“The story must be short but the idea must be big enough to justify making it into a book.”
—ANONYMOUS EDITOR
At the end of the last chapter, your assignment was to write a picture book. Getting that first draft (or as school kids say, “sloppy copy”) down can be painful. If you’re like me, you have an idea that glistens in your head and already has “bestseller” sparkling in neon lights above it. Then you start writing, and the mundaneness of your plot, the flatness of your characters, and the dullness of your prose hits you like a sledgehammer.
Do not stop. Keep writing. Boring as it may feel, I hope you push on until the very end. That’s what you must do in order to have something to look at, to play with, to improve upon until it really does glisten. The majority of this book is about how to make your story the best it can be.
Eric Carle, that amazingly talented writer and illustrator, said, “The hard work goes into the idea—fiddling with it and rejecting it and loving it and hating it. … I probably do fifteen drafts for a book. Sometimes I’m deliriously happy. Other times, I’m just wiped out.”
You may do many more drafts of a book; you may do fewer, but rarely is that first draft your finished product. Don’t be discouraged by your first draft. Instead, think of all those people who carry ideas around in their heads for years and never do anything with them. Pat yourself on the back for your accomplishment. Then get on with the fun work of revision. Along the way, bear in mind that picture books have two audiences: adults—parents, grandparents, teachers, relatives, librarians who pay money for the books—and children, who listen to the adult reader.
Hopefully, the stories we write will appeal to both so they will want to share the book together frequently. Better yet, children will love the book so much that when they reach adulthood, they will share it with their children. This is how classics like The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff are born.
Too often, however, picture books appeal to only one audience. As a parent, I couldn’t abide many books my children loved. Often, I stooped to immature behavior, hiding an offensive book under a bed or tucking it behind other books on the shelf. Sometimes it mysteriously disappeared forever.
Other books appealed to me but not my children. Because I had control (as the grown-up reader), they had to accede to my wishes. I would foist my choices on their unwilling ears. They tolerated this only because I promised to read one of their favorites afterwards. What child doesn’t want to sit a bit longer in an adult’s arms while listening to a story, even one they don’t like, when there’s another, better one waiting to be heard?
Obviously, the ideal picture book must appeal to adults and children. The best way to ensure this is to make sure your story resonates with both the reader and listener. How does the writer create such a story?
Enduring picture books must be about something bigger than a series of isolated incidents. Merely writing about Baboon leaping from tree to tree, just above sleeping Lion, has no larger truth. It’s merely a string of events, a vignette, a description. The writer must have a theme, or overarching idea, to investigate. He must have something that will turn a set of incidents into a story that stays with the reader long after the book is closed.
The process of building a story is like building a house. A carpenter cannot put up walls until he builds a frame. The frame supports the roof. The frame determines the shape of the house.
Your story frame determines everything—plot, characters, ending, word usage, etc. To discover your story frame, you don’t need a hammer or a saw. You don’t need tools or expensive gadgets. You require only one thing, and it’s free.
It behooves writers to think of a general question about the underlying issue they’re trying to unravel in each story.
Let’s add something to the plot detail of Baboon swinging from tree to tree. Suppose Baboon has lost her family? Perhaps the writer could explore how she’ll find them.
In the popular Where the Wild Things Are, the general question might be How does a child control his anger? In We Found a Hat by Jon Klassen, the question could be Will two turtles find a way to share one hat? In Ella and Penguin Stick Together by Megan Maynor, the question might be Can Ella and Penguin conquer their fear so they can enjoy their glow-in-the-dark stickers?
There are obviously as many ways the story question can be asked as there are people asking it. Another person might word the question in Ella and Penguin Stick Together differently: What happens when two friends have the same fear? Another person might put the story question this way: Will Ella and Penguin ever enjoy their glow-in-the-dark stickers? These questions all pertain to the same general issue. It’s critical that each story implicitly poses a question to the reader. If it doesn’t, the story needs focus.
Notice I said “a” question. Picture books are brief, and your child audience’s attention span is too short to explore more than one. Too often writers start out exploring one question and switch tracks to explore another. Don’t worry that asking a question might lead to a preachy, didactic story. The question you’re exploring is never written directly into your text but kept bold and bright in your mind. Trust that the question will be understood by your readers and listeners.
Do you need to know your story question before you start writing? Some writers do. They can’t begin unless they have some idea of what they want to say. But for others, writing is a matter of discovery. The story question may not be obvious in the beginning.
That’s fine, but sooner or later, you must find and be able to state this question. Your story question is crucial to keeping your writing tight and focused. It is a set of tracks to keep your story train traveling to its destination. Otherwise, your writing runs the risk of meandering off on detours.
