How To Write A Picture Book

How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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About the Author

Jill Marshall is the author of the best-selling children’s book series for 9 – 12 year olds, about girl spy, Jane Blonde. She has published numerous other books for children and for adults, including picture book Kave-Tina Rox, and has deals for many more. Jill’s books can be viewed and bought from the website www.jillmarshall.co.nz, or in your local bookstores. When she’s not writing her own books, Jill likes to help others to write and edit their own books with an aim to being published. She is a coach, trainer and manuscript assessor, and runs her own writing consultancy. Find out more at www.writegoodstuff.co.nz.

How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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Contents

Click on the text to go to that page

About the Author

2

Introduction

4

What is a picture book?

5

What a picture book is not ...

7

Laying out your book:

Picture book format

9



Illustration

11



Submitting picture book manuscripts

13

Writing your story:

14



Language - Voice

15



Language - Tense

17



Language - Rhyme

18



Story - Subject matter

21



Story - Structure/plotting

23



Story - Characters

24

Tying it all together:

Presentation

25



Example

26

The end

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Introduction In the course of my training and manuscript assessing, it has struck me that probably sixty to seventy percent of people who tell me they want to write children’s books are actually talking about creating a picture book. They often assume the same when I tell them I write children’s books – that I only write picture books, when in fact I write novels too (for children and adults). A children’s book can be anything from a hardback introduction to shapes for a baby, to a young adult novel of hundreds of thousands of words. Just to be clear then, what we’re discussing here is a book for a zero to six year old or thereabouts, with as much illustration as text, if not more. And the same book will not do for the zero year old as the three year old, or the three year old as the six year old, so you will see there is a huge amount of segregation in the picture book oeuvre. What I’ve also found, particularly after assessing picture books, is that I end up saying the same things to most people. Aha, I thought, after going through the very same issues and explanations with hundreds of writers: why not say these same things to picture book authors before they’ve sweated over their idea, fallen out with their neighbour whom they’ve asked to do the illustrations and then – eek – not liked them, or been rejected by one or more publishers with no idea why. This book, then, is a compilation of what I usually tell authors when I’m assessing a completed manuscript. Hopefully I can save you some time and frustration if you’ve picked this up before or during your creation of the next ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. To buy Jill’s books, visit

Please note that it’s a book for writers, not illustrators, because it is

www.jillmarshall.co.nz

possible to produce great picture books without being able to draw anything beyond stick figures. However, I do talk about illustration, because it is essential that the picture book author appreciates the extent to which these ‘simple’ little books are at the very least a joint venture, if not the combined blood, sweat and tears of a team of half a dozen people or more. And if you could still do with some clarification or an assessment of your own book after reading this little self-help book, then I can still help on www.writegoodstuff.co.nz Happy creating! Jill Marshall, Write Good Stuff, April 2009

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What is a picture book? A picture book, you will not be surprised to learn, is a book with pictures in it. However, that’s far too simplistic a description. A book for, say, a seven year old which has lots of text divided into short chapters with an illustration every few pages is not a picture book. It’s a chapter book, and would be classed as junior fiction (think about Captain Underpants or Paddington Bear). Picture books tend to be formatted in a particular way, which we’ll talk about in the first few pages as it’s so critical to understand this fact. They’re larger books, with larger print, often more evocative text and (here’s the key) with as least as much emphasis on the illustrations, if not more. The balance between the amount of text and the amount of illustration is pretty much on a sliding scale along the age range. I often have people informing me that their picture book is for a ‘3 – 7’ year old. Well, I have to tell you, there ain’t no such beast. That’s not to say that a child who loved a particular book at the age of 3 won’t still love it at the age of 7, but that’s possibly more to do with the cosy memory of Mum or Dad at tuck-up time, rubbing their tummy and crooning the words to them. Picture books are specifically targeted at very narrow age-bands within that broader range: New-born to 1, 18 months to 2, 2 – 3, 3 – 4, 4 – 5 or 6 at a stretch, 5 – 6 or 7. The proportion of text to illustration should be quite age-specific too, as shown in the following table.

