Fiction Notes » children’s picture book

How To Write A Picture Book: Resources

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:39:44 +0000

12 Updated Resources for 2011

State of the industry. First, a basic question: Are picture books dead? Not according to Karen Springen and PW.
Don’t Write the Obit For Picture Books Yet, By Karen Springen, Dec 12, 2010
Writing Encouragement. Natl Pic Book Writing Week May 1-7, 2011
National Picture Book Writing Week is a take off on the National Novel Writing Month and encourages writers to work on children’s picture book manuscripts.

Basic Resources for Writing Children’s Picture Books

30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book. Children’s picture book author, Darcy Pattison has 30 posts about how-to write a children’s picture book. Answers questions like, where do I find an illustrator? (You don’t! See why.)
This is also available as an ebook.
Getting Started: The Basics of Children’s Writing and Illustrating, by Harold Underdown
Introductory information for people wanting to get published as a children’s book writer or illustrator in the United States, by former editor.
Picture Book Editing Checklist

Authors on How-to Write a Children’s Picture Book

So You Want to Write a Picture Book–advice from author Mem Fox.
Nancy Antle on Writing Children’s Literature: Interview about Dos and Don’ts of Writing Picture Books.

Philip Bell: Capturing Childhood Magic With Picture Books

Updated Information on Self Publishing a Picture Book

Why I’ve Switched to CreateSpace for Picture Books, by Aaron Shepard
Long-time self-publisher has insider knowledge about various POD options and explains why he’s switching to Amazon’s CreateSpace.

How to Write a Rhyming Picture Book

How To Write a Rhyming Picture Book and Get it Published — Part 1: A Writer’s Perspective.
How To Write a Rhyming Picture Book and Get it Published — Part 2: A Publisher’s Perspective.
How To Write a Rhyming Picture Book and Get It Published — Part 3: A Reader’s Perspective.
Write a Rhyming Picture Book blog article, by author Patricia Thomas

Other Posts about Picture Books on Fiction Notes

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Simple Narrative Arcs, 2

Darcy Pattison — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:17:36 +0000

Narrative Arc in Less Than 100 Words: Example 2

Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Yesterday, we looked at an example of a great simple narrative in My Friend, Rabbit. Today, here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of some illustrations), as it appears in A Splendid Friend, Indeed by Suzanne Bloom. This book was named a Theodor Seuss Geisel Beginning Reader Award Honor Book in 2006.

Narrative Arc in 32 pages, 98 words

Here’s a great example of a narrative arc in only 98 words.
p. 1 Title
2-3 copyright/dedication
4-5 Characters established: Polar Bear and Goose
6-7 1st repetition: Goose wants to be part of what Bear is doing: he is attempting to be a friend.
8-9 Bear says he likes to read.
10-11 Goose attempts friendship by taking over the book.
12-13 2nd repetition: Goose wants to be part of what Bear is doing.
14-15 Bear says he likes to write.
16-17 Goose friendship by saying he likes writing, too.
18-19 3rd repetition: Goose wants to be part of what Bear is doing.
20-21 Goose decides to take it’s own action – get a snack
22-23 Goose brings back a snack
24-25 Goose has a note for Bear
26-27 Goose’s note says Bear is “my splendid friend.”
28-29 Touched, Bear says I like you, too.
30-31 Bear & Goose hug: they are splendid friends.
32 Friends share a snack

Narrative Arc analyzed

98 words
P. 1-3 Front matter
4-5 Characters established
6-11 1st attempt at friendship – tries to take over
12-17 2nd attempt at friendship – tries to fit in
18-19 3rd attempt at friendship – failure
20-27 Goose attempts friendship by offering something, instead of trying to fit in
28-32 Goose & Bear are friends.

Narrative Arc Written as a Synopsis

This is the story about Goose, who wants to be friends with Bear. Goose tries to be friends by taking over Bear’s book, by trying to write like bear and by trying to figure out what Bear is thinking. Finally, Goose decides to BE a friend. He gets a snack, comes back, and shares a letter of friendship. Bear and Goose, now friends, eat a snack together.