Assume that you know the question you’re exploring. Then it’s time to answer your question in a manner specific to your story. One sentence should be all that’s necessary.
Let’s go back to Baboon, who finds herself separated from her family. Try to answer each of the following three questions:
Answer: Baboon retraces her steps, using her memory and her keen senses of smell and hearing to find her family.
Answer: Each of Baboon’s friends uses its special powers—Lion’s sense of smell, Elephant’s tracking skills, and Giraffe’s unique height and vision—to help Baboon find her family.
Answer: Baboon discovers previously unknown strengths and learns she can and will survive on her own.
What about those published books we asked questions about? What might their answers be?
Answer: A child controls his anger by mentally traveling to a safe place where he safely expresses his emotions and returns home calm, with supper waiting.
Answer: Both turtles want to be the sole owner of the hat but realize that’s impossible. In their dreams, they each find a way (or a place) to wear the hat.
Answer: After trying to see the stickers glowing in dim lighting, they realize that they must see the stickers in complete darkness. They decide to hold hand and flipper and support one another in this endeavor.
Notice the answer is essentially a short blurb about the book. In the movie business, this is called a “pitch.” If you cannot describe what happens in your story in one sentence, you may have too much going on. Spend time formulating your question and answer. If you do, writing your book will be infinitely easier.
Some writing for children does not tell a story but explores a subject like shadows, hands, or water. We call these “concept books.” Does the question-and-answer principle still apply? Absolutely, but as you can see below, the question is expressed more specifically to the book.
Answer: Weeds survive by sending out thousands of seeds that spread far and near and have special powers to grow in unusual and unfriendly places.
Answer: When you meet a dinosaur in a grocery store, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to practice your manners.
Answer: Evolution explains that we started out as fish but became land animals, acquiring adaptations for our new life.
Recently, picture-book biographies have become popular with publishers, and they, too—in fact every book, fiction or nonfiction—must have a story question and answer. Here are a few examples:
Answer: Noah Webster lived in the early days of our nation and created the first dictionary of American words. Dictionaries bearing his name continue to be published and read today.
Answer: Clara, a young immigrant girl, organized employees in her shirtwaist factory for better pay and working conditions and led the largest strike of women workers.
Answer: The composer George Gershwin got his inspiration for his music from all types of music and sounds around him.
Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction or exploring a concept, it’s not enough to just know your question and answer. You need to keep them in mind throughout your revisions. They will help you avoid unnecessary detours. Without this map, you might start writing a story about a zebra who wants to make friends with a wildebeest and veer off on a tangent about the lion who wants to eat them both.
When I’m working on a story, I keep my question and answer in a word document on my computer so I can easily refer to it. You might prefer to tack it to a bulletin board or post a sticky note to your wall. Go through your story line by line, and delete anything that doesn’t have to do with the story’s question and answer. Remember how short and focused picture books must be. Your question and answer will keep you on the right track.
In my book If Animals Said I Love You, my question was If animals could express love, how might they do it? Keeping this in mind prevented me from writing about animals gathering food or being chased by predators. Those subjects, albeit interesting, had nothing to do with my question and didn’t belong in my story.
Another way to appeal to your two audiences is to make sure your book has multiple levels. Books that are loved by parents and children and can be employed by teachers to illustrate concepts in the curriculum will obviously result in optimal sales. Years ago, a simple set of objects of increasing quantities was enough for a counting book—e.g., one apple, two cats, three cars, etc. Then publishing houses wanted a theme, such as fruit—one apple, two oranges, three peaches, and so on. Counting books today are required to do more.
My book Eight Hands Round: A Patchwork Alphabet doesn’t have a story but still has several levels besides the alphabet—the history of how people lived in colonial and pioneer days, an introduction to an art form, and something that completely surprised me, a mathematical application. In addition to the different geometric shapes in the patterns, my book could be used to introduce fractions. No wonder it remained in print for over twenty-five years (that’s like a century in the usual lifetime of a book).
Seven Hungry Babies by Candace Fleming includes, beyond the counting element (going backwards from seven to one), the story of the mother’s increasing exhaustion from caring for her little ones, which finally spurs her to ask the father for help. That’s what I mean by more than one level. Similarly, at first glance, A Library Book for Bear by Bonny Becker is about being open to new experiences, but because the new experience is about the treasures to be found in a library, the book has special appeal to teachers and librarians. Likewise, while City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems is a story of friendship and loss, its organization around the seasons offers an extra reason for teachers to share the book with students.
No writer should add extra levels if they don’t enrich the story. But a story with multiple levels has a better chance of a long shelf life than a story with just one. And isn’t a long life what we want for our books?
Now that we’ve discussed how important it is to have something to say in your story, we’re moving on to chapter three, the first of three chapters on determining your approach to storytelling.