Age of intended reader

Amount of text

Amount of illustration

0-1

5 – 10%

90 – 95%

1- 2

10%

90%

2- 3

10 – 30%

70 – 90 %

3- 4

20 – 40%

60 – 80%

50%

50%

4 – 5 or over 5- 6 or over 7 or over

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You’ll note that beyond about 4 years old, there should always be a moreor-less equal division between how much the story is related through the text, and how much through the illustration. (NB. Picture books beyond the age of 7 are usually called ‘sophisticated picture books’. Whether it’s right or wrong, educators and parents alike are often trying to encourage children away from the picture book genre by that age. Do bear in mind, therefore, that sophisticated picture books have to be absolutely exceptional to make it into mainstream publishing, and there are relatively few people who have great success in this area. Carry on if that’s where your interest lies, but do consider whether you might actually be more comfortable writing an early chapter book, or whether you could make your characters and book a little younger.) So what else is in a picture book? A story, of course, at least in those 3 + age ranges. Below that age, there may be more use of single words or short sentences as that is targeted towards the development of the young reader. Beyond that age, there is a general acceptance that picture books are fiction. As always there are exceptions to this principle (eg. some Richard Scarry books, books about wildlife, flora, forna, engineering feats etc) but usually there is an element of story to most picture books from age 3 onwards (and some younger than that too). Apart from the facts above, is there any other way to define what is a picture book? I think there is. Moreso than perhaps any other genre, the picture book is a conduit. It forms a three-way relationship between the book, the child, and the reader, who can be a parent, a grandparent, an older sibling, care-giver, baby-sitter, or teacher. That’s why the ‘age’ column in the table above is entitled ‘age of intended reader’ – in most cases, the reader is not the child him/herself, but an adult or older person conducting the story through themselves to the child, all with their own personal embellishments, funny voices and eye-rolling demonstrations. It’s important to remember this fact, so you don’t forget to target the piece to the intended reader, ie the child, at the same time as allowing the actual reader to become part of the story-telling magic.

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What a picture book is not ... There are so many erroneous assumptions about picture books, picture book writing, and picture book writers, that I wanted to list out a few of the most common offenders. Forewarned is fore-armed, so they say. This is to arm you, so you can either ward off the nay-sayers who will inevitably launch their attack the minute you mention what you’re up to, or so you can avoid making these same assumptions yourself.

Repeat after me. A picture book is not … 1 A short story with pictures. I’ve done many assessments for people who tell me they’ve written a picture book, when in fact what they’ve written is a short story. Often they are lovely short stories, and would look pretty with a few pictures tickling their borders, but they are still not picture books. The main issue with most of these short stories is that they are just too wordy, because the writer uses their extensive and glorious vocabulary to describe all sorts of things that should be shown in the illustrations. That’s not the only issue, by any means, but the most common one! If you’re going to start with a short story, that’s fine, but be prepared to take a large and brutal hatchet to it afterwards.

2 This wonderful story that my

grandchild/nephew/next-door-neighbour loves.

Okay. It may be a wonderful story. I don’t know the particular tale with which you’ve enthralled the neighbourhood. But please do bear in mind that it’s just as likely, if not perhaps a little more likely, that the child or children involved just love having your undivided attention for half an hour, feeling cosy and snug and safe, while meanwhile you’re pulling out all the stops for an Oscar-nominated performance and making more of a fool of yourself than they’ve ever had the pleasure to witness before. They love you, not necessarily your book. When complete strangers whom you are never likely to meet love you because they love your book, that’s when you know you’ve written a winner.

3 Just like an Aesop’s fable. Picture books do not have to have a ‘message’. They can, for sure, but they don’t need one to make them a great picture book. If they do have one it should be subtly blended into the story so that it might just occur How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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to the child a few weeks later that ‘oh! This is just like in Panda’s Pants! I just need to say …’ or whatever. It does not need to be, in fact, should not ever be, underlined in fluorescent pink and indelibly printed on the child’s mind … It’s fine just to entertain them, evoke whatever emotion you wish to evoke, and let them work it out for themselves.

4 Easy to write. No. Oh no. And again no. For writers, many of whom love words and language, they are often the hardest books to write. You need to get a whole story along with several characters and their personal development into less than 1000 words - significantly less if you can manage it. Kave-Tina Rox, who features on the cover of this book, started at 1200 in its long (and not terribly good) version, came down to 800 for submission to the publisher, and ended up at just over 600 after my editor and I did battle over a few choice phrases. I’m delighted with the end result, but it became ever clearer to me how much one must make every word count in a picture book, and if it doesn’t count, out it goes. It’s a harsh world out there in picture book land.

5 A simple little book Picture books are more layered, more collaborative, more painstakingly thought-through than any other book in publication, to my mind. Enough said. There you are, then. A few responses for the bevies of people who, when you tell them you’re writing a picture book, will look you brazenly in the eye and inform you that they’re going to write one too, the very next time they have three minutes to spare and the back of a beer mat to write on. Be proud. Stand up for picture books. And write them right.