A complete story in less than 100 words is hard. In yesterday’s example of a great simple narrative, My Friend, Rabbit, there were lots of wordless pages, where the images carried the story. Here, there are fewer wordless pages, but still some. In both cases, though, the characters are established, the problem presented, three attempts at resolving the problem, before the climax. These are nice examples of how to do it and do it well.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Simple Narrative Arcs, 1

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:31:46 +0000

Narrative Arc in Less Than 100 Words: Example 1

Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of some illustrations), as it appears in My Friend, Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann, winner of the 2003 Caldecott Award for Best Illustrations in a children’s book for the year.

Narrative Arc in 32 pages, 80 words

Here’s a great example of a narrative arc in only 80 words.

1st person POV from Mouse’s POV, talking about his friend
p 1. Title page
2–3 Introduce Mouse and Rabbit
4-5 Problem establish: Rabbit always gets into trouble
6-7 Rabbit has confidence he can get out of trouble (Characterization_
8-9 Rabbit’s idea begins to unfold (pulling a large beast onto page)
10-11 Elephant is in place
12-13 Rhino pushed forward
14-15 We now see Rhino on Top of Elephant, while Rabbit brings in Hippo.
(start to understand that he’s stacking animals to reach the plane stuck in a tree)
16-17 More animals to stack up, each smaller than the previous
18-19 The stack has failed. But Rabbit is still confident and has a final idea
20-21 Rabbit gets Mouse involved in the idea.
It succeeds – mouse reaches the plane! But there’s also disaster . . .
22-23 . . . and the disaster is going to be bad because everyone is running out of the way. . .
24-25 . . . as animals –big and small–fall everywhere.
26-27 Animals are all mad at Rabbit
28-29 Mouse swoops in with the plane to rescue Rabbit (Rabbit’s friendship–because he means well–endears him to Mouse.)
30-31 Rabbit accidently covers Mouse’s eyes, so he can’t see to fly. . .
32 And they are stuck in the tree again, but this time, they are in the plane and Rabbit confidently says, I have an idea.

Narrative Arc analyzed

Word count: 80 (plus 10 words of dialogue on p. 30-31)
Characteristics of Rabbit: Means well, Trouble follows him, Supremely confident, an adventurer.
Characteristics of Mouse: Loyal to friend, an adventurer.

p. 1-3 Characters introduced
p. 4-5 Problem established
p. 6-19 Attempt to solve problem
p. 20-21 Attempt to solve problem fails, but there’s one last heroic effort. Success. Followed immediately by Disaster.
p. 21-28 Disaster threatens to overwhelm Rabbit
p. 28-29 Mouse saves his friend, Rabbit
p. 30-32 Circular ending: similar problem established again.

Narrative Arc Written as a Synopsis

I realized that this story is written in first person POV from the Mouse’s POV. That makes him the main character! I thought at first that Rabbit was the main character. But the POV, combined with the dramatic rescue by Mouse, makes this Mouse’s story. So, from the POV of Mouse, here’s the narrative arc written as a synopsis. (Of course, there are several ways to look at this, but this version makes sense to me.)

This is a story about Mouse, who more than anything wants to remain loyal to his friend, Rabbit, even though Rabbit gets in trouble. When Rabbit gets Mouse’s plane stuck in a tree (first test of loyalty) Rabbit tries to get it out by building a tower of animals. Mouse, (2nd test of loyalty) joins in by being the final link in the tower and finally he reaches his plane. However, the animal tower falls and Rabbit is in trouble, so Mouse (3rd and final test of loyalty and resolution) flies down to rescue him. But in the rescue, they wind up back in the tree (loyalty tests begin again).

See another example tomorrow of a simple narrative arc, as we look at My Splendid Friend, Indeed, by Suzanne Bloom.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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How to Write a Children’s Picture Book

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:15:51 +0000

Ebook: How to Write a Children’s Picture Book

It started out as 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book. But now, (drum roll, please), it’s an Ebook. Expanded from it’s original format, it now includes new sections on writing rhymed verse for a picture book, and many examples of different types of texts.

