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The cons:
First, hi-lo books are obviously very different from other kinds of writing, even within the children’s market. The subject matter must be interesting for a reader at a given age, but the reading level is low, which means a much more simplified sentence structure and vocabulary.This may create problems for you, the author, when it comes to your established readership. I remember seeing a few confused reviews from readers. Why was the writing in my hi-lo books for adults so different from my literary novels?
The answer of course, was that I was writing for a different market, the educational market, with very different expectations and reading level.
I found myself explaining what hi-lo books were to my established audience. This may be true of those of you who write children’s or young adult fiction as well. For your established audience, the difference in reading level may prove confusing.
And the advances on these books, as with most children’s books, is small. So it’s important to work out an outline beforehand and write quickly to make the time you put into the project worth the return. But that’s true of nearly any writing project and, let’s face it, we always put more time into a project than we hope to recover financially.
Still, when writing hi-lo, I make a point of writing a synopsis first, and then outlining, so I’m clear on the story before I write as doing so saves so much time and grief.
In fact, editors at my publisher, Orca, usually ask for both a synopsis and a chapter-by-chapter outline going in.Armed with a solid synopsis and outline, I can now usually write one of these short hi-lo books or novellas within a month. The editing process takes longer, of course, but once you get the hang of writing these books, they can come together very quickly.
However, that wasn’t the case for my first hi-lo book. Writing a literacy learner novel is challenging, especially as we learn how. The first one I wrote took about a year from first idea to finished draft (though I was working on other projects in between).
Even if you have written children’s or young adult fiction in the past, it does take a little time to learn how to write a high interest, low reading-level story, one that will still appeal to the right age group.
The editing process can also be a long one, in many ways longer than for other writing I do. When a book is written at a grade two to six level, and geared towards ESL students or the struggling reader, every word counts.
Okay, so those are the cons of writing hi-lo. It takes time to learn, editing is more involved, the advances are small and your established audience may wonder what you’re up to. Let’s turn to the pros.
