In order to avoid appropriating cultures, repeating the same things that fantasy authors that have come before you, and writing huge cliches, you need to develop your own fantasy world. This will not only make your book stand out, but you as an author will have a greater understanding of your world’s residents, economy, architecture, and government.

The best way to write kids is to spend time with kids. If you don’t have physical access to a kid in the age range you need, turn to the internet. By watching how kids interact with each other and with adults, you’ll pick up on their mannerisms, their speech patterns, and any slang that they use.

Middle Grade readers are incredibly smart and are also growing and learning, trying to process the world around them. By including formative themes like divorce, death, ethical dilemmas, abuse, and other “dark” themes, you can help kids learn through fiction how to cope with those things.

Grab a thesaurus, use creative dialogue tags, get rid of your adverbs, and use tags only when necessary. Dialogue tags are your best friend, but can easily become redundant.

Your book synopsis needs to condense your 50k novel down into merely a hundred and fifty words. To write a great synopsis, you need to tell the story, give a clear idea of the conflict and the resolution, and avoid boring language.

The genre that you are writing in determines how long your novel should be, and if your manuscript is too far over or too far under word count, publishers and agents won’t take it.

Research, reading, and a whole lot of writing are key to developing your own voice. Only with practice, patience and time will you find what makes you unique and you.