Creative Writing
Posted by admin under News
DCU BookSoc is teaming up with DCU ArtSoc to produce children’s books. Art will provide wonderful illustrations for our stories. All we have to do is write them.
There are six themes from which you can choose:
- First Day at School – Try to reassure the child about this. Leaving parent, new faces, strange person in charge, learning, fun etc
- New Brother/Sister – Let the child know this is not the end of the world! Parents still love you, more responsibility, look after baby, new friend etc.
- Going to the Doctor/Dentist - Doctor/Dentist isn’t the devil! Going there will make you feel better at the end of the day
- Death of a Relative Sensitive subject, especially to children who have already suffered loss. Don’t sugarcoat it to a ridiculous ‘Death is Great!’ level, but try to help the child understand that death is a natural part of life etc
- Birthday Party/Special Occasion (Christmas, Hallowe’en etc.) - This can be whatever you want! Nativity story, ghosts, bean sí, friend’s birthday, story of Santa – have fun with it
- Invisible Friend – Explore the mind of the child – reasons for having an invisibile friend or a secret friend. Try to explore the psychological problems of 4 year olds.
You can write as many stories as you want but must have them finished by Week 10 which is Arts Week and during which we will have a workshop with ArtSoc to put everything together.
Some final points:
- Write for 4-8 year olds
- Don’t use big words but don’t underestimate the kids either
- These are short stories – keep the word count low (>1000 – depends on your style – keep it engaging)
- Feel free to collaborate with each other!
- I’d love languages other than English to be used
Irish, French, German, Polish, Sanskrit – whatever you speak. These will be hard to judge but we’ll do our best
We aim to get either a short story or a collection of short stories worthy of publishing (ourselves) for the general consumption of DCU!
Remember Week 10 is the deadline!
