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Writing Irresistible Kidlit by Mary Kole
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A while ago I started a series in which I give you a very, very quick introduction to some of my favourite writing guides. These books will typically be aimed at authors of middle grade or YA, or they might be genre specific, focusing on writing horror, sci-fi, fantasy or mystery. This week I’m discussing an incredible guide by an incredible woman, literary agent Mary Kole. What Mary doesn’t know about children’s publishing isn’t worth knowing, so this book is one I’d recommend devouring cover to cover as soon as…

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Fleshing out your secondary characters with Greg House
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I’m going way off-piste today with this post: it’s not about fantasy, horror, sci-fi or mystery (well, House is a medical mystery show, but I’m not sure that counts) and there isn’t a middle grade or YA reader in sight. But it tackles something I know a lot of my author clients struggle with so please bear with me! So, I’m a huge fan of the American TV series House – I think it’s one of the greatest US drama shows of all time – and I watched an episode this week that…

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Creating empathy with universals and ant mothers
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I recently worked with a YA sci-fi author whose protagonists were non-humans permanently floating in space and trying to survive. It’s unlikely teenage readers from Earth will be able to empathise with this plight, so I recommended my author limit her marketing to the more distant planets like Uranus and Neptune. Okay, not really. I suggested she find something universal in these teen characters that readers could identify with. Parent trouble, crushes, internal conflict. So what if these things aren’t human? They’re still human, am I right? I was playing…

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Obstacles and goals in Sex Education
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You’ve probably noticed editors and writing teachers are always banging on about the importance of obstacles in fiction. That’s because if you give your characters exactly what they want right away, they won’t have anywhere to go from there. Characters need to have clear goals and it’s your job to dream up conflicts that stop them achieving those goals (you big meanie). Obstacles create tension, increase excitement, force characters to make decisions, reveal their personalities and give your protagonist the chance to change and grow. I watched Netflix teen comedy…

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The Magic Words by Cheryl B Klein
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I adore reading books about writing and I have several favourites that I always recommend to everybody. When I read them for the first time, I cover the pages in pink highlighter (sorry to the sensitive book preservers amongst you) and write up the best bits in an Evernote notebook so I can search for them later, and I thought I could share some of my favourite highlights with you here. I decided the best way was to give you one excellent tip or quote from each chapter of each…

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Lessons from R. L. Stine’s Masterclass #1: No moralising
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Last year I took R. L. Stine’s masterclass on writing horror for young readers and it was utterly fascinating. I was a huge Point Horror fan as a teenager and still read a lot of middle grade and YA horror now, so I knew I had to sign up for this course. Just minutes in and I’d completely fallen in love with him. I wholeheartedly recommend the class to anybody remotely interested in writing kidlit because Stine is such a joy to listen to and hilarious to boot. There’s so much good…

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The Shining as a romcom: notes on genre conventions
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When I use examples to talk about writing craft, I really try to stick to books, TV and films that are aimed at a middle grade or YA audience, but I am such a huge horror fan that it was inevitable some grown-up movies would sneak into the blog eventually. Sorry about that – regularly scheduled programming will resume shortly, honest! One of the reasons it’s important to know your genre is so you can get to understand the conventions and reader expectations of those types of books. If you’ve…

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Analysing The Tale of the Phantom Cab
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Welcome back, genre authors, to what is quickly becoming one of my favourite blog series ever! In the last post I explained that I’m going to be analysing each episode of Nickelodeon’s 1990s Are You Afraid of the Dark? TV series, exploring the horror tropes, themes and techniques the show uses to scare and captivate young viewers (and, ahem, slightly older ones). You may have noticed that I started the series with The Tale of the Lonely Ghost, which is the second episode of the show, and today’s episode is actually…

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Can I include edgy content?
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Welcome back, authors, to the YA Fundamentals series, where I talk about the common problems and points of confusion I see in my clients’ manuscripts most often. Next up is content: can you talk about mature topics like sex, violence, drugs and alcohol in YA novels? This is one of those blurry areas that doesn’t have totally clear-cut rules and you’ll sometimes have to go with your gut when making choices (which is one reason to read lots and lots of YA fiction so you can build a good overview…

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How long should my story be?
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Welcome back to the YA Fundamental series, lovely authors! Today I’m talking about word count in YA manuscripts, which is something I see my clients getting in a muddle over all the time. And for good reason! There’s lots of conflicting advice out there, and just when you think you’ve got a handle on the ideal book length in your demographic and genre, you pick up a bestseller that’s 50,000 words longer! So, what is the magic number? As always, the rules about book length aren’t set in stone but there…

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The MONSTER guide to middle grade and YA genres and subgenres
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What genre is your book? Does it matter? What does genre mean? Is it even a word? Genre, genre – it’s starting to sound meaningless to me now so let’s move on before my brain explodes. Middle grade (aimed at children around 8-12) and young adult aren’t genres, they’re audiences. I feel a little sad when I see booksellers, book reviewers, even publishing professionals, list middle grade and YA as genres because I think it does authors and readers of these books a huge disservice. It implies that the age category…

