I’ve read lots of advice on the Internet on how to write a picture book:
I am NOT going to repeat the same, stale, old, how-to stuff of how to write a picture book in this blog post.
I assume that by “picture book,” we all mean a GOOD picture book, one that children love, one that parents and teachers love, one that reviewers and librarians love, one that will get reprinted forever and ever, right?
What we, as creators, REALLY mean, I assume, is a picture book that will make money—and lots of it—for us.
Now that we are all agreed upon what a good picture book is….what is my favorite picture book writing secret?
Everyone else in cyberspace is going to tell you to read lots of picture books first before you start writing one. Well, that’s good advice as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far. You need to do more than that.
Oh-oh, am I talking some serious sweat time here? Like, maybe work? Like maybe getting out of a writing comfort zone? I am. You thought reading lots and lots of picture books was a tough assignment? Heh! You haven’t gotten past the start line yet.
My secret? Read lots and lots of picture books to groups of two and three-year-old children in a daycare, for at least two weeks, five days a week, and twice a day if you can manage it.
And do it by yourself! With no help from any teacher or teacher’s aide to ensure good group behavior. With no teachers building you up beforehand to the children as an exciting, famous book creator big wig.
No, do this incognito. Also do it without any other props besides yourself and the picture books. The challenge is for you to do this successfully for fifteen minutes at a time, i.e., keep the group well-behaved and focused on the books.
A group of small children from different families and lifestyles in a daycare situation is a tough audience. For one thing, you are not their sweet, beloved mommies and daddies and grandmas but an insignificant stranger and a stranger in charge of the group at that.
The children will have no sentimental, personal attachments to you. You’ll be fair game for every attention-getting, group disrupting behavior that they can possibly cook up.
And, yes, small children can be very, very ruthless with adults. A group of unrelated small children is a challenge for anyone, anytime, as far as getting them to behave nicely, focus, and listen to what you want them to listen to—as a group!
Secondly, you’re not going to puy any one of those children in your lap for a one-on-one reading/sharing time. You’re going to have to sustain the interest of ALL of them at the same time with just the picture books and you, and you’re going to have to do it for a long fifteen minutes.
I have done this myself, many times, for twenty minutes. (The psychology books will tell you that this an impossible goal, but the psychology books under-estimate the intelligence and language learning abilities of small children.)
Come prepared for this picture book reading session with a tall pile of picture books. Pick out your favorites, your children’s favorites, the librarians’ favorites, pick out what you think will work.
Now, have the children sit down in a group. Pause with the first book held enticingly closed but in plain view until the noise dies down. Tell them quietly you can’t show the book unless they sit quietly. Then go at it. Be prepared to smile a lot. Clench your teeth if you must, but smile, smile, smile!
This is what will happen: If you read picture books, piles of different types of picture books, to the same group of unrelated children five days a week, once a day, for about two weeks, you are going to discover something quite interesting.
Those children, as a group, are going to show marked preferences for certain books. Moreover, you are going to show marked preferences for reading certain books to them because, frankly, the children will behave better in the group if you read them the books they like.
The truly amazing thing about the children’s book preferences in this type of situation? Most of the books that groups of children will prefer will clearly be the “good” picture books, the bestsellers, the best-reviewed ones, the long-time favorites. I say most.
The children will sometimes prefer a book which is not well-known or even that good of a book–but rarely. And likely, in that case, you’ll never figure out why, either. Accept it. Move on. Read it if you have to.
You also may not personally like some of the books the children will prefer. Inwardly, you’ll groan “do I have to read this awful book AGAIN?” However, you will read the book again, no matter how you personally feel, just to get the little rascals to behave in the group.
The children’s picture book preferences will be that marked, that obvious.
These books then, the ones that the children will prefer will be the books that you should take home, study, pick apart, and learn from in writing your own picture books.
“But Maurice Sendak didn’t have to do that to write good picture books,” you protest, “so why should I?
Well, he didn’t and doesn’t need to do it. Maurice Sendak is one of those rare adults who has never forgotten, deep inside, what it was like to be very young.
The best writers and artists of picture books are like him. Deep inside, somewhere, they have never forgotten what it was like to be very young. And because they have never forgotten, they are able to stay unusually focused on what their audience of young children wants when they create good picture books.
Most of us picture book writers and artists are not like Maurice Sendak. We don’t, in our creating, remember very well what it was like to be very young.
Indeed, most of us have forgotten, in large ways and small, what it really felt like to be little, what things were important to us, what things we loved way back then. We tend instead to focus on what the writing professors tell us to do. Or we worry about what the editor says, the reviewer, the writing group, the teacher—everyone except the children.
We forget our writing audience.
So, here’s my secret picture book writing tip: Remember your audience in your writing when you write a picture book.
Also, do get out of your writing comfort zone, get out of the adult writing world for a while, and engage in some experiential and exponential learning directly with small children:
Read many different kinds of picture books to groups of small children, by yourself, just you and them. Take the books that they prefer home with you to re-read and study.
Then write your good picture book.
Posted by rindawriter 