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by Casey Girard
My journey to conceiving my own picture book ideas began when I graduated college as an illustrator. I had my portfolio; I was all ready to go find an author in need. When I got to my first conference I was immediately asked, do you write? I was at a loss. I knew I loved illustrating stories but I figured my job was to illustrate other people’s ideas. Seven years later, many more conferences attended, hundreds of children’s books read, numerous illustrations finished, and much time spent being involved in children’s publishing, I have found the stories I want to write.
At the beginning of creating my own stories, I was overwhelmed. My biggest hurdle was observing the plethora of picture books already out there and then realizing that there was room for mine. I started with thinking about how many books I wanted to read. Most people have to-read lists that will never be finished and that’s how they want it. So, add in that there are an infinite number of stories to be told because life changes constantly and revelations about the world are made every minute, new stories are born every single day with readers waiting to read them.
Getting past fears and doubts let me free to accept and explore my ideas. If you are excited by something, don’t be afraid and don’t doubt your ability to make it into a good picture book. Your voice is unique and you will tell your story in a way that connects with someone else. You can never give up on it and you can never give up on yourself. Don’t let fear hold you back. Work on your craft, give the idea you can’t help but write all the love and time it needs to grow into a publishable book, and you will succeed.
Don’t be afraid:
- To accept your idea
- To start
- To change
- To challenge yourself
- To tackle the story that you love no matter how crazy you think it will seem to others
- To ask for help
- That your idea isn’t worth it
If you love your idea and believe in it as a picture book others will, too.
Casey Girard is a freelance illustrator/designer. She has worked with two authors, illustrating their self-published books, NATTY & RINGO and I LOVE YOU EVERY SECOND. She recently became the Illustrator Coordinator for the New England SCBWI. She recently co-founded the blog Picture This, a site all things picture book art, links, quotes, videos, articles, news, events and more. Stop by for some inspiration. To see more of her work visit her blog – caseyg.com, where she runs two weekly themed posts: Matt’s Choice and Wednesday Animal. You can also find her on Twitter, @CaseyGirard.
Casey is giving away three letters of your choice from her illustrated alphabet. Only the X isn’t available. Leave a comment to enter and a winner will be randomly selected one week from today.
by There’s one thing you should know about me right upfront: I love making lists. There’s something that I find both focusing and freeing about having to crystallize my thoughts into this form; while I might not cover everything there is to say on the given subject, just the act of making the list helps me focus on the things I feel are most vital.
So, picture books. During these grand days of PiBoIdMo goodness, I’ve been giving a lot to the form. Certainly they are a big part of my life: I write them, I read them, I sell them (for my authors). But what pushes a text from a short story into a perfectly crafted masterpiece? Editors are not looking for something that’s just sweet, or nice, or passable. And I’m not either. Texts like these would very likely have sold five or ten years ago. But nowadays? The bar is a lot higher.
Which leads me very nicely to my list. What makes a picture book text stand out from the pack? What kinds of stories should you be crafting? What are my top tips and most targeted advice for perfecting the craft of writing picture books? Read on to find out!
1. Think outside the box.
The beauty of events like PiBoIdMo is that they focus the power of volume. “Quality not quantity,” the adage goes—but sometimes, it takes quantity to find that quality. It’s the old familiar brainstorming routine, whereby the free-flow of ideas stirs up the mind to the extent that the mundane gives way to the extraordinary.
So stir up those creative juices! Get crazy! Make lists and put unexpected elements together. A shark… and a train? A pigeon… and a bus? Like a phenomenal preschool-aged Glee mashup song in fully illustrated form, you too can strike gold with your big out-of-the-box idea.
2. Focus on a character.
If every era has a buzzword, the one for the contemporary picture book marketplace would be: character-driven. Everyone wants to see (or be) the next Fancy Nancy. But what does that mean to you, sitting as you are with brain to fingers to keyboard?
What editors don’t want: copycat stories. (Oh! I know: Stylish Suzie! Or maybe… Frilly Jilly!) No. The key to parsing out this riddle is to go deeper. Put your own spin on the demand, and focus on the core premise: Kids want someone they can connect with. They want to see a bit of themselves in the larger-than-life heroes who fill their pages. They want a dash of crazy; a spark of excitement; a quirky, interesting, fully-themselves hero or heroine who can take their imagination by storm.
Be original. Be flamboyant. Give specific character details. And give your readers a brand-new friend they can take home in their pocket.
3. Embrace the universal.
So far my tips have been all about the crazy, the creative, the new-and-oh-so-different. Now I’m going to take all that back a notch, add a great big qualifier on top. Your picture has to be fresh, new, original—yes. But!
