Craft Articles

Join us in exploring others’ craft and building our own.

Here you will find explorations of mentor texts – articles that dive into specific craft elements in published books, interviews with authors, and tips on growing and improving as a writer.

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Striving for Unfiltered Vulnerability: A Q&A with Misa Sugiura
Author Interview, Middle Grade, Young Adult Kristi Wright Author Interview, Middle Grade, Young Adult Kristi Wright

Striving for Unfiltered Vulnerability: A Q&A with Misa Sugiura

"I create my characters’ flaws, misconceptions, and spiritual wounds around a theme or a question that interests me, and then I give them a personal conflict that directly challenges those flaws, misconceptions, and wounds. After that, it’s a matter of developing broader challenges, events, relationships, and conflicts that can revolve around the same theme." ~ Misa Sugiura

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Stories are Stories: Learning from Early Reader Cat Can Fix It! by Stefanie Hohl
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

Stories are Stories: Learning from Early Reader Cat Can Fix It! by Stefanie Hohl

Just because you have to use simple words doesn’t mean the story has to lack emotion or depth. It’s challenging, but early readers can still use all the elements of story—character, plot, setting, etc. In fact, looking to early readers as a model, writers in other categories can see how efficient storytelling can be without sacrificing emotional depth.

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Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Non-Fiction Characters and By Working Outside In
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Non-Fiction Characters and By Working Outside In

It's CRAFTING CHARACTERS post number 5! Today we've got something for everyone--working from the outside in, and special tips for getting to know your non-fiction characters. Whether it's asking "what if"? or interrogating a character's economic circumstances, whether diving into research or interviewing a real live person, in this post you'll find wisdom for taking your characters--both fictional and real--to the next level.

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Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Character Through Writing Your Story
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Character Through Writing Your Story

It's our fourth installment of our CRAFTING CHARACTERS series, and today, we check in with writers who work their characters out on the page as they draft. Some of these authors do use some freewriting techniques, but usually after they've seen their character in action on the page, or during the revision process. Read on for some excellent insights!

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Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Character By Thinking and Listening
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

Crafting Characters: Getting to Know Your Character By Thinking and Listening

Welcome to our second post in our Crafting Characters series. For some people, working out character before putting pen to paper is the best way forward. Others have characters show up nearly fully formed, or at least with enough substance to have something to say. Those people often make efforts to listen to their characters--whether through freewriting, through scenes, or through meditative daydreaming. These authors and our contributors share their favorite ways to develop their characters. Read on for some mindful strategies for uncovering character and letting the characters speak.

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KidLit Craft's Comprehensive Guide to Character
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

KidLit Craft's Comprehensive Guide to Character

Looking at voice, interiority, internal arc, character relationships, and more, our writers have analyzed mentor texts in all categories to discover strategies for creating characters that leap off the page and into readers' hearts. This list is one you can return to over and over to find just the post you need in the moment.

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The Heroine’s Journey in The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
Middle Grade, Young Adult Jen Jobart Middle Grade, Young Adult Jen Jobart

The Heroine’s Journey in The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi

The Heroine’s Journey celebrates the gifts of the matriarch. It explores themes of family, community, collaboration, cooperation, and love. As an author, and as a person, it’s important to me to write books that support those values, so everyone who reads them can be inspired to evolve toward a more feminine, collaborative, resilient society. To illustrate the points I make in this post, I’ll be examining the Heroine’s Journey of Elin in The Beast Player, a Japanese YA fantasy by Nahoko Uehashi. Elin’s story is an excellent example of the Heroine’s Journey.

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KidLit Craft Goes to the Movies: The Emotional Antagonist in Eddie the Eagle
Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Picture Books, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

KidLit Craft Goes to the Movies: The Emotional Antagonist in Eddie the Eagle

Some great stories make use of what Melanie Jacobson calls the emotional antagonist. The emotional antagonist is on the protagonist’s side, but the protagonist doesn’t have their approval or support.Jacobson believes emotional antagonist can be a powerful addition to a book because it gives a story an extra satisfying ending–a resolution with the emotional antagonist. We can see the emotional antagonist in action in Eddie the Eagle (2015).

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Creating a Character Readers Love: Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee
Young Adult Kristi Wright Young Adult Kristi Wright

Creating a Character Readers Love: Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee

Since Lee uses first-person point of view to tell her stories, it’s her main character’s voice that’s in the driver’s seat. Reading her novels is a masterclass in how to do first-person narration well. However, you can use these techniques with third-person and even with omniscient narration. It’s all about elevating your prose to do more than just tell the reader what’s happening.

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How to Write a Crowd Scene: Rita Williams-Garcia’s A Sitting in St. James
Middle Grade, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Middle Grade, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

How to Write a Crowd Scene: Rita Williams-Garcia’s A Sitting in St. James

Rita Williams-Garcia masters the crowd scene--a dinner at the midpoint of the book. In a movie, it’s easy to see the crowd and feel the energy in the room. In fiction, it’s more complicated--you need to balance the minute and individual with the group so that readers feel grounded in the environment and in the particular characters’ interactions.

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It Starts with a Daydream: A Q&A with Rita Williams-Garcia
Author Interview, Middle Grade, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman Author Interview, Middle Grade, Young Adult Anne-Marie Strohman

It Starts with a Daydream: A Q&A with Rita Williams-Garcia

I fully transport myself from my reality into the world that I seek to create. In a word, I daydream. Deeply. I put myself with the character, close to the character, sometimes in the character, to taste the dirt when they're in the dust storm or feel the scratchy bristles of cane stalk whip my face. Then I write it. Later, I make adjustments, because what I have to understand is different from what the reader should feel. Sometimes I have to rein it in or pull back. It's not always the point that the reader should feel each and everything—but the writer must!  

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Making a Mystery that Mystifies: Part 2
Middle Grade, Young Adult Erin Nuttall Middle Grade, Young Adult Erin Nuttall

Making a Mystery that Mystifies: Part 2

Good mysteries are fun because they keep the reader guessing. One of the most important keys of writing a mystery is writing the story so the reader can try to solve it. Nothing’s more annoying than not being given clues to solve the mystery unless those clues are so obvious that there is no real mystery to be solved. The best way to achieve both goals is to give quality clues but constantly keep the reader guessing so they don’t recognize the clues for what they are.

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