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Laying out your book: Picture Book Format A very simple fact that many people do not appreciate about picture books is that they are all more or less the same length. This is to do with various printing requirements like how to fold paper and how to bind books and so on, and is rigorously applied across the board. That means that the publisher will not change the format to fit your story; rather, you will have to fit your story to the format. The basic principle is that picture books are 32 pages long. Some are shorter, and they are likely to be 16 pages long. A few – very few – are longer, and they are 42 pages long or if the writer is exceptionally lucky (or long-winded or unedited or self-published) they could get 64 pages long. You get the idea: they’re in multiples of 16, or possibly 8 for a tiny baby book with four objects, one on each page, and a mirror inside the back cover. The vast majority are made to the 32 page format, which means that you have less than 32 pages for your story. Some will be end papers (the pretty wallpaper-type pages that sit inside the cover), some will have acknowledgements on them, and one will be a title page. You could therefore end up with about 27 – 28 pages for your story, and every page has to be as fascinating, if not more, than the one that went before it. A couple of tips which may help you to think the format issues through: • Julia Donaldson, famed author of the Gruffalo and many other fabulous picture books, told me that when she’s coming up with a story, she likes to think in terms of having 12 Double Page Spreads (known as DPS in the trade) to play with. Stick to that as a guideline, and if you go a little bit over you’ll know that you’re not too far outside the normal bounds of the picture book format (see page 10). • Go the library or the bookshop (and, oo, can I encourage you as someone who will want this for yourself – do try to BUY as many books as you can! Picture books especially are treasured artifacts, and are a joy to have in your home. And you make the author very happy too). Find some picture books and count the pages. How has the author (and/or their designer) made the format work? • Make the format work for your story. Fold together 8 A4 pieces of paper to mock up a 32 page format. Remember a few will be used up for end papers and so on, and then try laying out your story on the page, noting what should go on the right hand page where you really want a page-turner (‘What do you think we’ll find when we turn over, Sammy? … How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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Oh!). How much text will you need to have on each page if you use 12 Double Page Spreads? Remember, less is better in picture book terms. Does that allow you to spread it out enough? Or do you need to look at your text again to cut it back in certain areas? What this little exercise really enables you to do is imagine your story (short or otherwise!) as a real picture book. Would it have the look, feel and rhythm of a picture book? It’s really quite a powerful exercise.

32 page picture book layout

Page 1 is stuck down to the boards

Endpaper

Endpaper

Prelims eg: Dedication

Title Page

1

2

3

4

5

Narrative starts here

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

And ends

22

23

Endpaper

30

24

25

26

27

28

29

Page 32 is stuck down to the boards

Endpaper

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32

Remember that this format leaves plenty of room for the illustrator to work their magic too. Don’t say in words what can be shown in the images. Which leads me to … How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

here

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Laying out your book: Illustration As mentioned, in a picture book it’s essential that the illustrations tell every bit as much of the story as the text. Try to leave a bit more to be ‘shown’ in the illustrations rather than ‘told’ through words. For instance, if you’ve described an expression or a setting, you might leave that to the illustrator to depict. You then have the added advantage of using fewer words – remember, you should be aiming at below 1000 words as a general guideline, and less if you can manage it. Example: Rather than tell the reader something by writing “Look at the great big giant popping up behind that hill. He’s even bigger than you, Granddad!” you could just show an astonished child and a terrified older person with some bigger-than-average creature lumbering out from behind a hill in the distance. Story told. If you still wanted the humour, you could put back the words, “He’s even bigger than you, Granddad!’. Here you have just served up a double whammy, because in that way the pictures tell one story and the text tells another: the illustration is about a fantasy adventure, while the text is about a boy’s belief that his grandfather is just the best person in the world – see what I mean about the layering? For a great example, read ‘Rosie’s Walk’ by Pat Hutchins. This aspect of picture books is another good reason to mock up your book beforehand, even if you do it by cutting images out of magazines and pasting them onto your eight folded pages. I am no kind of artist, but even I can manage to get a feel for the flow of a book with a few hasty sketches. Nobody else needs to know that, no, it’s not a potato, it’s a guinea pig. As with the text, you’re looking for moments or pages where there’s not much happening visually, or where all the filmic action is bunched up together. Another point about illustrations, then, is that they need to be varied. Bear in mind that you should have something different happening on each page in illustration terms. The pictures are going to need to be dynamic, story-telling in themselves, and we don’t get that if we just have an image of the same animal, for instance, on a different stage of his journey, which is something I see an awful lot of while I’m assessing picture books. Picture books are filmic, and they’re for children, so you can’t convey the beauty of Gordon the Guinea Pig’s character arc from sad to happy just by his facial expression. You are not looking for the picture book equivalent of an art-house film production, with wonderfully subtle performances, you’re after Indiana Jones – ie, something new would have

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to be happening to your character on each page, hopefully something exciting that will draw your young reader in. Perhaps the most important point about illustrations is that you do not need to find your own illustrator. Unless you are both writer and illustrator, in fact, it’s probably better not to suggest an illustrator to the publisher. The publishers prefer to do find the illustrator; they have stables of illustrators who know their house style and understand layout issues. Practiced artists don’t always make good illustrators – it’s a different craft, so please don’t assume that your friend/neighbour/partner who does fabulous paintings will automatically illustrate your book well. They may do, and there are several happy partnerships which work in this way. On the other hand, there may be many more unpublished picture books and a few broken relationships to boot … If you do go ahead with your own suggestions for an illustrator, you can present yourself with a problem. If, for instance, the publisher likes your story but doesn’t like the illustrations (or vice versa), they will possibly not bother to try to separate you. They all get many, many submissions and don’t need or want to work on that basis. That is not to say that you can’t suggest what the pictures may look like, in an artist’s brief or similar, and if your book goes into publication your publisher will discuss the choice of illustrator with you. The previous sentence, funnily enough, reminds me of the one critical piece of learning I’ve gone through since getting published, and it’s this: Publishing houses do actually know what they’re doing. In fact, they’re quite expert at it. To be honest, this was a bit of a surprise to me, as my opinion of them slumped in direct inverse proportion to the number of rejections I got. But it’s true. They’re good at what they do. For the picture book writer, this is actually a bit of a relief. It means that you don’t have to submit any ideas for illustrations if you prefer not to. I cannot tell you how much more vision Sam Childs brought to Kave-Tina Rox than I could ever have had myself. She didn’t just draw pictures that supported my words; she strengthened and embellished those words with her images; she added delights that I could never have foreseen; she actually grew the story. And I did not have any idea of Sam’s existence before Kave-Tina Rox was accepted by the publishing company. They knew what look they wanted for the book, they knew what Sam was capable of, and they put us How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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together. We have never met or even talked on the phone to this day, and yet to my mind this is as strong and symbiotic a partnership as any I’ve had in my entire working life. Overall this means that you have various options for how you submit your work to the publisher (or agent, if you’re going down that route). We’ll look at submission in the next section.

