Does it happen to any of you that you start writing a story and you love it and everyone who gives you feedback falls in love with it, too, but you can't be sure who would be your target if you were to be published?? I ask because I sometimes write children's stories, but I hate writing with purely small words (because I'd get repetitive, and not in a good way!), and my themes can also be pretty dark sometimes. For example, once I am allowed to put up one short story that I recently wrote, I'd like for you guys to give me some insight, because it's about a small boy that discovers one night that he has no soul or heart and begins to read and watch movies to fill his need for those and to sort of "feign normalcy" or something like that (it's actually based upon a real person's past, someone I used to know). It's not exactly for adults but also not a kiddy story, and I've seen lots of dark children's books around, and there's also Roald Dahl who was the master of dark children's stories... but I'm not sure, and I'm also not very sure that I want to dissect my stories so much because I start feeling a bit like a publicist and less of an artist.... I don't know Just sharing a concern, I guess does something like that happen to you? Should I worry?
No, don't worry. If you post something later I will take a look. I've written the English versions of my cousin's children's books, and a couple of them are quite dark. Many fairy tales were also, Grimm et al. It depends on which age group of kids you wish to reach; it probably wouldn't be something 2-3 year olds would like to have read to them as a bedtime story... Kids a little older is another story.
Children's stories can be VERY scary. Just as long as it ends well, I don't think your story concept is too dark for them.
when writing for children you must know what age range you're targeting, so you can tailor the vocabulary, sentence structure, content, etc. appropriately... you can find lots of good info on the best sites for children's book writers... and you can study the 'stats' and 'concordance' amazon provides for many of their listings, as well as check out how it's done with the 'look inside this book' feature...
