Writing Advice

If you want to write a picture book, read this or die!

James Tyley 10/10/24 James Tyley 10/10/24

Writing Picture Books

Books for young children are usually short. Young children aged 0-7 are themselves short. This leads to an assumption that children have small brains and writing for them is easy. The reverse it true. Young children have active, lively brains, and writing for them is difficult.

Only the best is good enough—the best words in the best places, and the best characters in the best stories.

The essence

Classic stories have the quality of ‘difference.’ They are here today, here tomorrow, and here the day after.

They have:

A universal theme that speaks to any child in the world
Characters readers care about
Trouble (if it’s a story)
Strange, original, or unexpected use of language
Perfect words in syllabically perfect places
The delight of happiness
No preaching or teaching
An impact that affects the heart
Rhyme, rhythm or repetition, or all three
Children saying: ‘Read it again! Read it again!’ at the end of the book.

Ideas

The best ideas, in my experience, don’t come from our heads. They come from our immediate lives, or from our memories. Emotion is the key.

Stories created solely from the imagination have a flatness about them. They’re often about things that don’t matter much. They’re here today and gone tomorrow. No one remembers them into adulthood.

When we read the classic stories that make us laugh or cry, or shiver or feel happy, it is my hunch that we could track the main idea down to a pivotal moment in the writer’s life—or several pivotal moments.

So, write from the compost of your own life: your feelings, experiences, hopes, joys, disappointments, and so on. If you do that, the reader will be able to connect with your story because it will be based on the authenticity of universal understandings.

To find an event that might be a good basis for a story it’s useful to write down a strong emotional experience remembered from childhood or even recently. Start writing with that event in mind. That way, the first draft won’t be drawn entirely from the imagination, and it will mean you’re off to a good, heart-felt start..

In order to write, first you have to have lived. Only in rare circumstances will young writers be published. So, if you’re under 23, think hard about doing something else for a while until you’ve experienced many more books, people, events, situations and emotions and … words.

A child’s heart should be changed between the first word and the final word. A heart that stays the same is the sign of a book that will fail.

Characters

If readers and listeners don’t care about the characters, or empathise and feel for them, the story will fail.

A picture book with a story (as opposed to a rhyme-and-rhythm book) needs well-drawn characters whose highs and lows and final triumph tug at the heartstrings of readers and listeners.

A famous maxim for writers is: ‘Show, don’t tell.’ So, rather than describing, explaining, stating, and enumerating, we need to show what’s happening and how characters feel about what’s happening, through what they say and what they do.

Themes

Trouble isn’t necessary in short rhyming, rhythmic, repetitive picture books such as Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, and Whoever You Are, both of which have the theme of the sameness of humans around the round the world.

However, in a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, if there’s no trouble, there’s no story.

There will be a theme within that trouble, such as: ‘Big brothers are a pain.’ Or: ‘Will I make friends when I move house?’ Or: ‘Does my mother love me as much as she loves my siblings?’ Or: ‘What if lose a big game?’

Passion

To ensure we have something worthwhile to say we can test ourselves by asking ‘Is this a so-what?’ story, or will it be around forever?’

Sadly, many stories are ‘so what?’ stories, which is why so few picture books are published

Rhythm

Rhythm is the festering sore in imperfect drafts. It must be cured, totally.

Spend time on the rhythm of the first and last lines. The first sentence grabs and holds the listeners and readers. The last provides a sense of deep contentment.

The amateur writer believes rhythm can be almost right, but ‘almost’ is never good enough. Only perfect rhythm will do, and only reading aloud will show us whether the rhythm is perfect.

Rhythm needs to be in the marrow of your bones if you’re thinking of writing a picture book. I don’t mean rhymes, necessarily. I mean the perfect placement of syllables anywhere in a prose sentence, or in verse.

You’ll hear the perfection or lack of it when you read aloud what you have written.

I advise learning by heart something from Dr Seuss, Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible, A.A. Milne or anything else in which the rhythm of the language is perfect. Get the gut-feeling of rhythm into your writing soul.

Syllable problems are solved by choosing a different word: a three-syllable word instead of a one-syllable word; or a two-syllable word instead of a three-syllable word.

Gustave Flaubert said: ‘All writing talent lies, after all, only in the choice of words.’

Rhyme

It is foolhardy to write a story with a plot (i.e. a text with a beginning, middle and end) in rhyme. Rhyme is fine and very good in books like Time for Bed, and Where is the Green Sheep? since neither is a ‘story’: the words aren’t accommodating a plot.

Rhyming stories are nearly always rejected by publishers because most would-be writers don’t know how to achieve the right number of beats in a sentence.

Repetition

My advice on repetition is: Go for it!

Children love repetition. It helps them remember the words. They love because it’s so predictable and safe, and they can join in.

Length

The biggest fault of wannabe picture-book writers is to write too much. Over 500 words means alarm bells should be ringing. I admit that Possum Magic is 502 words and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridgeis 629 words, but they are exceptions to the general rule. Where Is the Green Sheep? is 190 words.

A picture book is 32 pages. In printing, the pages are folded in half, then in 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, which is why the compulsory 32-page format exists.

Half the pages are pictures, so try to keep the word-count to a minimum and don’t explain anything that will be made obvious in the artwork.

When you’re drafting a picture book it’s useful to make your own 32-page mock-book, called ‘a dummy’, by copying all the features of a real picture book, such as the endpapers, the title page, dedication and publishing information page, and so on. The text of the story begins on page 3, a right-hand page.

Putting the text on each page will enable you to see how the page-turns pan out. The page-turns are crucial to success, especially the final turn between page 31 (right-hand page) and page 32 (left-hand page).

Your best friends are the ‘cut’ and ‘delete’ keys on your computer. At any time, you can probably cut much of what you have written, crushing though that is.

