Writing Your Middle-Grade Novel with Kate Hannigan

What is the middle-grade genre? Who is the audience? What makes it a special designation in literature for young adults? 

In this six-week course taught by Kate Hannigan, author of six novels for kids including the Golden Kite Award-winning The Detective’s Assistant (Little, Brown), we will focus on the crucial elements to writing your middle-grade novel. We’ll move from brilliant concepts to bang-up endings, working through activities that can help shape projects and move them closer to being submission-ready for agents and editors.

Students will turn ideas into outlines, outlines into pages, and pages into stories while considering what might catch a reader’s eye, or more deeply develop existing middle-grade projects.

Week 1: Reading the field. We talk about middle-grade literature, dissect the how and why of books that received critical acclaim, and explore activities to sharpen our own ideas.

Week 2: Outlining. We map out our story ideas and outline, from powerful starts to memorable finishes. 

Week 3: Opening with a bang. We focus on the first chapter and what it takes to grab readers by the collar and pull them into our stories.

Week 4: Touchpoints and through lines. We explore what resonates with readers and how to emphasize those points in our writing. 

Week 5: Muddled middles. Sometimes the structure starts to sag as we move from opening to ending. We consider tools to keeping the momentum going.

Week 6: Endings. We read examples of powerful endings, explore what makes a story linger in a reader’s mind, and work on how we can polish our own.

Each week, we will spend some amount of time workshopping our projects, ranging from minor to major; some reading between classes will be required. Suggested reading prior to the start of classes that will help with deep dives are The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, and The Detective’s Assistant by Kate Hannigan.