Writing Children & Family Material

Wavers may know that the Wave-inatrix read for Walden Media for two years, reviewing children and family material day and night. This massive exposure to children’s material was a wonderful, educational experience and I was privileged to read some truly great material. Wavers who follow the trends may have heard that there is a great market right now for family material. The Wave-inatrix actually cannot comment on the veracity of that claim simply because various genres are said to be very in demand from time-to-time. But there is definitely a market for good family material, that is true enough. Hereafter, in this post, we shall refer to Children and Family material as C&F

Here are some things I learned from living, breathing and reviewing C&F material:

The “sweet-spot” when it comes to writing family material is ages 8 to 12. Kids older than 12 aren’t interested in family material and kids younger than 8 have difficulty understanding more complex plots.

The vast majority of C&F material reviewed at Walden is either an older, “classic” kids book, a brand-new book galley written by a well-established writer or work already adapted from one or the other.

Very few original spec scripts make it through the reviewing process.

That doesn’t mean your original C&F script won’t make the grade. When writing C&F material, it is crucial that the writer understand that the script is for two audiences: parents and children. For this reason, naturally, writers should absolutely avoid profanity, violence or sexual content. Scripts with those qualities are automatic passes at Walden. That doesn’t mean the material can’t address sometimes sensitive issues. The remake of FREAKY FRIDAY is a great example of C&F material that dealt with divorce and mother/daughter relationships in a funny, entertaining way appropriate for children. NARNIA had a lot of violence but in the context of the material, it was appropriate (though not necessarily for all 8-year olds) and not graphic.

Writers need to understand that the competition for writing original C&F material is quite tough because again, your competition is people like Frank L. Baum, William Goldman and Adam Gopnik, to name a few writers whose work I read while at Walden. Be that as it may, there is always room for fresh new material, even if the bar is high.

Because parents are the ones that take their children to the theater, buy the tickets and popcorn and ultimately buy the dvd, it is very important that they be entertained too. Thus the dual-audience demands of writing C&F material. SHREK is a terrific example of C&F material that is delightful for children and adults alike. Children probably don’t get what’s funny about a land called Far, Far Away but adults love those double-entendres and inside jokes.

A mistake I sometimes did see writers make is that they don’t quite realize that children are, after all, pretty intelligent. I have read scripts that were so simple and silly and nonsensical that no child with their wits about them would spend more than 3 minutes with it. Kids have gotten more and more sophisticated over time. They are still concerned about what’s under the bed, or what’s up with mom and dad, or getting revenge on the bully at school – that’s the beauty of children; the issues they deal with are very universal and timeless – but the trick is presenting those issues in a fresh and intelligent way.

All movies are wish-fulfillment but in C&F material, there are some specific fantasies that kids love to see played out. Namely that they can outsmart adults. Adults are very often either bad guys or dumb parents who just don’t get it. In any event, adults usually stand in the way of the kids. From a dramatic point of view, kids in C&F material are generally the moral compass; their very innocence makes them smarter than us. It is because adults are sullied by the experience of adulthood that we just can’t see what’s right in front of us. Over the course of the story, the children will uncover the truth and then teach the adults something. It doesn’t matter whether your story is fantasy, science-fiction, drama or comedy – children’s material is almost always about coming-of-age. About leaving innocence behind but also about embracing it for what it is.

The Wave-inatrix has an incredibly talented client who’d written a problematic Mummy-like adventure script. There were a lot of things about it that just weren’t quite working. Until we brainstormed about the material and together realized that actually, with some work, the story might be better served as a C&F adventure. Sure enough, this sparked enormous inspiration in the writer and he cranked out another draft a scant few weeks later. I was stunned at the difference in the draft. It absolutely rocks. The writer had a blast and has discovered his passion – kids adventure. Together we wrote a great query and my client has had many requests for the material.

Something I learned by having to read so very many children’s books is that actually “children’s literature” is a misnomer. Many, many kids books for the 12-up set really are fantastic reads. Reads that adults might pass right by thinking that the material is in some way childish and therefore undercooked. Not so.

Next time you're in the bookstore head to the kid's section and browse around a little bit. You'll see the Harry Potter Juggernaut section - keep walking - check out some other titles and you might just find something that will delight and reignite your imagination in ways that you would never expect. Trix aren't just for kids.

These three books particularly delighted the Wave-inatrix:

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (the whole trilogy is amazing)
The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven
A Corner of the Universe by Ann Martin

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