Pitching Your Story in 3 Minutes or Less! Tips from the Children’s Media Conference

After a busy few weeks preparing for and attending the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield, I’m excited to share some insights from my experience. If you work in children’s TV, media, or storytelling in general, CMC is a fantastic event. I was fortunate enough to have 11 x 15 minute meetings with TV executives at…

Desperate to Turn Your Picture Book into an Animated Film? Here’s How!

Reader Question Today I want to answer a question that I’m approached about quite often… “I’ve written a picture book that I think would work well as an animated film. Where do I start?” First off, This article isn’t just for picture book authors. It includes plenty of useful tips for anyone with a screenplay to…

Rejection, Failure & Near Misses. And Everything I’ve Learnt Along the Way.

Let’s talk about rejection. Really?! And failure. And near misses. Eek! It’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? Talking about the things that didn’t work out. But writing is incredibly competitive if you want to be published or produced. Of course, we don’t want to believe this when we’re just starting out. The truth is, even when we…

How to Decide the Target Audience of your Cartoon Series

Reader Question Colin got in touch to ask   “I have ideas around a children’s cartoon TV series. My question is: how do you work out the target age? I.e. 2-3 years or 4-5 years etc or can you write a generic script sample that covers 2-6 years?” Thanks for getting in touch, that’s a…

Developing a Kids’ Animation Series for TV [PART FIVE]

Our First Commission Followed by a Pandemic The last of a 5-part series where I take you behind the scenes of the most fulfilling experience of my writing life: developing a kids’ animation series for TV. In this installment, I’ll talk about how we nabbed our first TV commission for an animated Christmas Special. I’ll also…

Developing a Kids’ Animation Series for TV [PART FOUR]

Getting a Book Deal The fourth of a 5-part series where I take you behind the scenes of the most fulfilling experience of my writing life: developing a kids’ animation series for TV. In this instalment, I’ll tell you about writing a picture book, based on our series, meeting publishers at the London Book Fair, getting…

Developing a Kids’ Animation Series for TV [PART THREE]

Pitching at Cartoon Forum The third of a 5-part series where I take you behind the scenes of the most fulfilling experience of my writing life: developing a kids’ animated TV series.  In this instalment, I’ll tell you all about preparing for and pitching at Cartoon Forum – one of the biggest cartoon networking events in…

Developing a Kids’ Animation Series for TV [PART TWO]

Applying for Funding The second of a 5-part series where I take you behind the scenes of the most fulfilling experience of my writing life: developing a kids’ animated TV series.  As I said in Part One this 6-year rollercoaster was filled with both success and failure. I hope my journey will be both interesting and…

Developing a Kids’ Animation Series for TV [PART ONE]

A Writer’s Journey This is the first of a 5-part series where I’ll share the ins and outs of one of the most fulfilling experiences of my writing life: developing a pre-school kids’ animation series for TV. This 6-year rollercoaster ultimately ended in failure, but there were some amazing successes along the way. So, after grappling…