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Simplify Your Picture Book Story I’m currently revising a picture book and my major goal is to simplify the story. Why simplify the story? At 1200 words, the picture book text is way too long. I needed to cut it about in half. Why? Sue Edwards has just been reading 50 picture books in a [...]
Speaking Schedule Here’s an update on my speaking schedule for the rest of the year. Novel Revision Reteat. SF & North & East Bay SCBWI, San Francisco, CA. July 16-19, 2009 (SOLD OUT) Novel Revision Retreat. Louisiana SCBWI. St. Joseph Abbey, Covington, LA. Download flyer for the LA retreat. Arkansas SCBWI Fall Retreat, Ft. Smith, [...]
All About the Town InkyGurl.com is posting Comics for Writers!!! Another month to write? It’s the WriDaNoJu. This one makes more sense to me than trying to write a novel in November. Aren’t these names getting funny? The NaNoWriMo, the WriDaNoJu, the NaPiBoWriWee and so on. An interesting list of Picture Book Don’ts. Victoria Janssen [...]
3 Reminders About Pitching Your Mss to an Editor or Agent At our conference this weekend, we have an editor and an agent attending and for the first time, we’re doing pitch sessions. Always before, we’ve done a manuscript critique, sending in 10 pages a month before. So, I’ve been going over some recommendations for [...]
Second Most Important Sales Tool: Flap Copy Flap copy is the advertising copy on the inside covers of a book. According to a recent Publishing Trends article, it is the second most important selling point for books, especially fiction. Yet, often, it is an editorial assistant who writes the copy. In this interesting series of [...]
The Arkansas SCBWI Conference is this weekend in Conway, AR. Featured speakers are Anastasia Suen, Greenwillow editor Martha Mahilick, and agent Jennifer (Jaeger) Rofe, from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Earlier, I linked to the websites and blogs of the speakers. Full registration information is available on the Arkansas SCBWI website. If you’re anywhere close, [...]
3 Tips for Using Mulitple Point of View Characters Limit the number of POV characters. A general caution is to limit the number of POV characters so the reader can be emotionally invested in those few. Zuckerman, in How to Write the Blockbuster Novel, recommends no more than five main characters. Usually, one of the [...]
7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge. Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009 Overall: This was an interesting exercise that I’d like to repeat in a slower month, not May. Why is the Nanowrimo in November and this had [...]
7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge. Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009 May 7 May 6. Historical Fiction. OK, here comes the rationalization for why I don’t have a good draft done. A couple years ago, a friend [...]
7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge. Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009 May 7 May 6 Note: This is a note of general frustration with writing 7 picture books in 7 days. I want to dig in and [...]
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