, steampunk and slashers, oh my! A deep dive into children’s book genres for authors. It’s aimed at anybody who has written or is thinking of writing a middle grade or young adult novel and wants a bit of extra support getting their head around the many genres and subgenres in kidlit. It’s probably my favourite course I’ve made because it’s so full of content that I’ve never been able to find anywhere else when I’ve gone hunting. There’s often so much…