Fiction Notes

30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book

Fiction for children, especially younger children, comes in the form of picture books. This series of 30 posts explains how to write and edit the basic picture book, and goes on to discuss specific types of picture books.

Boy in the dark looking at book. Write a Picture Book Course by Darcy Pattison | Mims House
For a 10% discount, use this code: MIMS10

Picture Book Basics

Picture Books standards: 32 pages
Putting the Picture in Picture Books
Write the First Draft of a Picture Book
The Dual Audience for Picture Books
Did you Write a Picture Book or Something Else?
Check Your Picture Book’s Story Arc
Shakespeare Helps You Write a Better Picture Book
Picture Book Settings
Options for Picture Book Characters
Playing With Words for Picture Books
Page 32
How to Mock Up a Picture Book
5 Ways to Make The Reader Turn the Page
Revise the Picture Book Text

Specific Types of Picture Books

The Biggest Mistake in Submitting a Picture Book
What Kids Think Is Funny
10 Suggestions for Picture Book Titles
12 Picture Book Topics to Avoid
The Illustrator Doesn’t Tell YOU What to Do
Picture Books: Folk Tales or Modern Stories?
How To Write a Rhyming Picture book
How to Write a Picture Book Mystery
How to Write a Picture Book Biography
How to Write an ABC Book
How to Write a Creative Non-Fiction Picture Book
How to Write a Poetry Collection Picture Book
How to Create a Read Aloud Friendly Picture Book
Voice for Picture Books
Messages, Morals and Lessons in Picture Books
Effective Picture Book Subtitles

Boy in the dark looking at book. Write a Picture Book Course by Darcy Pattison | Mims House
For a 10% discount, use this code: MIMS10

Darcy Pattison

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20 responses to “30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book”

  1. Thank you for offering this series–and all the information you share with us in your posts. I love reading about writing technique–when it’s well written and feels right–and yours does. I’ve been enjoying all your posts/articles that I’ve read. An area I don’t feel I know enough about is picture book technique–so I’m really looking forward to this.

  8. Dear Darcy,

    I have just read your ’30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book’ and I wanted to tell you how interesting and helpful I found it.
    I have recently sent my first picture book to publishers here in the UK and I’m eagerly waiting their response…Fingers crossed!

    Adrian

  15. […] Dial editor, Liz Waniewski (ONE–es-key) spoke at the Arkansas SCBWI 2007 conference. For a couple months before the conference, she kept track of her slush pile picture book submissions by category. This resulted in my 2007 posting 12 Picture Book Topics to Avoid, one of the more popular posting in the 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book series. […]

  20. I find inspiration going to the library and pouring through many picture books. Feeding your brain with images and stories is the best approach. Once you write a good story, you have to then trim all the fat away so that the story is easy for children to follow. This might take 5 or more revisions. If you can omit a word or sentence without affecting the storyline then do so. Some of the greatest children’s books like “Where The Wild Things are” are very short in word count. Maurice Sendak told this classic children’s story in only 333 words.
    Rich Olson/children’s book illustrator SCBWI
    http://braintofu1.blogspot.com