It also has to be about the same ol’ thing.
What? After all that talk of originality, now this? Here’s the thing: It’s not enough to have a wild and wacky premise. There also has to be some deeper core to the story that connects with readers on its most basic level. I’ve heard them described as the “universal child emotions” that need to be represented in order for the story to fully hit its mark.
Now, please note that we’re not talking about morals or lessons or message here. What are talking about is theme, subtly underlaid, weaving throughout the text and supplementing the story.
The list of universals is endless: love, friendship, overcoming fears, trying new things, getting along with others, sibling rivalry, leaving someone or something you love, sickness, loss. It’s as long as life itself, and honestly? The simpler the better. (Which, come to think of it, could totally be point #4 on my list, but a list of 4 simply cannot compete with a list of 3.)
So there you have it—my three top tips. I hope they will help you as you take your ideas and craft them into stellar picture books that take the marketplace by storm. So… are you ready? Get set, WRITE!
Ammi-Joan Paquette writes picture books and young adult novels, plus she’s a literary agent with the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Her latest book is Nowhere Girl, published in September 2011 by Walker/Bloomsbury. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughters. Visit her online at AmmiJoanPaquette.com.
by Wendy Martin
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” ~ Orson Scott Card
Five things to do to see new ideas:
- Make up songs. Sing them loudly and off-key.
- Wear clothes that don’t match. Top the outfit off with a funny hat.
- Climb a tree and hang upside-down.
- Splash in mud puddles.
- Reach for the big box of crayons. The one with the sharpener in the box.
If you’re at all like me, you have a lot of ideas swirling around in your brain almost constantly. They wake you up from a deep sleep, or make you lose count when you’re measuring the 3 ½ cups of flour into that cake recipe.
The trouble with a brain awhirl in ideas is sifting through the crowd to find the ones that will make a good picture book. We’re grown-ups. We think grown-up things like obeying the speed limit, who to vote for in the next election or whether we remembered to lock the front door. Sometimes I wonder about other things, too. Like if I can save money by installing solar panels, or what it would be like to live in a house underground.
In order to come up with ideas, really fun, child-like ideas that will appeal to the picture book crowd, we have to put our adult brain on the shelf. Kids don’t care about the speed limit, who’s running for office or if the house is locked up tight when they leave it.
That list above? Each one of the suggestions will help you get in touch with your inner 4-year-old. You know you want to! Just pick one and do it until you stop feeling silly and start enjoying yourself. Then take a refreshed look at the world around you. What do you see/hear/think now?
Did you see the hidden message in the image above? Take another look if you didn’t. Do you see now? Leave a comment below for a chance to win the original watercolor! A winner will be selected randomly in one week.
Wendy Martin is the illustrator of 5 picture books, 3 of which she also wrote. Her first book was chosen as a finalist for the best children’s book of the year during the 2009 Coalition of Visionary Resources annual international COVR awards. Her latest book, The ABCs of Lesser-Known Goddesses: An Art Nouveau Coloring Book for Kids of All Ages was released in June. She is a founding member of both the middle-grade book blog, From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, and the initiative to make November International Picture Book Month. Visit her on the web at WendyMartinIllustration.com, Twitter @WendyMartinArt or Facebook.
by Jodi Moore
It’s okay to write a 2,000+ word picture book.
*braces self for screams of disbelief, coffee cups dropped, any chance of securing another book deal/agent/critique opening vanish, my own editors paling in shock, possible angry mobs at my doorstep and Tara questioning why-oh-why did she ever ask me to guest blog for PiBoIdMo?*
Now, hold up. I didn’t say it would be publishable. I just said it’s OKAY to write one. In fact, sometimes it may be necessary.
As picture book writers, we are challenged to deliver big ideas in as few words as possible. We are expected to fully develop our story, our characters, our plotline; captivate our audience; fashion a fabulous first sentence and create a satisfying end.
All while leaving room—and extending faith—for the illustrations.
It’s no easy task. So I ask…why would you limit yourself in the beginning with a word count?
Perhaps it may help to look at this in a different way. Let’s say I want to build a perfect sandcastle. If I only look at a finished product, say, one of my husband’s illustrious creations, and size up the amount of sand comprising the castle itself, I may decide I only need a few large buckets of sand to complete the task.
But that’s not what he starts with. Larry begins with an entire sandy beach. Using a large shovel, he piles on tons of sand. He sifts through bucket after bucket of the grainy particles. He packs it high as a mountain, scraping up more sand than he could possibly need.
