Children's Novel Writing for Beginners
A course by Lisa Thompson , Children's Author
Learn to create contemporary and vibrant fiction for young readers, inspired by your memories.
We are all storytellers, and through children’s novel writing you can dive into your own memories and explore your senses to create a captivating narrative. Lisa Thompson is a professional children’s author and writer of the best-selling book The Goldfish Boy, among others. She has been nominated for numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. She also gives talks and workshops at book festivals and schools.
In this course, Lisa teaches you how to tap in your surroundings, and evoke memories in order to make your stories realistic and vivid for your readers. Learn how to gather ideas and inspiration, establish your main character, connect to your audience, and share your work with the world. Are you ready to spark the imagination of young readers?
What will you learn in this online course?
13 lessons & 23 downloads
- 99% positive reviews (80)
- 2,047 students
- 13 lessons (1h 39m)
- 23 additional resources (6 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: English
- English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
What is this course's project?
Write a short fiction story for a young audience using your own memories to make the narrative more realistic and vibrant.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
This course is for anyone who wants to try writing a story for young readers.
Requirements and materials
No previous experience is required.
In terms of materials, all you need is something to write with, this can be pen and paper or if you want to write digitally you’ll need access to word processing software.
Reviews
Lisa Thompson
A course by Lisa Thompson
Lisa Thompson is a children’s author from the UK. When she was nine years old she wrote her first book and realized that she could live out her dreams through writing. However, Lisa went on to pursue a career making radio programmes for the BBC for many years before she became a professional writer.
Inspired by creating a sense of mystery in real-world settings, she has written several books including The Light Jar, Owen and the Soldier, The Boy Who Fooled the World, and her best-selling book The Goldfish Boy. Lisa also gives talks and workshops at schools and book festivals, and has been nominated for numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.
Content
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U1
Introduction
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About Me
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Influences
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U2
Finding Ideas and Preparing to Write
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Materials for Writing
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Ideas
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Choosing Your Main Characters
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Finding Material in Your Past
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Planning a Story
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U3
How to Enrich Your Writing
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Researching to Connect with Your Audience
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The Importance of 'Show, Don't Tell'
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Music and Mood Boards
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Writing and Finishing Your Draft
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U4
Editing and Finishing Your Piece of Writing
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Editing Your Writing
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Sharing Your Writing
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FP
Final project
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How to make writing more vibrant for a younger reader
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What to expect from a Domestika course
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Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
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Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
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Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
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Certificates
PlusIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
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Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
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Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
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Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
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Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.
All courses are 100% online, so once they're published, courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.
The courses are divided into different units. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with the teacher and with other students, as well as share your work and your course project, creating a community around the course.
You can redeem the course you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.
johnypopa23
The topics are easy to grasp especially for beginners.
weilan
Plusthis is one of my favourite writing courses on Domestica and I discovered Lisa's books because of it.. and now "The Light Jar" is one of my favourite books for children ever. Thank you Lisa, you're a great inspiration for me..
babisugar
interessante
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anayida
One of the most beautiful and well explained courses I had the pleasure to watch. Although I apparently can't write short (I tried), I will apply the techniques learned here in the context of what I am now developing. Thanks a lot for the involvement of Mrs. Thompson
christinaellie2024
Lisa is not only a successful published author, but also a teacher extraordinaire - excellent material and such an engaging learning environment. I have learnt so much new information about writing novels for children in this course and I'm half way through. Lisa is incredibly generous with sharing her expertise, her own personal writing processes / techniques, and depth of wisdom on the subject matter. Highly recommend - it is such an excellent course. Thanks Lisa.