How can a 12 Year Old Kid Like Me Write a Book?

By Kenton Verhoeff

I wrote my first book when I was just 9. It’s called “Corky the Happy Lizard”. I wrote it because I like komodo dragons. They’re awesome. Someday, I hope Corky grows up and becomes a Komodo.

But, I wanted to tell you how to write a book.

First you sit down with a pencil and paper and make an outline.

Mine is pretty simple. It looks like this:

Title
Introduction
First Action
Second Action
Third Action
Results of Action
Conclusion
Bio

Then I fill in all those items with some paragraphs and sentences. When I think of something really interesting I always put under one of those titles. I have many outlines, but only some of them become books. This is one I wrote this winter.

Title

Riding Bikes on the Snow

Introduction

You’d think it’s hard to ride bikes on snow, but in my town lots of people do it. One guy rides a bike because his car is stuck in the snow. He can’t get his car out, so he rides his bike. Another guy rides his bike on the snow because he got too many DUI’s and they won’t let him drive a car.

I ride bikes on the snow because it’s fun. But if mom catches me, I’m toast, so I don’t do it often. But, this is a story about riding bikes on the piles of snow after the 2006 blizzard in my hometown.

First Action

Riding bikes on snow is kind of dangerous, because sometimes you slip and slide in the ruts that cars make. Weaving in and out of traffic with a bike is really dangerous because cars are really heavy and they can’t stop.

Second Action

Riding bikes up and down plowed snow piles sometimes results in snow cave offs and people get trapped in an ice avalanche. Ice avalanches are different than snow avalanches because when people get trapped in ice, it’s big chunks and they can still breath, usually. But ice is heavy and it does things like crush people. So it isn’t any safer.

Third Action

When several people are riding on snow piles, they run into each other and make bigger ice avalanches. Sometimes they crash so hard that they cave off whole chunks of ice and have to ride the ice down the snow pile. If they miss, they end up under the ice and we have to call paramedics.

Paramedics are those people who drive the ambulance and fix people until they can get them to a hospital.

Results of Action

The guys from the city and the police get really upset when kids get caught riding bikes in the snow piles. They even had to arrest some kids and take them to jail until their parents come to get them out. And then, they don’t get their bikes back until they pay restitution. It’s expensive to pay restitution. Really it’s cheaper just to get a new bike, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Conclusion

When your mom says don’t ride bikes in the snow, she really means it. It’s a good thing to listen to your mom and not do things when she tells you not to do them. Learning lessons from just being obedient is a lot less painful, and lots cheaper than learning them from experience.

Bio

This is the part where I tell everyone about me.

That’s how I get started. Then I design a character for my book and start writing from my character’s perspective. I try to teach a lesson in my books, because kids are still learning a lot of stuff and when I teach a lesson in my book, they can learn from what I know.

It’s kind of like being a parent, but not really like having a kid.

Kenton Verhoeff writes children’s books. He uses computer generated art in his books and tells stories that teach kids something good. His stories are simple and easy to read. Kenton is Home Schooled at Buchanan Academy. His website is at http://www.freewebs.com/kentonverhoeff and you can read his blog too.