Laying out your book: Submitting your picture book Your picture book has to be presented to the publisher in the same way as any other manuscript. This means it will look slick and professional from the outset, and will encourage the publisher to take it seriously. This e-book is in manuscript form which is the way you submit your book – double spaced, not right justified, and in a simple font. You need to use a 12 point font of a clear text style, either Times New Roman, Ariel or Courier. Stick to the same one throughout, although it is fine to use differing sizes of text if, for instance, you’re putting in a page with only one onomatopoeic word on it, eg: BOOM! The options for submitting to the publisher are: • Write the story as one and send just that. The publisher can do everything else! • Write the story as one but add an artist’s brief at the end – a few words on what the illustrations might look like, who your chosen illustrator might be or what the overall style could be like. • Break it down as it might look in the picture book but without picture suggestions – eg. Page 5

Dedication

Page 6 – 7

Joanie fell over. BANG. It really hurt. And who would



save her now? Unless it was …

Page 8 – 9

… Gregory the Giant-Eating Glow-worm.

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• Break it down as it might look in the picture book and put in picture suggestions: Page 5

Dedication

Page 6 – 7

Joanie fell over. BANG. It really hurt. And who would



save her now? Unless it was …

(Joanie is lying terrified under a tree. We can’t see her feet.) Page 8 – 9

… Gregory the Giant-Eating Glow-worm.

(The page is flooded with light and we can just see Gregory’s eyes) • Text and illustrations together: If you are both the writer and the illustrator, then first of all, I take my hat off to you! There aren’t that many people around who are equally talented in both areas, and the few writer/illustrators who do both well can be extremely successful – eg. Lauren Child, Anthony Browne, Colin Thompson, to name but a few. I would suggest if you are going to send both text and illustrations that you do send a complete mock-up of the book, so the publisher can see your whole vision for the book. In addition, I would send a document with just the text on it so the commissioning editor can get the gist of your story and your illustrations in equal measure. And most importantly, don’t send off your originals! Make copies, and use those.

Writing your story: So far we’ve discussed some technical issues about the format of picture books, and the distribution between the words and the illustrations. You can have a picture book without any words at all, but I’m guessing that you’re more of a writer, and would like to add at least some text to the picture book.

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Writing your story: Language - Voice The first matter to consider before you start to write is the age of the intended reader (not the actual reader, remember, but the intended reader). Many people start out without considering this issue at all, and generally it’s to their detriment. As always, there are some exceptions - some people who instinctively pitch their language at exactly the right level, but most of us don’t. At least, not until we’ve had some practice. Yes, it is fine and sometimes commendable to stretch the child’s vocabulary, but are you in fact using adult language, which could serve to either patronize, confuse or both? Or are you relating a tale in beautifully honed three-year-old speak that’s actually about the second year at school? In that case, the language level does not tally with the subject matter. So these are two simple questions to ask yourself as you are writing: 1. Is the subject-matter age-appropriate? 2. Is the language age-appropriate? This is where you will start to see most clearly that the book for 2 to 8 year olds is a bit of a non-starter. What’s of interest to an eight year old, or a seven, six or five year old for that matter, is not in the realms of possibility for a two or even a three year old. And the language you would need to use to draw in a toddler audience would, frankly, be laughed out of school by today’s savvy sevens. What we are really discussing here is the issue of VOICE – your voice as an author (and yes, you are an author even if you are ‘just’ writing picture books!) is what will make you distinctive and popular. It’s also the consideration of those two questions above which will tell the publisher that you are a serious contender, that you understand the market you’re working towards, and that you have great ideas for how to converse with your intended audience. In fact, it should be a source of great satisfaction to find that the same book won’t work for three and seven year olds – look how many more options that gives you! On the subject of voice, it’s also worth noting what narrative voice you should probably choose to use. Without going into too much technical information, there are generally two forms of narrative voice used in picture books – the Third Person Limited and the First Person. Third Person Limited is the classic story-telling voice. It is the third person – he or she or sometimes they – and it is ‘limited’ to only one Point of View (POV). You never know anything about the story unless you are How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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seeing it from that person’s point of view. Think about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for instance. There are many, versions of this, but most are told from the Point of View of Goldilocks. What the bears are up to while she’s blundering around their house, we don’t really know. We don’t need to know. The story’s about Goldilocks. (By the way, the ‘Once Upon a Time’ piece that such stories often begin with is not Third Person Limited, but as long as you get quickly into the Limited POV then I won’t worry you with the technicalities of what this voice is! Long, drawn out descriptions of settings and characters are to be avoided anyway, in the interests of brevity and capturing the child’s interest straight away). I would recommend that you consider using the Third Person Limited for most of your picture books, particularly up to the age of five. There is a certain comfort for the child in hearing this traditional styling, and quite honestly it’s probably easier to write as we’re so familiar with it ourselves, again from these early beginnings. Just try to be aware of sticking to that one POV and not wandering off into someone else’s head; that changes the voice and makes it rather inaccessible to the child (intended) reader. I have mentioned, however, that it’s possible to use the First Person for picture books. Use of the First Person (where ‘I’ am telling the story) tends to be for older picture books, where there might be less of a strict adherence to the story and a bit more of the internal ramblings of the ‘I’ character. It is often used where the main character is a bit more cheeky, more adventurous and driving than in the mode of receiving a lesson, and a little older. I’ve used the First Person to tell Kave-Tina’s story, for instance, for all of the reasons above. For younger children, however, the First Person can be very confusing. If you recall, they are in that triangular reading relationship of actual reader, book, and intended reader. There are just to many ‘I’s in that equation for little minds to deal with, and it tends to interrupt the flow of the story for them if they’re having to stop and ask … “What, did you do that, Mummy?” and Mummy is fumbling for the answer. “No, no, darling, it was Jonty in the book.” “But you said ‘I’. Was that me, then?” “No, no, darling, it was Jonty in the book. Now where was I?” “But Mummy, this book’s

