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Middle grade is a category of fiction aimed at children, typically aged between 8 and 12. Of course, some younger children will start reading middle grade earlier, while a lot of older children will keep reading it even after they’ve transitioned to YA. Despite the fluidity of the audience, 8-12 is an important age range to keep in mind because publishers, booksellers and librarians rely on it heavily for categorisation and you’ll need to understand where on the shelf your book might sit.

Omniscient is one of several POV choices you can make when writing a story. An omniscient narrator has complete access to all characters’ actions, dialogue and inner thoughts, so readers aren’t viewing the action through the eyes of one character as in first or third person narration. Your narrator is like a god, seeing everyone and everything.

Point of view (or POV) tells us whose head we are in when we read a story and how the story is being told. If your viewpoint character narrates the story using ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ personal pronouns, you’ve got a first-person POV. If an external narrator is telling the story, referring to your protagonist (and other characters) with ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’, it’s third-person POV.

YA, short for ‘young adult’, is a category of fiction aimed at teenagers, typically aged between 13 and 18. It’s far less restricted than middle grade in terms of acceptable content and stories often tackle bigger themes and emotional conflict.