Picture book writers do not get enough credit. Writing a picture book is HARD work! I am sitting on 7 unpublished, almost-polished picture book manuscripts, yet I still want to learn how to write a picture book better.
And I have found the best trick!
…Fancy Nancy. No David. The Pigeon. We all know those characters that kids love in picture books. And we would LOVE to write them ourselves.
But how do we do that?
It all starts with getting to know who is in our stories. And it requires knowing more than their name and what they look like. It’s time to look at our picture book characters like they are human (because they are).
…We all know that we should show and not tell our stories to our readers, but sometimes it’s a hard thing to master. That’s why I was excited when I learned the best plotting exercise for active writing.
This exercise will have you look at the books as a visual component and make notes based off of what you notice. Plus, you’ll be hear how good dialogue is written and what other writers do when they transfer between scenes. Grab your writer’s group and a pen, and let’s get started!
…Have you ever wanted an easy button for writing your novel? After reading a couple of craft books, I discovered a couple of the best writing exercises that are almost as good. Almost.
Now, I use them whenever I have a new idea for a book. It helps me–and will help you–to form the outline for my story before I put words in a Word Doc.
…Do you ever read a book and wonder how the writer made you fall in love with their characters so well? Being able to build strong characters takes a lot of pre-planning and TONS of practice, but it is a skill you can learn.
I have a story that I’ve been working on for around four years. The characters are really well developed, however, there was something missing. So I did a wicked