boooooring.” This simply means they’ve lost the thread, whereas if it had been written in the Third Person Limited they would have understood completely that Jonty was having an adventure and they were being allowed to take a peek at it. How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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Writing your story: Language - Tense You can use either past or present tense, but again as a general principle picture books are often best written in the traditional combination of third person limited and past tense:

Jonty woke up to find an enormous apple on his chest. “Goodness,” he said, because he’d heard all about healthy fruit. Instead of:

Jonty wakes up to find an enormous apple on his chest. “Goodness,” he says, because he’s heard all about healthy fruit. Present tense seems often to fit better with the first person – it’s a bit older, more involved with the character, and can add a sharper edge to a picture book in that older age range, but again, it’s perfectly fine to use the past tense.

Eg.1

I grab the hat, and stick it on, and off I fly! It’s fun being a witch.

Eg.2

I grabbed the hat, and stuck it on, and off I flew! It was fun



being a witch.

The best advice I can give you with regard to voice and tense is to experiment. Try it all four ways if you need to – 3PL past tense, 3PL present tense, 1P past tense, 1P present tense. One will just feel right, I can assure you, and you’ll be amazed at how your story blazes with life when you get the combination right.

She grabbed the pen, stuck it on the page, and off she flew! It was fun being a picture book writer.

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Writing your story: Language - Rhyme This one always sets people off. And I do understand why – many much beloved picture books are in rhyme. Children love it. They join in. They pound the pillow in time. It enables them to pretend they’re reading when they’ve no idea what words they’re actually pointing at. But … despite the fact that you see it in quite a few popular children’s books, publishers do not on the whole like books in rhyme. There are two reasons for this. The first is that there are very few people who can get it right, and when it’s done badly it’s very off-putting indeed. If you want to see it done correctly, then read Dr Seuss, Lynley Dodd, Julia Donaldson – and when I say read, I mean pore over them with the intensity of a forensic investigator. Their rhyme is impeccable. Impeccable. And why? Because they always have the right number of syllables in every line (often eight, sometimes six, but always, always consistent). Their rhyming words actually rhyme. And their rhyme progresses the story; it is never at the expense of it. If you really, really insist on using rhyme, these are the three factors to look with that same forensic vigour. I’ve seen them all done incorrectly, so many times I can’t bear to keep a proper tally, and there’s nothing more likely than badly-written rhyme to make me shudder and throw down my red pen in a sulk. Here goes: 1. Scanning This is about counting syllables, and making sure you have the same number of syllables and the right accents and stresses in each line. Take a look at this famous first stanza by Rudyard Kipling: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. First of all, note the pattern. The first, third, fifth and seventh lines are all the same length at eight syllables (or beats) each: I

keep

six

ho

nest serv ing men,

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The other lines are all exactly six syllables each: (They

taught

me

all

I

knew)

