This book is a practical guide for writers interested in writing for the children's market, and teaches aspiring children's writers how to generate, assess, and apply ideas for fiction as well as nonfiction, short projects as well as long ones. Marcia Thomton Jones offers exercises, worksheets, and guidelines for assessment to help writers apply what they've learned to on-going projects or to help them begin new projects. Story Sparkers begins with an overview of how to write fiction and nonfiction books for children. Jones then discusses the specifics of idea generation assessment and application. The design is open, easy to browse and features boxed tips and quotes from top children's writers. By the end of the book, writers will have a plethora of ideas and insight to help determine audience and appropriate genre, and helpful hints for developing new ideas. While this book is intended for novice writers who are interested in writing for the children's market, writers with experience will find it helpful and motivating, too.
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About the Author
Marcia Thornton Jones and Debbie Dadey are the authors of the best-selling Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series, Triplet Trouble series, and The Bailey City Monsters series. They frequently speak at writers' conferences across the country.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Helpful I Have Read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Story Sparkers : A Creativity Guide for Children's Writers (Paperback)
Story Sparkers taught me how to find new subjects for stories, it also sparked new innovative ideas for creative writing as I was reading the book. The authors used many of their own personal experiences to illustrate their points, reading the book never got boring. It is rare that I have found a book on writing that taught me as much as this one. I highly recommend it.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Valuable Info!,
By Ron Atkins "Ron" (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story Sparkers : A Creativity Guide for Children's Writers (Paperback)
The authors of this book come from the Bailey School Kids adventure series. These stories are great for kids aged 6-12, and are fun to read and generally have around 10,000 words each. I mention this because their success in this area establishes their credibility in writing a book for those aspiring to write and publish children's literature. Their book "Mermaids Don't Run Track" served as an inspiration for my first children's book, "Abby and the Bicycle Caper."The premise of this book is that children's stories must be well crafted and tell an engaging story to attract the attention of the young reader. Children are bombarded by a variety of entertainment mediums, and it is up to us as writers to produce a product capable of competing with television, sports activities, and video games. I think all of these activities are fine for young people, within limits, but children in the 5-12 age range can be taught to make reading a part of their daily lives-provided they have quality and entertaining reading material placed before them. The bottom line: Jones and Dadey are good writers. What they present in this book is worth reading and applying.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Resource to Peruse & Take Notes. Buy used or Borrow From Library,
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This review is from: Story Sparkers : A Creativity Guide for Children's Writers (Paperback)
If you write child focused stories and are in need for some inspiration, there are plenty of ideas to get you going in this book, although some are very typical. Such as remember a moment in your childhood, or overhear and record someone else's conversation at a library, or use what-if scenarios, or web a word into many other similiar word associations, or peruse through magazines, tabloids to get ideas... Nothing earth shattering here. The authors do provide a nice little section on plotting using checklists, outlines, and summaries (very basic). All in all, a good resource to peruse and take notes at your local book store or library or if you are still inclined, buy it cheaply as a used book. There's a reason why it's not in reprint anymore.You have to be very careful with books published by Writer's Digest as they churn out books like crazy. There motto is probably "Quantity as oppose to quality" for the namesake of profits. I think next time they should enlist Nancy Lamb to do a book like this as she has an excellent book called "The Writer's Guide to Crafting Children Stories". Lamb's book is excellent. A treasure trove of information. Get that book instead. She has a small chapter on Inspiration to get you started, but her focus lies on the structure of the story instead.
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