Narrative Techniques for Children’s Books
A course by Natalia Méndez , Editor and Teacher
Learn the basic components of a story to create tales for children
Learn the basic components of a story to create tales for children
They say that to write children's books you have to channel your inner child, free your imagination, look at the world in wonder, and, above all, play with the story. Natalia Méndez, editor, author, and teacher at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), has many years' experience in turning ideas into children's books and knows exactly how to create and edit great stories by playing with them, from the very first idea to final publication.
In this course, get an overview of the children's publishing world and learn all the components and narrative structures to transform your ideas into children's stories.
What will you learn in this online course?
16 lessons & 14 downloads
- 96% positive reviews (1.2K)
- 30,627 students
- 16 lessons (2h 26m)
- 14 additional resources (2 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: Spanish, English
- Spanish · English · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
What is this course's project?
Write a short story using a game as an idea generator.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
Anyone interested in writing a children's story and anybody who wants to discover the world of children's literature in general.
Requirements and materials
No previous experience is required.
As for materials, you need a pen or pencil, colored pencils, blank sheets of paper, and glue.
Reviews
Natalia Méndez
A course by Natalia Méndez
Natalia Méndez has worked as an editor in the field of children's and young adult literature since 2002. She also teaches classes on publishing and literature at the UBA, workshops for writers at Casa de Letras, and training courses for children's literature editors.
She specialized in children's and young adult literature (CEPA/Government of the City of Buenos Aires) and is the author of La misteriosa desaparición del señor Tomás (Primera Sudamericana, 2017), Visitas (Ed. Abran Cancha, 2017), and Hojas sobre la almohada (Abran Cancha, 2014).
In 2007, she obtained a scholarship to attend the Ibero-American Editors Training course in Spain; in 2011, a scholarship as a researcher at the International Youth Library of Munich and, in 2012, she participated in the Frankfurt Fellowship program at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
She has her own artisanal publishing imprint, Dábale arroz, alongside Eduardo Abel Giménez, and a tiny ceramics and mini books business called A la zorra.
Content
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U1
Introduction
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Presentation
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Influences
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U2
The huge world of books for children
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The specificity of children's and youth books
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What are literary genres and why are they used to tell stories
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The publishing genres and some surprises
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How is the process of editing a children's book
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Decalogue of yes and no if you want to write books for children
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U3
A story step by step
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Create a Dice to Generate a Story
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The basics of a story: world, characters and structure
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Types of narrators, point of view. The time of the story and the time of the narration.
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U4
The structure of the stories
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The traditional structure
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Another model of structure: the structure in four parts or "without conflict"
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Another model of structure: the list or chained structure
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U5
The dessert cherry
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The proper voice in the stories. The tool box I.
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The proper voice in the stories. The tool box II.
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Publication of a text
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FP
Final project
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Narrative techniques for children's books
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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.
ballesteromarianela
PlusPráctico, con contenido importante y comprensible, explicaciones claras.
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rmvillamizar
Natalia ha sido un manatial fluido y fresco para introducirme en el mundo maravilloso y complejo de la lieratura infantil. Espone, instruye y aún, permite intuir la sutileza, la belleza la profundidad del camino que conduce a escribir para niños y jovenes. Estoy muy agradecida.
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diana.281720
Tendré que dar una valoración negativa
Demasiado simplista y superficial.
Realmente no profundizó en ningún tema.
No me aportó nada.
Le daré 1 ⭐
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christinaellie2024
Sadly, I cannot recommend this course for English as first language students. The subtitles are very confusing, repetitive and the very confusing. I am sure Natalia is a wonderful teacher and person, however, the technology of trying to learn from the videos and documents - is just woeful. There is not one resource in English - where other courses provide three options for language. Domestika - make more courses available in English with high standard subtitles and documents.
stefanodeemk
Corso molto esaustivo sulla letteratura per bambini e ragazzi, inoltre alcuni suggerimenti dati nel corso come la struttura senza conflitto risultano davvero preziosi.
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