Many children’s books that are in rhyme use this same pattern. Many would-be picture book authors try to use it and can’t! I often write on assessments the words ‘doesn’t scan’, by which I mean that the syllable count isn’t the same, and/or the stress or accent is the wrong place. Now, I’m not suggesting that you become all Shakespearian and start using iambic pentameter or anything, but the above is a simple pattern and it shouldn’t be too difficult to make sure you can count out the beats in a similar way. What I find that people often do is to think that a word will work in the pattern because of the way they say it themselves. Once it’s written down, however, unless you tell the reader how to say it, or get them so well established in the pattern that they do it automatically, then the rhythm will be completely out. By way of example, read the line: I can’t do the washing up. It has seven syllables, and the stresses at the moment would be on “I” and “do”, as in I can’t Do the washing up. That would be fine if that was what the writer intended, but it does mean the line is too short if it’s in an eight-and-six syllable pattern – you’d need an ‘and’ on the end to make it scan or something. And what if the writer actually vocalizes it differently and what they’re imagining the reader saying is “I CAN’T do the washing up”? This would change the emphasis entirely, and the writer is hoping that the reader understands they’re meant to say ‘can’t’ over two beats, as a two-syllable word when in fact it’s only one. To make this evident to the reader, and make a successful eight-syllable line, the writer could say: I ca-an’t do the washing up. Or better yet: “I cannot do the washing up.” As in: I cannot do the washing up – My arms are tired, I’ll smash a cup. How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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Instead of I can’t do the washing up – My arms are tired, I’ll smash a cup. Hear the difference? See the difference? It may seem like a tiny matter, and that I’m hammering the point home somewhat, but I can’t overstate how important it is to get it right or you will throw out the whole rhythm. Put both hands out in front of you, bend your fingers in time, and count those syllables!

2. Rhyming Let’s look again at that Kipling piece: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. The last word of every other line rhymes. This may sound obvious, but I will say it again: the last word of every alternate line rhymes. Men rhymes with When. Knew rhymes with Who. Sea and Me and West and Rest also rhyme. I mean, they actually rhyme as in they have exactly the same sound and ending. You can play with this a little once you get confident with it, to be fair, but you cannot have two words that only sort of rhyme, like ‘when’ and ‘can’, or ‘west’ and ‘thirst’. It just won’t work, especially for small children. On a special note to writers in my wonderful homeland of New Zealand, and other places that have specific accents, you’ll need to know and note how words are pronounced in most places so as not to contort your rhyme. Particular NZ examples would be that ‘hair’ cannot be rhymed with ‘peer’, and ‘bed’ does not rhyme with ‘feared’. This is just another of those dangers of assuming the reader will speak the words the way you imagine them or say them yourself.

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3. Story In Kipling’s poem (and this is only the first verse!) the rhyme serves the story, not the other way round. Quite often I have seen writers create a circumstance or character just so that they could make the rhyme work. Ouch. Ahem. I may have rather laboured the point, but you’ll see that this is an issue that’s close to my heart (to rhyme with ‘art’). It’s close to many publishers’ hearts too, and for all of the above reasons, and also because rhyme is much more difficult to translate so they may not be able to make overseas sales in foreign languages. Personally I’d avoid rhyme, unless your surname is Seuss. There are just as many brilliant picture books in prose as there are in rhyme … So, these are some of the considerations about how to write a picture book, which comes down to thinking about who’s going to be reading it and what they will enjoy in terms of language and voice. The other consideration, then, is what to write.

Writing your story: Story - Subject matter You can write about whatever you want to, of course. (Please, please, remember that you are always free to write about whatever you want to. I am only discussing here what is likely to make your book more publishable). Aliens, fish and chips, talking teddy bears … they’re all fair game in picture books. A couple of things you’ll need to consider are: Is the subject matter right for the age group? Children do go through phases, as you are no doubt aware, and some of them do have a gender bias unless you’re discussing universal themes like emotions or school Boys tend to go through a bug phase, a dinosaur phase, and perhaps a big trucks or a rockets-and-space phase. Then for some reason they develop a love of bodily functions and the fairly gross. Babette Cole is one picture book author who has grasped this fact extremely well and made it her own personal success story!

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Girls go through cuddly animals, dressing-up, and fairies and mermaids. I know we don’t necessarily approve of this, but many a parent (me included) has been shocked to discover that despite their best efforts their child does indeed fit the stereotype. It’s no accident, then, that there are heaps of books about dinosaurs, monsters, fairies and mermaids … going to school … finding a friend … missing your mummy. This leads me to the other question to flag up in your mind when you’re pondering your subject matter – is your version

different enough. I do feel that this may be the reason that books about talking animals get turned down – it’s just been done before. Most ideas have been done before, however. It’s almost impossible to come up with a completely original idea that does not touch in any way on any other story. Experts have analysed that there are really only five to seven stories in the history of stories, and all we are doing are rewriting them in our own way. That’s okay. Work with it. It will make life much easier as an author. And besides, children and publishers do like the familiar – they just don’t like facsimiles. Everyone hates a copy cat. Think it through. You loved fairy stories, and your children (even the boys) loved fairy stories too. An idea has been pickling in your brain for decades, and it has to come out. Okay. That’s fine. There will always be books about fairies, but there are a lot out there already. It’s fine to want to write about fairies, but what is going to make your fairy story stand out from the rest? Here’s yet another reason why it makes absolute sense to go and stand in front of the picture book shelves in your local bookshop. Don’t just rely on your own personal favourites from childhood, or even your children’s or grandchilden’s childhoods. If you’re anything like me, there have been an awful lot of new books published since my daughter was reading picture books, and since I was a child … Ugh. Wouldn’t like to say. Discover first hand what is being published now. Ask the bookseller or librarian what’s popular with the kids themselves. Then work out how you could make yours different. Ahem, dare we say …. Even better? And go on, buy a couple while you’re there.

