Chapter Books, Part One: The Idea

The landscape and elements for a great chapter book idea

In our next three paid posts (releasing every other week), we’re going to taking a deep dive into crafting chapter books, specifically fiction.

Part One will explore how to come up with a great chapter book idea. We’ll take a look at the landscape and how to study mentor texts. We’ll talk about how we generate chapter book ideas and how we know when it’s a chapter book rather than a picture book or other category. We’ll talk about the elements that go into a successful chapter book concept.

Part Two will look at the craft of writing chapter books. We’ll go deeper into character, talk about plot, language, sentence structure, and chaptering. We’ll talk about what we’ve learned from writing manuscripts for submission as well as subsequent titles.

Finally, Part Three will look at the art of pitching chapter books. We’ll share real world examples and give you the breakdown of the elements included in the pitch. We’ll also talk about how we approach creating a pitch that will stand out and sell your idea.

So, let’s get started.

First up, what is a chapter book? Chapter books cover a wide range! They encourage young readers to transition to reading longer stories with more complexity. They are usually geared toward ages 6-10—which covers a wide range of reading ability, hence the wide range of chapter books. They’re typically a half-page trim size, they often have illustrations, and they are often series. Word count can range from ~1500-10k words.

Here are some examples:

You can find stacks more chapter book suggestions on Imagination Soup.

Studying Mentor Texts

Whenever you start writing in a new/different category, it’s important to understand the landscape and read lots of mentor texts. Vicky recorded a whole video about this for chapter books here:

The Idea

Finding a great chapter book idea can go in both directions—maybe you have an idea and realize it’s a chapter book, or maybe you want to write a chapter book and generate ideas for the category.

So what makes a good chapter book idea? And how do you know it’s a chapter book and not something else? Here’s how we determine if an idea is well suited for a chapter book, and the elements to consider for a successful series idea.