Articles on how to write children’s books, fiction writing, children’s writing, and the craft of creative writing for picture books, early readers, chapters books, middle grade, and young adult novels. Here you will find the kidlit writing archives. All of the content with this tag refers to how to write children’s books.
A few weeks back, I reached out to see who had questions, and Rachel had a great one about how to write a children’s novel series:
Back when I read the Baby Sitters Club as a kid, I would always skim over the whole “introduction” to the club and group, which appeared in each book. I am currently working on a novel series and wonder if each book needs the “introduction” to the story, or if they are a bit unnecessary these days?
Wondering how to write a children’s book series? Don’t bore readers with the same information at the beginning of each book.
This astute reader is totally right. A catch-up introduction is no longer the norm when you’re writing a children’s book series. Whew! No need to write a dry and skip-able synopsis for your manuscripts. (Though, unfortunately, you’ll still have to craft one for when you submit.) However, this opens up a bigger question: “So how do you begin a novel series without boring readers who are familiar with your premise?”
How to Write a Children’s Novel Series: Weave Context into the Beginning
For a more modern feel, you want to include that information in your opening few chapters. However, you don’t want to bog the opening down with tons of facts right off the bat. So when you’re approaching writing a book series, it’s a good idea to start each book with several key facts about your main characters and their relationships, and about the world in which your story is set. Even if it’s in our modern non-fantasy world, each “world” has its own rules and climate, like a high school cafeteria from a popular person’s POV vs. an underdog’s, those “worlds” look very different. If there’s anything else from previous installments that’s crucial to know, make sure to include that information, as well.
By providing this context but weaving it into the first few chapters of the story, you will be welcoming your existing readers back into the story while simultaneously giving new readers a chance to catch up. All without info-dumping. The important thing to remember is to keep everything brief and relevant. The story should start in action that continues the plot you’ve already been telling. This way, it’s easy to keep pacing quick while providing some relevant context.
For Example
If your characters are at war at the end of Book 1, open Book 2 with them gearing up for an important battle. From the action, new readers will be able to gather that they’re at war and something important is coming up. During that scene, you will want to drop hints concerning why they’re at war, who they’re fighting against, what the stakes are, etc. Since characters will be interacting as they prepare, you can start introducing a sense of their relationships, values, personal objectives, and motivations. Sure, you have all this juicy backstory about the king and some palace intrigue, but leave it for later (tips on writing backstory). Open with big action that carries the pacing and buys you a few moments to balance it with information.
If you’re wondering how to write a children’s novel series, take a look at some craft books about starting your story. Whether it’s a stand-alone manuscript or part of a novel series, I’d recommend The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.
Bring me on board as your children’s book editor. I’ll help you craft a strong beginning that draws readers into your story.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about character relationships, and wanted to share some of that with you.
Everything looks hunky dory in this relationship…somebody better throw some conflict at them, QUICK!
The “And? So?” of Character Relationships
I was editing a manuscript in July where two characters had a contentious relationship. Let’s call them Jackie and Mike. Truth be told, Jackie didn’t trust Mike. The writer did a good job of establishing the initial distrust. As with so many craft considerations, though, we had to move past that to the “And? So?” element.
She doesn’t trust him… And? So? In ordinary life, Jackie would just move on from Mike and call it a day. After all, there’s no good reason to stick around with someone you don’t trust. But Jackie and Mike were trapped in a situation. This is good fiction writing. Instead of letting Jackie separate herself from Mike, the writer created a reason for her to also need something from Mike.
Remember this as you’re writing relationships between characters: You always want to be turning the screw. Jackie doesn’t like Mike but, darn, she needs him. Let’s say he possesses knowledge that she wants in order for Jackie to get what she wants from the story.
Resolving the “And? So?” — Creating Movement in Character Relationships
The place where my client had gotten stuck, though, was on the relationship that Jackie and Mike were having. The distrust was established, and established well. Maybe too well. It was starting to seem like we were going in circles and there wasn’t any character change. That’s where my favorite questions, “And? So?” came into play. Because if we’re going to commit to the premise that Jackie and Mike aren’t in a good relationship but they need one another, then there needs to be some movement with the relationship piece. Otherwise, this element of development stagnates.