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Writing your story: Story - Structure/Plotting When I interviewed the author Anne Fine, I asked what she’d learned along the way. She told me: “I wish I’d discovered earlier on that children’s books need a beginning, a middle and an end. In that order.” This is especially true of picture books. They might, in fact, have two endings – the actual end and then the ‘twist’ which is often in the final illustration. This is a fun way to create a bit of extra magic in a picture book, and one of the greatest joys of having illustrations to tell your story as well as words. That last sneaky picture is often the one that has the child guffawing, or the publisher saying, “Ah yes.” In general terms, however, whatever story you choose to tell needs a beginning, at the beginning, and a middle in the middle, and an ending (or two) at the end. The subject matter for the story you choose will by now, I’m sure, be appropriate and gripping for the age of the intended reader. You’ve got your marvellous idea, so how should you plot it? You might not think that there is much plot to a picture book, but there is definitely a structure that works very well. A wonderful example is “The Little Tractor” by Joy Cowley, but you can see it in many picture books and in lots of traditional fairy tales. I call it ‘the Three Little Pigs theory.’ Just as a reminder of what happens in the Three Little Pigs: The pigs set off together to find new homes. Pig 1 builds a house of straw, which is blown down by the wolf. He joins Pig 2. Pig 2 builds a house of sticks, which is again blown down the wolf. They join Pig 3. Pig 3 builds a house of bricks, which the wolf can’t blow down. But he comes down the chimney, so they boil/smoke/burn him out. The wolf disappears, they all live together again in the brick house. Visually, it looks something like this: Home

Straw

Sticks

Bricks CHIMNEY

HOME

Ie. We have a beginning with a catalyst or inciting incident (they leave home), they have three peaks of activity, each slightly bigger than the previous one, and then they have the final showdown or denouement in the ‘chimney’ event, and then with pleasing circularity we have a calm down period where they end up almost as they were in the beginning, although while it might look like nothing has changed, in fact everything has changed. They have got what they want. Note, also, how well the ‘power of 3’ works in picture books – three How to Write a Picture Book © Jill Marshall 2009

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pigs, three houses, even a rhythmic three in the wolf’s “I’ll HUFF, and I’ll PUFF, and I’ll BLOW THE HOUSE DOWN.” Things in threes proliferate throughout literature and art in general – just try looking out for it now and you’ll see this everywhere. I use this structure for all of my books, from picture books through to adult novels. For me, it tends to happen naturally these days, but I am still known to sketch out a graph or two to check that I have peaks and troughs, three incidents growing in intensity, and then a huge ‘chimney’ event to tie everything together. After the circular ending, with picture books you can throw in a little something extra. As mentioned before, this might be in illustration only, or it might be a throwaway line from the main character. If you sense that something’s not quite working, try graphing it out as above. Put the ‘drama’ level up the left hand axis, and then your incidents or even your pages along the bottom axis. Then chart it out. You’ll be amazed at what you discover – long sections in the middle where nothing much is happening; a huge incident at the beginning followed by two smaller ones and nothing much in the way of a ‘chimney’; no chimney at all … Then as always, of course, go and buy (yes, BUY) some picture books and see how many of them follow this structure for the most part. Some of my favourites most definitely do: the award-nominated book by Melinda Scymanik called ‘The Were-Nana’; Where the Wild Things Are; The Gruffalo, and naturally ‘Kave-Tina Rox’.

Writing your story: Story - Characters Put simply, children relate best to other children. Even anthropomorphic animals or aliens or talking vegetables need to be children rather than adults. Books that focus too much on the ‘adult’ story tend to confuse and bore smaller children – they want to know how the child deals with the dilemma in a way that can give them some feeling of kinship, or even an idea of how they might react in the same situation. And on the issue of anthropomorphic animals, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but a lot of publishers don’t like talking animals! This is partly because they’ve had a glut of them as discussed in the ‘subject matter’

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section, and also because they can be difficult for a child to connect with. For the most part, it’s because the book is too dependent on the cuteness of the creature, and the writing or story isn’t necessarily that strong. There is always something to buck the trend, of course, and it’s really just something to keep in mind if you find your manuscript is rejected and you’re not sure why. It could be quite simply that talking animals are not ‘in’ right now. Recent trends do bend towards the quirky and funny with a twist at the end, rather than the moralistic and familiar – keep your animal a little different, and write it really well, and even with a cuddly buddy as your main character you could still be in with a chance.

Tying it all together: Presentation I’ve already covered the ways you might send in your beautiful picture book to the publisher. Here are a few more suggestions to make it still more beautiful. We’re down to the fine detail now, but every little helps, and editors see so many manuscripts that it’s a joy – trust me - to find one that is well punctuated and so on. It could be the deciding factor, so whatever you can do to get it all right, be it begging your mum to check it over, looking up your old English teacher, or employing a proof reader, I hope you’ll seriously consider it. • Each new paragraph must either be indented (tab), in which case you

don’t miss a line between paragraphs, or not indented but you do miss



a line between paragraphs.

