Where, in a literary novel I would spend much more time focusing on character development, in a literacy learner or hi-lo novel I take a page from the writing of my commercial brethren and focus much more on that narrative arrow, on what’s happening, what’s at stake, to keep the struggling reader involved in the story. For the first time in my writing career, I end chapters with cliff-hangers. Here are a few more guidelines on writing hi-lo.

 

When it comes to content, the subject matter is similar to what you’d find in any novel or non-fiction book for a given age group, but as you look at the guidelines and sample books from each series of a given hi-lo publisher, you’ll see each series as a general focus.

 

There is a huge school and library market for middle school books, of course, and boys read a lot at this age. And more of the struggling readers are boys. So consider that you want books with male protagonists and about subjects that appeal to boys of this age as much as girls. For example, my latest hi-lo, Bigfoot Crossing, is a middle-school hi-lo book with a boy protagonist about a subject that appeals to boys: Bigfoot. (And it was a lot of fun to write.)

 

As always, you want to keep in mind that the young protagonist is centered in the action and is not saved by the adults around them. They need to fix the situation themselves, so the adults are often missing from the story or rendered ineffectual in some way. In Bigfoot Crossing, Dad is kidnapped and my young hero has to find and save him.

 

No matter what you write about, drop the message or lessons. As Caroline Adderson says in her guest blog on my site, 

 

“If you want to teach children something, no matter how worthy, write a non-fiction book. The only ‘message’ you should be deliberately imparting is that reading is a pleasurable activity. Everything else should rise organically from the story, and will, if it’s well-written.”

 

Having said that, if you look through the Orca catalogue, you’ll see this publisher welcomes books on topical and difficult subjects, like the climate crisis, and is all about diversity. 

 

When contemplating subject matter, a good place to start is the catalogue of the publisher you’d like to write for. Obviously, if you are interested in writing hi-lo for the educational market, then reading hi-lo books is the place to start. You can find them in your library.

 

If you Google, you’ll find quite a few publishers of hi-lo. Here's a short-list:

 

 

I’ll end on another quote from Caroline Adderson’s blog. She says, “Understand that it’s harder, not easier, to write for children.”

 

I would add that it’s harder yet, not easier, to write hi-lo. But well worth the effort.