Cut as much as you can from the beginning of the text. Put your hand over the first paragraph and see if you can start on the second paragraph. If you can, try cutting that one also, and start on the third paragraph.

Why Read Aloud?

We’re writing a book to be read aloud so we ought to be reading aloud what we have written, all the time—each paragraph, each sentence, each clause and phrase, over and over again. Read from the top every so often to assess the smoothness (or not) of the story so far.

Write in total silence because you’re creating music. If there’s a fly buzzing in the room, kill it. You have to hear the lilt of the words in your head, and then hear them read aloud. Read your drafts aloud a lot.

The words in every phrase or sentence have to be able to be read with syllabic ease.

The readers of our words should never stumble or have to re-read; neither will they jerk over the words, gabble, or fumble.

Revision

Don’t be too discouraged over drafts that aren’t working. Why the hurry to be finished?

A picture book of 500 words may take two years or more to perfect and may have 40 drafts or more.

Put away the draft of a story that’s not working. Leave it alone for months. A fresh eye will reveal its faults immediately.

An essential quality in a writer is the ability to be dissatisfied with what she or he has written.

Dissatisfaction is the necessary discomfort that will lead us back to our manuscript to attempt yet another draft.

The least effective writers are the most immediately satisfied. They don’t understand the need for dissatisfaction, nor do they know what to be dissatisfied about.

Good writing has been re-written. Many times.

Good writing is full of surprises.

Good writing is correct. 

Good writing adds to our quality of life by revealing life to us. 

Handwrite or type?

Writing on paper makes it easier to see the text/story as a whole, easier to edit, easier to put arrows to where a piece of text might be better placed, and so on. Writing on paper also means you always a have copy of what you have written.

If you only type, make sure you print every single draft. Some of what you delete at one point may later be remembered to have been brilliant and perfect, and you’ll kick yourself if you have lost it.

What does it cost?

The only cost to a writer of getting a book published is— or should be— the initial cost of mailing the manuscript to an agent or publisher; or no cost at all, by emailing it. All the other costs are borne by the publisher. The writer is never out of pocket.

If a publisher asks you to pay for any part of the publication, such as the art, or the lay out, or the printing, you’re with the wrong publisher.

Self-publishing or not?

The decision to self-publish is yours, and yours alone, so the following advice can be taken or ignored, as you see fit...

Personally, I advise you that you don’t, under any circumstances, contemplate self-publishing, unless it’s only a few copies for your immediate family and friends. You’re likely to end up with a nasty debt and a shed full of un-sold books.

Self-publishing provides no market-research, no distribution, no publicity, no marketing, no warehousing, no advertising, and very few buyers.

Bookshops rarely buy books that established publishers haven’t endorsed. They don’t trust self-published books as they know they haven’t been ruthlessly edited or professionally designed and illustrated.

The artwork

Unless you’re an art-school-trained picture book illustrator don’t even think about doing the pictures yourself, even if you call yourself ‘an artist.’

Also, it’s pointless finding your own artist. Don’t do it. The publisher will choose the illustrator, according to the theme and tone of the text.

You will have little or nothing to do with the illustrator. You many never meet her or him. Don’t interfere. Let them get on with the job since they have the talent, not you.

If you send original art with your story, the publisher will probably reject the pictures that have been executed so painstakingly by a talented friend, but they may love your story. And then who rewards the artist financially for the time he or she has wasted doing your book? It’s not fair on the artist.

Of course, if you’re already a trained picture book artist and you are also the author, then send everything you have created.

Agents

It’s crazy not to have an agent to guide you through the intricate bastardry of publishing contracts.

Agents prevent you from being exploited and scammed.

An agent will take 10-20% of your earnings in commission. It may seem a lot, and even unfair to the uninitiated, but they work hard for the best publishing deal for you since the best deal for you provides them with more commission.

They’re worth their weight in gold. They fight for you all the way.

Find an agent through Google.

Editors

Once your book has been accepted, you’ll be assigned an editor. She or he may ask you to make many changes. If you’re lucky you may sit side by side with your editor and work together closely.

The book you sent in will not be the same as the book that’s finally published. After it’s been worked on by an editor it will be much better! Editors know best. Don’t argue with them too much. They have vast experience, and they do know what’s best.

On the other hand, don’t give in to their every suggestion, every time. You are a writer, after all.

Now what?

Send your manuscript by mail or email—it shouldn’t be more than three pages of typing in 12 font, double spaced—to one editor at a time, or to an agent if you can find one who will take you on.

Don’t be cute in your covering letter or email. It drives editors wild, and anyway they’re not influenced by it. Just say you have enclosed a story for consideration, with the date, your name and your contact details.

You may have to wait up to three months for a reply.

Rejection

Rejections from publishers are devastating. They send a message that the book isn’t ready and needs more thought. You have to be resilient.

Many a famous author has been turned down over and over again before becoming an ‘overnight’ success, so don’t be too discouraged.

Possum Magic was rejected nine times over five years before it became a publishing phenomenon.

Do bear in mind the dreadful statistic that 97% of picture books written by eager writers are never published.

(Perhaps they didn’t read my hints first. Hmmm.)

Earnings

A picture book writer earns half the royalties. The other half goes to the illustrator. Typical royalties on a picture book are 10% of the recommended retail price, shared equally between the writer and illustrator. So if a book sells for $20 the writer will receive 5%: a dollar for each book sold. Royalties can rise to 12.5% if a book sells well.

Writers are paid twice a year, six months apart, such as in September and March. Writers pay at least 10%‑15% to their literary agent. They also pay taxes. In the end it’s never even $1 dollar per $20 book, it’s much less.

This adds up to the fact that most writers don’t become millionaires. Just saying…