What Vocal Coaching Taught Me About Writing for Children

The best vocal students I've ever had were children. Not because they were the most talented — that's a different conversation — but because they were the most honest listeners.

A child doesn't pretend to understand what they don't feel. When I play a recording and ask "what do you hear?", an adult will give me technical vocabulary. A child will say "it sounds like the sky before it rains" or "it makes my stomach feel funny." They listen with their bodies, not their minds.

Writing Jordanne, l'Artiste Magique forced me to write the same way. Every sentence had to pass what I call the body test: does this feel true, not just sound correct? Children don't care about elegant prose. They care about whether the story makes their heart beat faster.

Jordanne is a girl whose drawings come to life. A butterfly she sketches flies off the page. A cat she colors purrs for real. The premise is magical — but the writing has to be brutally honest. Because every child I've taught has an instinct for what's real and what's performance.

The crossover between vocal coaching and children's writing is this: both require you to stop performing and start being present. With a child student, you can't hide behind technique. With a child reader, you can't hide behind style. You have to mean every word.

That's harder than it sounds. And it's the most valuable thing any of my students — or my writing — has ever taught me.

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