Have you ever heard the old adage, "Children should be seen and not heard?" Well, in most children's stories—especially religious children's stories—it's better if adults are seen and not heard. It's not that editors want children to be disrespectful of parents and other wise adults. The problem lies in the adult tendency to want to rescue kids. Do you see a child afraid of the dark? Don't you want to rush in and give him a night light and a little talk about how there's nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light? You have years of wisdom and hundreds of "shoulds" and "musts" stored up in your brain, just waiting to burst forth. You share them with your real kids, why not do it for your story kids?

The answer lies in effectiveness. Have you ever noticed how your kids tend to tune you out when you give them the "be nice to your little brother" lecture for the hundredth time? But when a child learns something through his own actions, that lesson lingers quite a bit longer. A well-written story draws a child in, inviting him to live the life of the main character. When the main character makes a discovery—the discovery belongs to the reader also. Sometimes that discovery comes in the form of something we might consider a "lesson" and the lesson settled into the reader because he feels it's something he discovered in the story.

In real life, children do get rescued many times; they aren't required to solve all of their own problems. Parents do lecture—so do teachers, grandparents, pastors—and some of those lectures sink in and make a difference, while many just skim across and sail out into space. Those things are real. However, stories don't reproduce real life, so arguing that something should be part of a story because it's "real" doesn't impress an editor as much as you might hope.

You might also mention all the lectures you've seen in religious magazine stories. If editors prefer stories that don't lecture—why are they publishing all those lectures? Because that's what was submitted. An amazing percentage of submissions to any magazine tend not to be publishable writing. So if an editor receives a story that is well written, readable, and on the theme the editor wants to explore—and the story contains a lecture—the editor will choose it unless he gets a non-lecture story that is well written and on the same theme. Still, when all other things are equal, a non-lecture story will win out every time.

As writers, we like inserting the wise adult because it simplifies plotting. Otherwise, how are you going to get your young main character to see the value of his little brother? How will your characters come to understand that it's important to stand up for what's right, even if folks are trying to push you down? Right. Real plotting is tough. I'll never tell you that it isn't. But it's worth the time, the effort, and the sweat because a real plot will linger with a reader much longer than an artificial lecture. And we want stories that stick in the reader's head and effect change.

Some writers simply cannot give up that wise adult, but they know how much editors hate seeing parents step in to apply a lecture. So they'll give the lecture to the main character's best friend. Can you picture two kids really having this conversation?

Right, that made me a little queasy writing it, too. Kids simply don't casually lecture each other very often. And if one kid burst into a lecture, there is every chance the other would tell him to mind his own business. Revelation just doesn't come through lectures very often. Instead, you would need to let Joey discover why his treatment of his brother stinks.

What if Austin got hurt because he was left to his own devices—or what if Austin got hurt trying to do something to prove he was old enough and cool enough to hang out with his older brother? That might effect change in Joey. Or what if Joey overhears his dad making a joking remark about how nice it is to do something with other adults—without the kids along and Joey feels rotten and left out? What if Austin comforted him by saying he knows how it feels—and Joey realizes why Austin knows how it feels?

Let change come from within the plot—not from a lecture and not from a sudden bolt of guilt that hits a character "out of the blue" and makes him reform. Make characters logical, and believable, not only in their conversations and actions but in their growth and change, too.

It's a tough assignment—but we writers can do it!