• New speakers should always start a new paragraph, following the rule

above – ie indent if that’s what you’re doing, or miss a line before



starting the new piece of dialogue.

• Dialogue must be correctly punctuated. Always put your comma,

ellipses, full stops etc BEFORE the closing quotation marks. Never use



a full stop before ‘he said’ or ‘Fred commented’. You can use either



single or double quotation marks, but make sure you’re consistent



with them, and if you’re using doubles, you open with “ and close with



…”

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Tying it all together: Example Just so you can see how it might be done, I’ve included an unpublished picture book of mine, for five to six year olds. I’m very fond of Chewy Lewie, as he’s based on my own dog, but note that the main character is the boy, not the hound! Wordcount is just over 600.

Title

Chewy Lewie

Page 1

Cover Page

Page 2-3

End Papers

Page 4

Prelims: Dedication

Page 5

Title Page

Page 6

Chewy Lewie was my mad, bad puppy.



I loved him a LOT.



But …

Page 7

Chewy Lewie was always nibbling things.



Sometimes he chewed …

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Page 8

… until there was nothing left.

Page 9

He chewed newspapers before Mummy read them.



Tables as we were eating.

Page 10

He even chewed the curtains. Right to the top!

Page 11

“That’s it!” cried Mummy. “That mad, bad puppy has



to stop! Or…”

Page 12

“… he’ll have to go!”



I didn’t want him to go.



He might be mad and he might be bad. But he was



mine.



And I loved him a LOT.

Page 13

We sat in the kitchen for a chat.



“Chewy Lewie, you must stop chewing!” I told him.



But he wasn’t listening.



He was too busy munching my shoe.

Page 14

“No, Chewy Lewie! No!” I said. “Not my shoe!”



Chewy Lewie wagged his tail.



We buried the shoe at the bottom of the kitchen bin.

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Page 15

“What happened to your shoe?” asked Mummy.



“I lost it,” I said.



Chewy Lewie wagged his tail.



“Are you sure it wasn’t Chewy Lewie, that mad, bad



puppy?” asked Mummy.

Page 16

“No,” I gulped. “It was me.”

Page 17

“Hmmmmm,” said Mummy. “I don’t like puppies who



chew. But even worse are little boys who tell lies.



Go and play in your bedroom.”

Page 18

“Now I’m in trouble too!” I said. “Chewy Lewie, you



must stop chewing!”



But Chewy Lewie wasn’t listening.



He was too busy chomping on my best jumper.

Page 19

“No, Chewy Lewie! No!” I said. “Not my best jumper!”



Chewy Lewie wagged his tail.



We hid the jumper at the bottom of the linen basket.

Page 20

But Mummy soon found it. “What happened to your



best jumper?”



“I caught it on a nail,” I squeaked.



“Are you sure it wasn’t Chewy Lewie, that mad, bad



puppy?” asked Mummy.



“No,” I said. “It was me.”

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Page 21

“Hmmmmm,” said Mummy. “Now, I don’t like puppies



who chew. But even worse are little boys who tell lies.



And hide things from their mummy.



Now go and play in the garden.”

Page 22

“Now I’m in even more trouble!” I said. “Chewy



Lewie, you must stop chewing!”



But Chewy Lewie wasn’t listening.



He was too busy biting…

Page 23

… the postman’s leg.

Page 24

The postman ran in the shed and locked himself in.



Chewy Lewie didn’t wag his tail.



And he didn’t keep chewing.



He stayed at the shed door, growling.

Page 25

“What’s happened to your dog?” asked Mummy.



“He chewed the leg of the postman who’s locked



imself in the shed,” I said.



“The postman’s locked in the shed?” asked Mummy.



“Yes,” I said.

Page 26

Hmmmmm,” said Mummy. “I don’t like puppies who



chew. But even worse are little boys who tell lies. And



hide things. And tell their mummy stories to stay out



of trouble.”

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Page 27

“But I’m not!” I said.



“You must be!” said Mummy. “The postman doesn’t



come on Sundays!”



“So who’s that in the shed?” I asked.

Page 28

It was Back-Fence Benny, the famous garden burglar.



“That’s a very good, clever dog you’ve got there!” said



the policeman who came to fetch Benny. “Would he



like to come and work with me?”



Chewy Lewie wagged his tail.



“No, Chewy Lewie! No!” I said.

Page 30

“No, Officer,” smiled Mummy. “That’s Chewy Lewie,



our mad, bad puppy. And he belongs right here with



us.”



But Chewy Lewie wasn’t listening.



He was too busy chewing…

Page 31

… his special thank-you bone.



He’s still my mad, bad puppy.



And we love him a LOT.



The end

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The end So here we have it, the second ending to the picture book book! I do hope that I’ve answered a few of your questions, helped you on your way, and encouraged you to set out confidently on your way to writing the next great picture book series. And if you need more help, I’m still here. Just like that old book on the shelf. In the meantime, I wish you extremely happy writing and much success with your picture books.

Jill Marshall www.writegoodstuff.co.nz www.jillmarshall.co.nz The very end. x

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