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How old should your main character be?
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Thanks for joining me, YA genre authors! Next up in my YA Fundamentals series is character age, something that trips up a lot of my clients. Does it really matter how old your main character is? Yes! For a start, your protagonist’s age is one of the key factors that tells readers your book is YA and that it’s been written especially for them. So, how old should they be? Let’s get stuck in! As a general rule of thumb, YA protagonists should typically be somewhere between 13 and 19…

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Which age group is YA for?
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Oh hey, YA authors! Are you struggling to work out the difference between middle grade and YA, or between YA and adult? Wondering what mistakes you need to avoid if you don’t want to turn agents off or disappoint readers? You’ve come to the right place! In this ‘YA Fundamentals’ series I’m going to be exploring some of the most common issues I come across when editing manuscripts for young readers, so you’ll be armed with all the facts you need to make the right choices when writing your YA…

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Analysing The Tale of the Lonely Ghost
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Hi, horror fans! I’m really excited about this blog series and I hope you will be too. I was a big fan of Are You Afraid of the Dark? as a child; I even analysed the opening credits in great detail for my media studies GCSE coursework. For anybody who hasn’t seen AYAOTD? before, the show’s concept is simple. A group of young teenagers called the Midnight Society meet in the woods at night and take it in turns to tell scary stories around a fire. This blog is aimed at…

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Wolf School with Constance and Merricat: Introduction
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Ah-wooooooooooooooooooooooo. Hello, and welcome to Wolf School with Constance and Merricat, your Wolves in Residence. We’re so excited to– That’s Professor Merricat, actually.  You are not a professor, Merricat. I’m not calling you that. But I’m a teacher!  No you’re not. We’re just playing. Stop being so silly. Okay, fine. But I’m in charge of writing on the white board.  Fine. Sorry, everyone, where was I? Oh yes, welcome to Wolf School! We’re really excited to have you here with us. Do you know, I actually think this is the first…

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Sweet dreams! Should your middle grade horror have a happy ending?
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I’m often asked whether children’s horror novels should end on a cheerful note with the threat fully defused, giving young readers the closure they need to drift off happily to sleep. In adult horror fiction and film, there’s no guarantee things will turn out well for the protagonist. And even if the final girl does skip off to tell the tale, or the traumatised family finally sells that haunted house and moves far away, their lives have undoubtedly changed for the worse. Think of famous scary stories with a relatively…

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You've finished your first draft – let's celebrate!
You’ve finished the first draft of your MG or YA book! Now what?
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1. Party like it’s 2020! You’ve written a novel – you rock! This is such an enormous achievement and you deserve a big night out on the town, or at least a really good milkshake from one of those places that blend up Twixes and Terry’s Chocolate Orange bars. Pat yourself on the back, do a little skip and remember how it feels to finish that first draft, because it’ll feel even better to finish the final one. 2. Sleep for a hundred years Once the champagne hangover – or…

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Children’s book writing prompt lucky dip #1
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Over the course of my Novel Writing MA, I produced thousands of words of creative writing in response to weekly assignments, all of which were workshopped and critiqued by tutors and classmates. I invented characters, scenarios and locations every day and thought hey, these ideas are just oozing out of me! What’s writer’s block again? But when it came time to sit down and start writing my middle grade story (which I had to submit as part of my dissertation) I completely clammed up. I didn’t like any of the…

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How to write a creepy graveyard in middle grade or YA
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Hi there, horror fans! Not much beats the eerie atmosphere of an empty cemetery in the middle of the night, am I right? They’re dark and shadowy, spookily silent and totally empty – you hope! Everybody knows cemeteries are a breeding ground for ghosts seeking closure (you did know that, right?) but they can still make a fantastic setting for your middle grade or YA story even if you’re not writing supernatural horror. There’s a literary and cinematic heritage attached to graves that acts as shorthand for terror in adult…

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WELCOME! I LOVE YOU

Siobhan O'Brien Holmes – editor

Hello and welcome to The Cubhouse, a blog about writing, reading, finding, researching and analysing children's and young adult books 📚

I'm Siobhán, a developmental editor working with authors of middle grade and YA fiction. I'm also a mum, a volunteer school librarian and a Children's Literature MA grad, so my interest in kidlit is personal and academic as well as professional!

I passionately believe that children and teenagers need and deserve access to great stories, not only because reading for pleasure develops empathy, boosts comprehension levels and contributes to overall happiness and success in life, but also because it's fun.

That's why I spend my days helping brilliant writers create wonderful books fo children and teenagers.

Most popular posts

The MONSTER guide to middle grade and YA genres and subgenres
What's a comic and what's a graphic novel?
What are comics?: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud Part 1
Lessons from picture books: Cake by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet
The monster guide to writing a children's book: middle grade edition
How to write a spooky forest in middle grade or YA

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TESTIMONIALS

Joelle Wisler
Siobhán's advice shaped my manuscript and query into a project that got a full manuscript request from an agent in the first week of querying.

Jennifer Grolemund
I am completely BLOWN AWAY! Your feedback is SO helpful and SO thoughtful. You are a truly talented editor!

Hazel Compton
One of the best things I’ve ever done for my writing. I’ve been writing for years, but this manuscript critique has developed and delved into a much stronger, deeper and focused version of my novel.

Angela Kecojevic
You’ve nailed everything and picked up on the things only an editorial expert can spot! You really have been amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better editor to help with this!

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