Keeping the plot simple when writing Children’s books
When it comes to communicating a message, three things are needed:
-A beginning
-A middle
-An end
It doesn’t matter how the message is being communicated; through dance, through advertising, through music or through the written word, these three components are crucial to the successful delivery of the required message.
The same is true of literature, and particularly children’s literature. Often the best children’s story is the simplest; the one that sticks very strongly to the three tiered approach in communicating the message of the story.
Let’s look at this simple yet classical story outline:
-Boy meets girl
-Boy loses girl
-Boy gets girl
What this structure implies is that the story conveyed above has a very clear beginning, middle and end. Now let’s look at how this same structure is applied to other well known children’s stories. With Cinderella we know that the story structure is:
-Cinderella is unhappy
-Cinderella attends the ball
-Cinderella wins the prince
The same is true in The Pied Piper:
-Piper kills rats
-Town refuses payment
-Piper takes children
If you are currently writing a children’s story, think about how the three stage rule could be applied to your manuscript. Can you easily see three main elements to the story? Do these elements represent a beginning, middle and end? If you find that you have more than 3 stages to your manuscript, the text may be too complicated. Is there anything that you can do to reduce this complexity? In the same way, if you can only locate 2 stages in your manuscript you may find that the text is insufficiently structured. How can you add to the story to ensure that a clear beginning or a clear end is apparent?
The three stage structure is all very well and good, but on its own it leaves stories in a very basic format – too basic for most children. Louise Jordan suggests that writers add in two questions to this three stage plot structure, to help liven up the story. These questions are:
- What is the story about?
- What is the problem?
By addressing these questions within the story, the manuscript is brought to life and feels to the reader as if it has some meaning.
If the children’s book you are writing is aimed at a slightly older reader, you may feel that even with this 3 stage structure and 2 question approach, the manuscript still feelstoo simple. You may feel that you want to add additional elements into the plot; not in a way that hides the clear 3 stage structure, but in a way that merely enhances it. This is where a plotting plan can help.
Award-winning author Cathy MacPhail has come up with a plotting plan that can be applied to almost any story of any length. You may find it useful to use this plan when structuring the plot of your children’s story:
- Establish the problem(as per questions 1 and 2 above) – Beginning
- Build on the problem - Beginning
- Open out the plot - Middle
- Fillers - Middle
- Crescendo - Middle
- Nothing can save her now! - Middle
- Baddies get done in - End
- Tidy up - End