A friend of mine, a real estate broker, was looking over some blueprints one afternoon while I was in her office. She was given the opportunity to sell some very expensive high-end condominiums and was absorbed in the proposed floor plan design. She had a pencil in her hand and drew a few lines on the print. She quickly erased them. She turned the print to one side and then to the other. Finally, she let go a deep sigh and shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m looking for the Wow Factor,” she said. “To sell in this market, you have to have Wow.”

On my way home I thought about how that same principle applies to writing for children. Which of our beloved children’s books have the Wow Factor? How did the writers achieve it?

The Wow Factor occurs when expectations are surpassed. It happens when your reader, in her own wildest imagination, would never expect the story to go in a particular direction – and the story goes there. It’s that special something that makes a book step away from the rest of the pack. It can turn a book into a classic.

There are excellent children’s books being written every day. Bookshelves are filled with wonderful children’s books old and new. We discuss many of them in our forum. Many are the books we loved to read as children and continue to read as adults.

Obviously, every book that is published doesn’t possess the Wow Factor. But this fact should not deter you from trying to create “wow” in your writing.

If you are currently working on a children’s story, think about what you have done – or what you can do – to create “wow.” Have you just written a cute little story, or is it a story that has the added punch that engages the imagination of the reader to the point of not being able to put the book down?

Push your imagination. Pull it back. See if you can give your story a touch of “wow.” If you can, your readers will thank you for it.