Once you have started writing, never lose sight of that fact that your readers are children; your narrative and description should be different in certain aspects from adult writing.
WritersServices offers a comprehensive range of editorial services for authors writing for the children's book market. All our services are carried out to the highest professional standard and offer competitive rates and excellent value for money. Read more
YA writers resident in the UK or Ireland.
No entry fee
Prize:
The first prize is a worldwide publishing contract with Faber and a £15,000 advance, while the second and third prizes also receive publishing contracts with advances of £8,000 and £5,000 respectively.
Faber has launched The Imagined Futures, a new YA science fiction prize aimed at finding stories that 'offer hope and spark the imagination in this period of incredible global and environmental change'. It is looking for fiction that shines a spotlight on the power and value of the natural world and explores the potential outcomes for our collective future. Read more
‘How many times was I asked while still writing it: "What makes Harry Potter so popular?" I never had a good answer. It has occurred to me since that much of what young people found in the Potter books are the very same things they seek online... But the great thing about a book as opposed to a social media platform is that it puts no pressure on its reader to perform or conform.
In the early 1990s, J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth almost became a setting for Dungeons & Dragons. At that time, TSR, the company that created D&D, saw a window of opportunity. Tolkien and his works already had a worldwide following. Creating a game in one of his worlds might bring countless droves of Middle-earth fanatics into the ranks of Dungeons & Dragons. Read more
According to Scottish crime fiction author Denise Mina, Glasgow- her hometown where she lives and works and gets around as a pedestrian and a bicyclist-is a city of brutal frankness where a thick skin is a necessity of life and it's very hard to feel special. "Glasgow," Denise says, "is a place where people come up and talk to you, ... Read more
When I started writing my novel Dark Earth five years ago, friends asked what this new book of mine was going to be about. When I told them it was going to be set in the ruined city of Londinium in the sixth century, they raised their eyebrows.
"Sixth century?" one said. "Sixth? Really? Isn't that a bridge too far?"
Ah, series. Most readers love them, and most writers love to write them. We get to know the imaginary world we've created, and it is fun and rewarding to slip back into that headspace and get caught up on what our protagonist has going on.
This venerable nugget of writing advice is often attributed to William Faulkner, though in fact the British writer Arthur Quiller-Couch said it first. In a 1913-1914 series of published lectures at Cambridge University titled On the Art of Writing, Quiller-Couch said: Read more
What would it be like to travel back in time? That depends on whether you're ready for it. If you're hopping into a time machine, you'd likely have a chance to prepare yourself, and that's certainly the comfortable way to go. Read more
The long, frustrating process of querying seems so one-sided. Most queries receive form rejections with cryptic phrases like "I didn't connect" or "just not for me," or fall into the deep valley of No response means no.
'Writers are fortunate in that they are able to treat their neurosis every day by writing and as soon as the writer is blocked - this is catastrophic because the writer will start to go to pieces.'