Would you like to have a go at writing a book? I keep hearing of kids who like writing stories and I know that some of you are interested in being an author and/or illustrator when you are older.

I’d love to encourage everyone out there who has enjoyed Caleb and the Incredible Counting Machine and Caleb and the All-Seeing Glasses to have a go at writing a book!

Over the next few weeks, I am going to add some posts with the steps you can take to write a book, together with tips and advice to help you. I’ll even explain how to set it up as a booklet, so you can print it out at home.

So, start reading below, and if you would like to take up the challenge, work through the steps in the order you find them.

In a month or two, if you have completed a book, please share it and we can post it on the blog!

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Step 1 – Decide what kind of book you are going to write

Before you start writing a book you need to be clear on what age group you are writing for and what kind of book it is going to be. For example, will it be a picture book for pre-school children, an early reader with a few pictures (and no chapters) or a longer chapter book with a limited number of illustrations?

My first tip if you want to write a book is not to be too ambitious. It is better to have the satisfaction of completing a small book than trying to write a big one and giving up!

I remember the first story I wrote and printed as a little book, The Princess and the Snowman. It was only 250 words and 20 pages long, but it felt really good to have the final book in my hand and to be able to read it to my kids. Sure, it wasn’t as good as a professionally published book, but it still looked really good and I was very proud of it!

If you are writing your first book, I would recommend aiming for something short and without too many pictures (illustrations are a lot of work too!).

An early reader without chapters is a good place to start. 3 pages of A4 paper either hand written or typed at 12 point sizeis about 1,500 words.

If you would like to be a little more ambitious, you could make your book longer, but it is helpful to have in mind of how long it is going to be before you start, as that sets the pace of the story. If your book is quite short then you can’t spend time writing long descriptions and the action has to move quickly.

So the first step in writing a book is this:

Step 2 – Set yourself a Deadline

The next thing to think about is how much time to give yourself to write your book.

I think most writers would agree that it is helpful to have a deadline to make sure you complete a writing project. A deadline is a target date at which to finish the project. If you don’t have a deadline, you can start losing focus and let the days pass without doing anything until one day you find that all your motivation has gone and the book is never finished.

So, from the day you settle on an idea for your book, why not give yourself 2 weeks to write the book and 1 week to improve the text and illustrate it. If you made a start before the end of June, you would be finished by the end of term!

If you want to give yourself more time or write a longer book you could make it a summer holiday project and give yourself to the end of August.

Step 3 – Think of an Idea

The next and most obvious step is that you need to have an idea for your story. You need to come up with an idea that you think is fun, exciting and interesting. You can’t just sit down and force yourself to come up with a good idea though, when you want to start writing! The best ideas will occur to you as you are getting on with other things – so make sure you are ready to hold on to them when they do!

I’ll post more tips next week, some of which will relate to choosing your initial idea, so don’t feel you have to decide on something right away, but it is not too early to start thinking about it!