How to Edit for a Children's Book

How to Edit for a Children's Book
Hi! I’m Angela Sage Larsen. On behalf of expertvillage.com, today, we’re going to talk about publishing your own children’s story. Please visit my website at petalwinkthefairy.com. Now that you have your story written, it’s time for the editing. You’ll find yourself editing, editing, reediting, and editing more. As much as I loved my first version, this is what happened when I edited my story. The black is the original, the red are the edits. So, you’re going to have to be willing to put aside what your preconceived notions are, and constantly go back to what is my main message in the story. What am I trying to say? Every word should support the main point of your story. Now, these red edits were from a friend of mine, who is actually an editor, and he was ruthless but it’s exactly what I needed because it helped me to clarify what the point of my story was. I didn’t necessarily use all of these edits, but it helped me to think through exactly where I wanted the story to go and exactly what supported the story and what didn’t. In editing, you’re going to want to be able to put it away for a while, stick your story in the top drawer, and not think about it and not look at it for a few days, then come back to it totally fresh and be as objective as you can. Remember your ideal reader, who is the story for and what are they going to think of it when they are reading the story. In fact, if you can’t find your ideal reader, I mentioned that my reader was myself as a six-year-old, so I could not go back in time and read my story. I did have some neighbor girls that were very helpful. When I showed them the story, they would say, “Well, where did Petalwink’s magic wand to come from?” There are different things in the story that I just assumed to readers knew about, but the little girls, for whom the story was written, didn’t understand certain things. That was great for the editing process. I was able to add and delete only what was useful towards the story.