That proud hill is his main idea. It’s the structure. The mass from which he will carve out his masterpiece. It’s his 2000+ words.
And then, he sculpts. He edits. He revises until he can see the more subtle nuances of the castle. Sometimes, a wall will cave or a doorway will be in the wrong place. But that’s okay, because he still has plenty of sand left. He can add. He can rebuild. My husband hasn’t limited himself to a few buckets of sand.
Why should you?
From your comments and posts on both this forum and Facebook, I know that you’re all busy creating your own pile of ideas. Embrace them…and write what’s in your heart. Use every word that’s necessary and a few that – you may find out later – are not. Restricting your words too early on may constrict your idea, choking the very life out of it. Let it breathe; let it swell. Let those words FLOW.
There will be plenty of time to revise—and reshape!—later.
Writing picture books can be a DAY at the beach. Shed those limitations and dig in!
Jodi Moore is the author of WHEN A DRAGON MOVES IN (May 2011, Flashlight Press) and the soon-to-be-published GOOD NEWS NELSON (Story Pie Press). She writes both picture books and young adult novels, hoping to challenge, nourish and inspire her readers by opening up brand new worlds and encouraging unique ways of thinking. You can visit her at www.writerjodimoore.com.
by For PiBoIdMo, I’m giving you a very special gift.
Your very own Inspiration Fairy!
This Fairy will grant new ideas and make your kidlit dreams come true!
All you have to do is the following:
- click on her for the full size image
- cut
- color
- attach her somewhere close to your work space.
Next, (and this is the only way to make fairy magic happen:) You have to believe.
And in order to believe, you have to work. You have to write or draw something as often as you can. And never give up! (for more than a few minutes or days at least)
The things you create can be things that are wonderful, horrible, short, long, happy, funny, sad and even things that will probably be better off in the recycling bin.
But, you have to do it.
You have to work for it.
And you have to believe.
I speak from experience. It took five years to get my first book published. It was the first book I wrote and the first publisher I sent it to. But, it took five years for the planets to align, my skills to improve and to get the yes. During these years, I hoped, despaired, submitted and almost quit a million times.
I give you this fairy to remind you that the kidlit adventure is dangerous, slow and might even bring you to tears occasionally.
But, hang in there, keep at it, work it and most of all, believe.
Courtney Pippin-Mathur is an illustrator and writer. Her first picture book as a writer and illustrator, MAYA WAS GRUMPY, is coming out Fall of 2012 with Flashlight Press. She juggles paint, paper, keyboard and three kids. She wouldn’t wouldn’t have it any other way.
Courtney is giving away an original watercolor painting of the Inspiration Fairy to a lucky commenter. A winner will be selected one week from today! Good luck!
by I was so heartened to read Carol Hampton Rasco’s opening blog post on PiBoIdMo because she made two comments that really resonate with me. Well, she said one, and then she quoted a savvy but jaded six-year-old.
First, she noted that the top picture-book choice of teachers, reading specialists, and Reading is Fundamental volunteers is NONFICTION. That buoyed me because that’s what I write. In fact, my agent, Erin Murphy, has two of my nonfiction picture books under submission right now. The six-year-old, however, quickly brought me down to earth. As he peered at a terrific looking book, he said, “it doesn’t look like a true fact book, they’re usually boring.” That’s good news for the book he was enjoying but “aargh” for the others.
We can all cite other terrific NF PBs. Some of my favorites include MIND YOUR MANNERS, ALICE ROOSEVELT! by Leslie Kimmelman; 14 COWS FOR AMERICA by Carmen Agra Deedy, which is available in both English and Spanish (which is perfect, since Rasco also said that bilingual books rank among the top-three most-wanted); and YOURS FOR JUSTICE, IDA B. WELLS by Philip Dray. Citing counter-examples to the six-year-old’s complaint, however, is beside the point. It’s his experience and his impression that count. So, what can we, as NfPiBoWr (that’s nonfiction picture-book writers) do to alter his conclusion that “true fact” books are boring?
Language and illustrations, of course, contribute hugely to enlivening books that happen to be accurate. Rasco also commented that what adults want for the children they read and give books to are books that are “eye and mind catching.” Great illustrations catch the eye; lilting, lively, lyrical text captures the mind. Neither of these is quite sufficient, however, if the topic—and we are dealing with ideas during PiBoIdMo here—is lackluster.
As a nonfiction writer, my ideas come from a number of places—the news, teacher-friends who lament the lack of good books about X, expert-friends who share fascinating stories about their research, and sheer curiosity. But, the biggest source of my ideas is Carus.
Who?