How to Write a Children’s Picture Book includes 36 self-paced lessons on every aspect of writing, editing and selling your children’s picture book.

Basics of Writing a Children’s Picture Book

Start your journey toward publishing by studying the basics of children’s picture books: number of pages, word count, audience, setting, characters, words, messages, morals, themes, voice and more.

The Unique Writing Process for a Children’s Picture Book

Once you understand the basic structure of a children’s picture book, it’s time to choose a topic and write your first draft. Learn topics to avoid and perennial topics. Special techniques for editing your picture book manuscript are also covered.

Typical Picture Book Genres

If you want to write a specific type of children’s picture book, you’ll find tips here for humor, rhyming text, poetry collections, picture book mystery, picture book biography, creative non-fiction picture book, and the ABC picture book.

How to Submit Your Children’s Picture Book

Your story is done? Learn the biggest mistake people make when submitting to a children’s book publisher and how you can avoid it. How do you find the name of an editor? What about self-publishing?

Download your pdf immediately.
Order NOW!

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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O Happy Day

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:04:35 +0000

Today, I get to revise.

I will . . .

. . . rewrite the opening of a picture book ten different ways. I make my freshman composition students rewrite their openings three ways and always, the later tries are better. This picture book needs that kind of work to get past the cliches for the opening.

. . . rethink a post for next week on plots. It’s an overview of the methods of plotting,a thoughtful piece that surveys the many books on the topic and makes some generalizations. It needs some filling in and some links and re-thinking to make sure the logic works.
. . . reread a couple chapter of my novel. Re-reading is the #1 revision activity. Before you can revise, you must re-read. So, I’ll read and think and be ready to make changes next week.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Revising for Audience

Darcy Pattison — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:37:45 +0000

I’m writing a picture book that I know should work. But it’s not.

Consider the Picture Book Audience

Part of the problem with this story is that it’s set in a commercial kitchen and I have a kid who wants to cook. Critiquers tell me that the writing is great, the kid is great, but they wonder about that kid in a commercial kitchen.

Wouldn’t it violate child labor laws?
Wouldn’t the kid be in danger of getting burned?
Would a kid even WANT to be a cook? Why?
How old is this kid anyway?
Why is the kid even in this restaurant, so he gets hooked on cooking? Maybe, it’s his uncle’s restaurant and his parents work and he has to go over there after school and study.

ARGH! No!

Obviously, the adult audience for this story doesn’t connect. What about the kid audience?

At nine or ten, I was baking birthday cakes — from scratch — for my six brothers and sisters. One of the few dissenters in the group of critiquers says that her kids LOVE to make her coffee (Obviously, she lives in the great NW.) It just seems natural to me that a kid would want to cook! I’m convinced the story will work, if I can get around the adult objections.

And I do understand the objections. And I will address the objections. But it will mean starting from scratch and reconsidering both audiences for picture books, the adult and the child.

Research, then Revise

I decided to research. I’ve read through How I Learned to Cook, edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan. This fascinating book is first-person accounts from some of the world’s greatest chefs on how they fell in love with cooking as a way of life.

Many of the accounts are about a chef’s young adult years, or about some mistake s/he made during chef school or at a first job. But a couple were about falling in love with food and cooking at an early age. I’m also doing free-writes about why I liked cooking as a nine year old. And I’m reaffirming what is the heart of the story for me, remembering why I wanted to write this story.

A new draft will come. And it will be better.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Shrunken Picture Book

Darcy Pattison — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:47:54 +0000

How I Shrunk my Picture Book Manuscript – and Why I’ll Do It Again!

by Lee Wind

At a schmooze of the SCBWI Tri-Regions of Southern California, discussion ranged far and wide, pulling info and tips from many sources. Lee Wind showed a shrunken manuscript of a picture book, complete with glitter, colors and stickers. The report says, “It helped him look at pacing, consistency, internal and external arcs…”

I originally developed the Shrunken Manuscript Technique to help writers see the overall structure of a novel. Here, it shrinks a picture book to a couple pages. I wondered how this is different from using a thumbnail layout, so I asked Lee to explain.

