Picture Book University: Week 4

Now that you have a draft of your story, it’s time to revise it, to take it from good to brilliant.  This week we’ll ask some questions that will make your story better.

Look at your story again, with each of these questions in mind.  Then revise your draft. You do have a draft done don’t you?

If you don’t, that’s okay. Keep these questions in mind while you write your first draft.

(One caution:  keep in mind as you learn the rules of picture book writing that there are exceptions to every rule except for the rule that there are exceptions to every rule. But in order to effectively break a rule, it is best for you to understand the rule you are breaking.)

Week 4 Day 1: Does the book begin in the right place?  Do I get right into my story?

You don’t have a lot of time in a picture book to ramble. Your beginning should set up the character, the conflict, the setting. It should get you right into the action.

There are exceptions of course, but even if it doesn’t jump right into the action, the beginning needs to mean something.  It needs to be essential to what’s going on, to what is going to happen later on.

Week 4 Day 2: Is the story told from a child’s perspective?

Kids like reading about kids, they relate better to kids. The point of view, the narrator, should all be something the child reader can relate to.

Part of being from the child’s perspective is the way you handle the themes. There are some themes that only an adult would understand. For example, the picture book Love You Forever is a book where the message, the theme, resonates more powerfully with a mother or grandmother, someone who has been through the mothering process. Books about the joy of parenting might not usually be something that kids relate to. Books about the joy of being a child, and having a parent, however…

So your story should feel true to a child’s perspective, what they think, how they would respond, what they are interested in.

Week 4 Day 3: Does my main character solve the problem?

There are two reasons why you should have the child, the main character of the story, solve the problem.

Firstl, because it is more interesting to the reader. They like to know what kids like themselves are doing. They’re more interested in what a child has to say about an issue than what an adult has to say.

Second, because one of the purposes of reading is to learn how to solve problems on your own, how to get through the next era of life. If you have a child protagonist solve their own problems, you’ve modeled to the reader how they can also solve their own problems. Though it’s a fact that many problems can be solved if a child will listen to an adult, a wise older person, the reality is most of what we learn we learn through our own efforts, through trial and error, most of our problems are solved by ourselves. So having the child protagonist solve the problem helps the child reader learn how they can solve the same types of problems as they come to them.

Week 4 Day 4: Is the story patronizing or preachy?

A story can have a message. In fact, most stories have a message. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s blatant. Its effectiveness–whether the message will get through–depends on many factors, one of which is whether it sounds like you are preaching to them. How do you preach instead of teach or affect the child positively in another way? Preachy stories tell, they don’t show. In a good message story, the message will come out of the story. It does not need to be restated.

A good message story will have more going for it than just some message. It will fun, it will be engaging. It will be a story worth reading in its own right, separate from the message.

Patronizing? A patronizing story is one that has the feel of an adult preaching down to the child, saying, “I am older and wiser than you, so you listen, and I will tell you all about life.” It does not treat the child with respect. It does not consider the child an intelligent being, but rather one who is intellectually and morally inferior to the narrating adult.

One way that stories patronize or preach is through the means by which the message is presented. How does a child learn the lesson in this story? Have they been told the lesson by a wise adult? Preachy. Do they discover the lesson through their own means? Not preachy.

Week 4 Day 5: Is my story too long?

The average picture book story is 400-600 words long. But that’s just a rule of thumb. Some stories are zero words, some 2,000 words.

How long is too long? That depends on the story. There are very short stories that are too long, because even in their shortness, they don’t have enough substance to carry it, and they have words that are meaningless, that don’t carry their weight. Long stories, are more easily too long, of course. But if every word is just right, if the plot moves quickly, if it works together as a whole, it might not be too long. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is a long story, but it is not too long. Most fairytales are long, but they are not too long. So, is your story too long? If it is over 600 words, look at it very closely.

In fact, no matter its length, look at it very closely. Are there words that can be taken out? Are there phrases that can be condensed and be made more powerful? Are there any scenes that don’t carry their weight? If so, your story is too long.