Picture Book University: Week 7

Time to look at your stories again with the following tips in mind:

Week 7 Day 1: Is there anything in my story that will become dated soon?

Unless your story is historical fiction, and you want to set it in a specific time, it is best not to insert references that will soon become old. (For example, mentioning a current popular rock star, TV show, or fad.) If you’re going to make a cultural allusion, invent one that sounds like it could be timeless. Or use one that is timeless. Otherwise, your story will soon grow old. In fact, by the time it comes out it will probably already be out of date.

Week 7 Day 2: Is the vocabulary appropriate for the targeted audience?

You can have words in your story that the child does not know, but they should be comprehensible in context. Putting in new words is a good thing to do; it is how children learn vocabulary. But they must be words that do not stop the story. When children come to the words, they should understand the meaning by the context, what is going on in the story. The adult reader should not have to stop the reading and explain the vocabulary to them. So, a few carefully chosen words, in the proper context, are useful, but don’t overdo it.

Week 7 Day 3: Are there any sections that are unbalanced? Too long? Too short?

One way you can tell if your book is unbalanced is to draw a chart of each section, separating your story into pages. If you can visually see where the text fits and how much there is in each scene, you can more easily tell if you have a scene that’s too heavy, too long, or that has too much text for the amount of illustration possibilities. You will be able to see if the story stops at some point while the character preaches or rambles. You will also be able to see where the story bogs down with events that do not move the story forward.

Week 7 Day 4: Are my characters different from one another?

Each character in your story needs to be instantly identifiable through their mannerisms, their voice, their names and their appearance. They should all be clear and individual–unless you are going for an effect of confusion such as a story about twins or confused identities, or if you’re establishing a Greek chorus. Otherwise, your characters need to be individuals. This way, as readers read through the story, they are never confused about who is doing what.

Week 7 Day 5: Is my plot more than just average? Are there other books that do what mine does? Is mine better? More interesting?

It is not good enough for your manuscript to be good. An editor sees many, many good manuscripts every day. A good manuscript will not stand out, will not get attention, and will not sell itself to the publisher. So if your manuscript is good and competent, look again. Is there some way you can crank up the conflict? Some way that you can make it more interesting? Is there another dimension you can add to it? Are the words as powerful as they could be? Is there something you can do to the story to make it stand out, to make it more than just good? With as many stories as editors read, yours has to have something that makes the editor say, “I have never seen that before. I like that.”