–

Shrink a 530 word picture book manuscript? But it’s already so short!

I wondered if I would actually learn anything at all from the exercise.

I decided to try it anyway, so I could discuss it at the schmooze on revision that I was co-coordinating, having read about the idea, among other places, here at Darcy’s amazing blog!

I made the font size 6pt, changed the margins so all the text would be in a two inch wide column down the left side, and sat down with the printout like an enthusiastic kindergartner with stickers,
highlighters, and glitter dots.

It came out to three pages long. I taped them together, took a ruler and drew a black line where I imagined page breaks.

Shrunken Picture Books, Photo by Rita Crayon Huang

And then I got out the pink highlighter. I drew a square around the
scenes I thought were really GREAT. As you can see, I had three in the beginning, and six at the end, and NOTHING but NOTHING in the middle. (the very bottom was a “key” for myself to explain what all my symbols meant.)

Then I got out these cool pink glitter dots. I put those on scenes
where I got “goosebumps” – scenes that really packed an emotional punch. I had two in the beginning. A big stretch of NOTHING in the middle. And then three scattered at the end.

I was starting to see a pattern.

Then I took out my “tiger” stickers (you know those return address
labels you get for free with nonprofit mailings – the ones with the
photos of wildlife by your name? They’re the perfect size to cut out
and use for this!)

And I put tiger stickers on every scene my antagonist (bad guys)
showed up. There they were, in the beginning and in the end.

I did more stickers, and quickly discovered that the part of my story
that was “working” was actually NOT the part of the story I wanted to emphasize. My “real” main character, in my mind, didn’t even show up in dialog until, um… page 4. See in the photo, that scene that starts off the middle, with absolutely NO pink box, or glitter dot, or tiger sticker? That’s where my “real” main character took center
stage.

Yikes! I was telling the WRONG character’s story.

I also put in stuff about locations, to make sure there were varied
enough possibilities for the illustrator, but really, once I figured out that I needed to re-do the story so it really was the story of my
younger character, I was itching to do a complete re-write.

I think if I had just done a list of my scenes (like an outline) and
worked from that, without shrinking the actual manuscript, I could
have missed this entirely, because my main character – in my mind- was present in the first three scenes, but as an observer. Having the actual manuscript with dialog and everything right there made me
realize she wasn’t really the focus of the beginning of the book, and
that’s a problem I might not have seen so clearly without shrinking
the manuscript.

So, was it useful? Absolutely.

Would I do it again? I’m getting my highlighter and stickers out
right now. Time to shrink the next draft!

Thanks for coming along with me on this virtual shrunken manuscript
journey. And Darcy, thank you for the opportunity to share my
experience with your readers!

Namaste,
Lee

ps- Appreciation to Rita Crayon Huang for the awesome photo of me
holding up my shrunken picture book manuscript at our schmooze on
revision!

Lee Wind is a writer who blogs about Gay Teen Books, Culture and
Politics at “I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I Read?“

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

muttering

Darcy Pattison — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:20:04 +0000

Re-Reading: The Basic Revision Strategy

I’m always amazed at how much the revision process depends on re-reading what you wrote.

It’s an obvious statement, of course. Yet, when I ask people about their revision process, re-reading is seldom mentioned. It’s one of those assumed things.

Suggestions for Re-reading to Re-envision

Re-read an entire section, not just half a page. One editor cautioned against re-reading just half a page, because you don’t get a sense of how the revision flows with the rest of the story. It’s easy to repeat a word or phrase, to change tone, or to get slightly off-voice (like a singer gets off-key). Take it from the top of the novel or the top of the chapter; for picture books under 500 words, read the whole thing again.
Single space the mss and print it out. This often helps me to see and hear the mss differently. Play with different fonts and print it out. Do you have a character who is feminine and delicate? Print her chapter in a script font; or, to contrast, print it in a harsh, upright font.
Read out loud. OK. I mutter out loud. My husband is self-employed and we own an office building, so I have an office there myself. If I read out loud, it would bother others. So, I mutter out loud. Or, I put on earphones and use a software program that reads it out loud to me. (Actually, this is a good reminder: I need to use the earphones/read to me option more!) Or, I go home and read it out loud. Or, go to a park. Muttering isn’t as good as reading aloud, because you don’t get the real flow of the novel or picture book.