Carus is the family of magazines that is sometimes abbreviated to “COBBLESTONE.” These include, for various age groups, not only this magazine about American History but also DIG on archeology, APPLESEEDS and FACES on culture, CALLIOPE on history, ODYSSEY on science, and others. It’s not that I steal ideas from other writers; I steal ideas from myself. Here’s what I mean.
Most of these magazines are theme-based, and a couple of times a year, I check their Writer’s Guides to see what intrigues me. What I see now in ASK, a science magazine for six- to nine-year-olds, for instance, are calls for proposals for nonfiction articles on dreams and dreaming, “all the fish in the sea” on a census of fish, spelunking, and animal sounds. Don’t these sound like great grist for topics?!
While ASK targets the perfect age group for picture-book readers, magazines for older readers inspire ideas, too. For instance, FACES is soliciting articles on “Ghosts and the Spirit World” and COBBLESTONE on the 1963 “March on Washington.” There are many other fine nonfiction magazines as well—RANGER RICK and KNOW, for example. All of these can suggest possible picture book topics.
What’s critical for me, though, is not the general theme but what I just said. They suggest possible topics. Or, actually, the big ideas lead me down multiple paths to them. The themes themselves are often too broad for a picture book. But they can spark an idea for a specific article that might then transmogrify into an idea for a picture book.
For instance, when COBBLESTONE sought articles for an issue on Mark Twain, I consulted a friend who is a Twain expert. She suggested an idea for an article that became the basis for one of the picture books that is under submission. Similarly, in response to an issue of COBBLESTONE on the “Freedom Rides,” I wrote an article on music in the civil rights period. My research for this article revealed to me more than I had known about children’s involvement in civil rights—and that led to my other PB under submission. (In fact, I wrote and sold a whole middle-grade nonfiction book, WE’VE GOT A JOB: THE 1963 BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN’S MARCH, that was inspired by that article. But, that’s the topic for another blog!)
So, my recommendations for PiBoIdMo are to:
- Check out great kids’ magazines.
- Use their suggestions as springboards for your own. And
- Inspire and be inspired by bored six-year-olds!
Cynthia Levinson has sold two dozen articles and stories on a wide range of topics to some of the best children’s magazines. Her debut middle-grade book, WE’VE GOT A JOB: THE 1963 BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN’S MARCH (Peachtree Publishers), will be published in February 2012.
Who can believe the month of November is half over already? Hopefully you’ve already got 15 ideas (or more) in your PiBoIdMo journal. And if you don’t, no worries! There’s plenty of time left to catch up and complete the 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge.
This is a place to check-in and let your fellow picture book writers know how you’re doing! What has been the most inspiring message for you during the guest posts?
You might be wondering how I’m doing. Well, I’m always a little behind with my own challenge…
Enough about me. What about you?
by I have to be honest with you.
I think the word “idea” is a little grand.
And by grand, I mean daunting.
An idea is a huge thing, right?
It requires freshness and originality, it encompasses possibility, it is—not to get all god-like here, but—the beginning of everything!
Meanwhile, we’re always being told, “There are no new ideas!”
Poet Audre Lord said, “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” And there are all those books and lectures that tell us there are only about seven plots available on the whole entire planet. And you guys. There is even a web site called “no new ideas” and it is just a blank page!
So. Phew. That’s out of the way.
No new ideas.
We can’t find what isn’t there.
But, this puts us PiBoIdMo folks in a bit of bind, doesn’t it?
What are we supposed to do for the rest of the month?
Well, personally, I think we should try for something smaller.
Not a whole new idea everyday—just a new perspective.
(And, guess what? The Greek origin of the word idea is idein, which means “to see”! Which means I’ve got support from ancient sages here, so let’s go with it.)
What if all we need is a new way of looking at things?
And what if that way is a child-like way?
A child, said author Olive Schreiner, “sees everything, looks straight at it, examines it, without any preconceived idea.”
Have you ever noticed what kids want to do when they’re riding a down escalator? They want to run up it!
Kids don’t look at things as if they’re static or rule-based or already defined. Surprise and experimentation are everyday affairs. Freshness and originality and possibility—all those things I found so daunting above? Ha. Child’s play.
And children, you’ll remember, are our audience.
So, what if we look straight at life today and examine it?
What if we let our preconceptions slip away and see things as children see things?
What if we imagine that socks are pockets (A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes) or that the whole wide world could fit in a book (All the World) or that a worm and a bird could be best friends (Noodle & Lou)?
What if look around, each of us, at the animals in our houses and yards, the food on our tables, the books on our bedside tables, and we just plain see them in a new way? That’s all I’m going to do today, and you should join me. We’ll leave the grand and daunting to someone else…
(And now for the party favors!)