In other words, when you’re writing character relationships, something needs to happen to move the relationship forward. Does Mike apologize for being so shifty? Maybe it comes out that he was wary of trusting Jackie, as it happens. Or maybe Mike does something that softens his character. And Jackie starts to question her initial conclusions about Mike. Maybe Mike does something so endearing, that Jackie starts to feel some ill-advised affection for him. Or she decides to trust him but he lets her down, and now she not only doesn’t trust him, but she feels betrayed by him and stupid for allowing herself to believe him in the first place. If you can create opportunities for conflict in your character relationships, you’ll avoid stagnation.
Emotions Need to Evolve
When I see one dynamic playing out, I want to see where it goes. All too often, writing relationships between characters simply dead-ends. Jackie still doesn’t trust Mike, even though now they’re stuck together. But all of their interactions are tinged with distrust. There’s no evolution. The distrust is established, and that’s the way it stays. (More on how to write emotions in a story.)
For every one of your character relationships, big and small, think of what the leading emotion is. Then ask yourself, “And? So?” Where can you go from there, and how can it evolve? Each relationship should be an arc, not a flat line.
Hire my novel editing services and I’ll help you shape dynamic character relationships.
I’ve worked with a few manuscripts recently where the writers established and then promptly forgot about important threads. In my book, I talk about shining a spotlight. If something is important, it’s your job as a writer to shine the spotlight on it. You pick where to aim that light, and how bright it is.
What do I mean about dropping threads? Well, let’s say that your character is a musician. They speak in musical metaphors and seem to see the world through a Beautiful Mind-esque musical lens. Until this fades from the manuscript about a third of the way through. And music doesn’t really factor into the plot itself.
I often see this in manuscripts. Just like voice sometimes fades in and out (the writer is focusing on voice when they’re writing certain passages, then they shift focus to something else and the narrative tone changes), so do various other elements of novel craft.
Character attributes (musicality), secondary characters (a supposed best friend disappears for 50 pages and nobody thinks anything of it), world-building elements (the world is on the brink of war and yet there’s no danger or news of danger in the middle of a story), and plot points (the character says their objective is to seek something, then they get wrapped up in a romance and the desired object seems to fade into the background) can all be lost in the shuffle.
Your job as a writer is to analyze your story and see if you’re dropping any threads. Are you swearing up and down that something is important, then abandoning it? Does everything that’s vital to the story and introduced at the beginning wrap up by the end? Do all of the important elements get some kind of closure?
This is a common note that I give. “Whatever happened to XYZ?” Make sure your story feels cohesive from beginning to end, leaving nothing/nobody of note behind.
In my editorial practice, I see a lot of dialogue writing. I’ve found that there are two types of writers when it comes to writing dialogue in fiction. One type takes a minimal approach to the stuff around the dialogue. One uses dialogue tags, adverbs, and narrative to construct scaffolding (check out the types of dialogue tags here). If you’ve ever worked with me no a manuscript, you know that I don’t take kindly to a lot of scaffolding. I feel that it distracts from the dialogue, which is the rightful star of scene. It’s usually totally unnecessary. When I see a lot of scaffolding, I often remind writers to trust themselves and their readers. Trust themselves to come across as intended, and trust their readers to pick up on what’s being conveyed.
If you can’t be clear using dialogue alone, you need to look twice at what’s within the quotation marks, not what’s around them.
Not Enough Information in Dialogue Writing
Take a look at the following examples. The first is dialogue writing with no scaffolding. I’ve only used dialogue tags twice, one for each character at the beginning:
“Hey,” Sara said.
“What’s up?” Zach asked.
“Oh, you know.”
“The usual?”
“The usual.”
I would say that there’s not enough here. We don’t know enough about the characters, what they’re feeling, or why they’re talking in the moment. So I would say that something needs to be added. But how much something? Let’s say that you want to really convey what’s going on with Zach and Sara. How might you achieve that? Well, let’s add some emotions, speech tags, fancy “said” synonyms, and choreography.
Too Much Information in Dialogue Writing
“Hey,” Sara snarled.
“What’s up?” Zach said, icily.
She waved her hand in the air, as if dismissing him. “Oh, you know.”