Someone once asked me how many times I had read through a novel. Who knows? More times than I can count, I’ve read every word. It’s the basis of all good revisions.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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editing

Darcy Pattison — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:12:51 +0000

Simplify Your Picture Book Story

I’m currently revising a picture book and my major goal is to simplify the story.

Simple Steps to Revision

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 short amount of time – something you should do at least once a year if you write picture books – and she reports that “. . .short sells. I ran into very few longer books.” Simplified = Sales. Good enough reason.
Omit Major Character. In fact, this version of the story had already simplified by leaving out a major character. It meant a total reworking of the story, but it flowed much smoother.
Cut the conflict in half and expand what’s left. Given that 600 words is a worthy goal, what could I do? I took the first half of the story and expanded it into the whole story, thus simplifying it by leaving out the conflict in the last half of the original. It sounds drastic and it was. But after it was done. I wondered how I could ever have thought we needed that last half.
Planning for interactivity. In the next revision, I plan to strengthen the interactivity of the story. I already have one section where kids can anticipate and chime in. I”m looking for a couple more places.
Planning for stronger language. The cuts I’ve done so far are playing up the fun language of the story. But I think it needs more tightening, so the fun phrases will shine.
Planning for unique characters. A friend reminded me that my characters are too stereotypical. But with minor edits, I can remove the stereotypical references and leave the characters stronger.
Planning to connect the beginning and end. The motivation at the beginning and the resolution at the end are still not matching up exactly. It’s close – but not right. I’m searching for alternative ways of setting it up. Because I like the new ending, which means the beginning has to set up that ending.

Not much to revise, huh? And people think writing a picture book is easy?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Picture Book 4

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:45:31 +0000

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 told me a tidbit of interesting history. She was writing about it, though, so it was off limits for me. But it’s stayed with me as — well, very interesting. Especially interesting for kids. Yesterday, when I was thinking of topics to write about, that historical teaser came back and I looked up something about it and of course, a footnote took me off on another tangent. Which I actually think is even more fascinating for kids.
In other words, I researched yesterday; I wound up with a very sketchy draft, if you could even call it a draft. In the end, it’ll be a good picture book, but the goal was supposed to be to write a draft. Well, maybe it’s a draft. I could call it that, right?

Note: This is a note of general frustration with writing 7 picture books in 7 days. I want to dig in and revise, which I do endlessly on picture books. Instead, I have to come up with a new draft! ARGH!

Actually, 7 days may be about right: only two more days to scribble out first drafts, and the rest of the year to revise.

May 5: A Cumulative Story. After tossing out lots of ideas, I finally settled on a cumulative story much like This is the House that Jack Built. It’s an idea I had toyed with before and was fun to take it through all the stages.
May 4: Delaware and Miriam. OK. This is getting hard! Picture books are short, yes, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to write. I’ve never written one in less than three days of intensive, obsessive work.
I did get a draft done last night. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. But it’s no where near fully explored, much less refined. Still, just to get a draft done, I was pleased.

I think the main problem is characterization. Why would this character do this? My problem is that I tend to write generic characters in my picture books and I’m really struggling to do more in such a short time frame.
May 3: At the End of the Rainbow. I didn’t even start until 7 pm because I went to church, then did accounting. But I managed to finish a full draft of this story and am excited to see how it sounds after a couple days of cooling off. The title will change, but it’s a good working title. 1295 words. Yes, I’m writing long, but I can cut.
May 2: ABC book. OK, so it’s one I had half-way started before and abandoned because I had blanks for about six letters. All I did today was fill in the rest of the letters, add more options to the letters I had and did general research and clean up. But I now have something for each letter. Yes, two or three are shaky. But it’s progress and I’m counting it.
May 1: Violet Ivy’s Button Eyes. 1128 words.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win