These really great photos that are all about accessing a child’s perspective.
And then this fine bit of musing by artist Austin Kleon:
(Scroll and read all the way through it. It’s worth it. Especially that very last section. I think he might’ve stuck it in just for picture book authors, don’t you?)
Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of the highly-acclaimed, Caldecott-honored picture book ALL THE WORLD, illustrated by Marla Frazee, as well as NOODLE & LOU, illustrated by Arthur Howard, and A SOCK IS A POCKET FOR YOUR TOES, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Forthcoming books include THINK BIG, illustrated by Vanessa Newton; HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUNNY, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin; and others. Liz is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin Community College and the mother of two daughters. To learn more, visit her web site at LizGartonScanlon.com.
Liz is giving away a signed copy of the award-winning ALL THE WORLD! Leave a comment to enter and a winner will be randomly selected one week from today.
by Creatively, I’m very slow.
I like to be delicate with my ideas and usually spend three years developing a picture book.
Because of this, I have to look for ideas that hit my proverbial sweet spot and keep me enthused for the long haul.
For the picture book that I’m working on now, titled THE TRICYCLE MOUSE, my initial idea was to combine two of my favorite things: vehicles and animals.
Thus the characters in the book are hybridized animal-vehicles.
I started working on this over a year and a half ago, it still has a long way to go, but my excitement for the project has only grown.
Julian Hector is generously giving away an original signed painting he made exlcusively for PiBoIdMo, with characters from his picture book THE GENTLEMAN BUG! It’s unbelievably adorable! Lucky you!
Leave a comment to enter and a winner will be randomly chosen one week from today.
Julian Hector is one of the youngest author/illustrators working in children’s publishing today. Five years ago, he was plucked out of college by an editor at Disney-Hyperion, and he’s been writing and illustrating children’s book ever since. His most recent book is MONDAY IS ONE DAY, written by Arthur A. Levine, and you can visit his website here: www.Julianhector.com.
After my first picture book Poppy’s Pants was published, I received a call from my dad. He said, “I’ve discovered after years of writing that coming up with new ideas can get hard, so I’m going to help you out.”
I was anxious to receive this bit of collegial wisdom from my dad. Even though I am more than 40 years old, I relish a grown-up conversation, from one artist to another with my Dad. He said, “Here’s my idea, Poppy’s Car.” Imagine stepping outside of your air conditioned South Carolina home to drive your Buick LeSabre into town. Being a writer, you only need to use your car to run the occasional errand. It has been weeks since the last time you started the car up and an unusual amount of debris has collected between the windshield wipers. You turn the wipers on to clear the debris when to your surprise, an angry bird squawks at you. There, between your windshield wipers sits a bird’s nest complete with four eggs. This truly happened. Dad had no choice but to relinquish control of his car until the baby birds learned to fly. I worked on a story inspired by this phone conversation for a while. It remains one of many stories filed away in my Apple computer. At some point, it became too difficult to resolve and so it waits. Perhaps it will resurface some day.
I’ve found that ideas can be easy to come by, but not always easy to turn into a working story. Once you start looking for them, you’ll find them in casual conversation, observations and sometimes they will appear while day dreaming. When an idea presents itself, I test it out by writing or sketching, If my brain becomes crowded with potential then that new idea just might work. A good solid idea should be roomy enough to house many more ideas. Ideas that are connected to the core of the original. Have you noticed that ideas tend to come with their own tiny spark to get you started? Coming up with 30 ideas in 30 days has the nice side benefit of giving the participant a little thrill each day, like a spoonful of mental fuel. Ideas are far better than the most delicious latte to get a person going. Although, I like to combine the two. Usually, that little thrill you get from a new idea is enough to label it as a “good” one, worthy of developing into a good picture book. But, the only way to find out if it will make a good picture book is by working through it.
I have a theory about good ideas. I think they need time, maybe even years to form. They start as shy notions that need time to swim around in the muddy soil of your unconscious before planting some roots. When those ideas surface, it’s like meeting an exciting stranger you swear you’ve met before. I hope to enjoy meeting someone new each day this month.
Melissa Conroy, Pat Conroy’s second daughter, never intended to follow in the family business, instead choosing a career as an artist and creator of the Wooberry Dolls, huggable hand-crafted dolls bearing her childhood nickname of Woo. It was a chance meeting with Blue Apple Books publisher Harriet Ziefert that began her new career as an author. Melissa Conroy’s latest book, Grandma is an Author, was released this week!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 