“The usual?” He made sure to roll his eyes.
Quite annoyed, she dropped her voice to a near-whisper. “The usual.”
Well, I would say it’s quite clear now how Zach and Sara are feeling. The dialogue is exactly the same, but now I’ve festooned the scene with all sorts of little extras that clearly tell the reader that Zach and Sara are having some kind of fight. Maybe they’re avoiding one another. Maybe Zach has come into Sara’s coffee shop and she has to serve him but she doesn’t want to.
There’s tension in the scene, I’ll admit. But maybe it’s also a bit of overkill? After all, after reading this, my head is almost ringing from being hit too many times. The writer here (me) is explaining the emotions way too much. “Snarled” conveys anger. Waving a hand in the air is a cliché gesture for dismissing. If that wasn’t enough, the dismissal is also explained (“as if dismissing him”). Eye rolls are another cliché gesture. Then the emotion of annoyance is named, and a tone of voice is introduced that further underscores the tension between the two. We usually only whisper things if we’re trying to be quiet or if we’ve tightened our throats in anger. (More advice on how to write dialogue in a story.)
Trust Your Reader
The second scene would have too much “scaffolding,” as I call it. Whereas the first scene has not enough. If Zach and Sara were really fighting with one another, there would be no way to tell without some help. You might think that I’m playing the scaffolding up to provide an example, and while that was my objective, I am not lying when I say that I’ve seen scaffolding that thick in manuscripts. And sometimes even thicker scaffolding.
Oftentimes, writers don’t trust themselves to be clear about what they’re saying when writing dialogue. And they (subconsciously) don’t trust readers to “get it.” So they go overboard. You will know if you put up a lot of scaffolding because you’ll see that almost none of your dialogue exists “naked” on the page (without any speech tags or narration).
Pare Down the Scaffolding
So what’s the solution? Pare way down. And let the dialogue itself do the emotional talking for you, instead of putting everything in the scaffolding. I’ve changed the dialogue itself to have more emotional energy. You can also use interiority to convey feelings, like I do with a peek into Zach’s head here. This would be my ideal third example, a sort of middle ground:
Sara looked up from the register. “Oh. Hey.”
“Oh.” Zach fumbled with his wallet. He should’ve known her schedule better. Maybe she swapped shifts? This was the last thing he needed. “Um, what’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up. Really? You know.”
“The usual?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that. The usual.”
There’s a sense of tension here between Zach and Sara, but it’s not hammered home. There’s some breathing room for the reader to wonder what they might be thinking or going through, and it opens the door for more of an interaction than “I HATE YOU”/”WELL I HATE YOU MORE!!!” That’s sort of the tone of the middle example, and you can definitely find more nuance.
Are you struggling with the rules for dialogue writing? When you invest in my manuscript editing services, I’ll help you identify instances of telling in dialogue, as well which speech tags you can trim altogether.
I’ve been coaching some clients through writing vulnerable characters over the last few months. Either the character in question has some pretty obvious flaws (which are part of who they are), or they do some pretty flawed things over the course of the story. Or both. It’s not that the characters I’ve been working with in my editorial practice are unlikeable, it’s that they’re human, quirky, realistic.
Is your protagonist having a…moment? It’s okay as long as you’re crafting vulnerable characters. Their vulnerability will build a bridge to the reader.
Writing Vulnerable Characters: Relatability
People are not all good, all the time. That doesn’t happen in real life, nor should it happen in fiction when you’re writing vulnerability. But in fiction, you have to always keep in mind the idea of “relatability.” Because a character doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Like Tinkerbell needs applause, the characters in novels need readers to believe in them and relate to them in order to be real. In the publishing world, if I can’t relate to your character, as a reader, chances are, I’m not going to get too deep into the story. I may even put the story down.
So the goal is to write relatable characters, but sometimes they must be mean or selfish. They must act in a way that hurts others, or themselves. They must get away from their own best interest.
The Importance of Vulnerability
So when you’re writing character development, how do you make a character like this accessible to the reader through good times and bad?
Vulnerability.
Sounds simple, but what does that look like on the page? I’ll prescribe my magic solution: Let the character admit that they’re being a butt, and it will humanize the behavior. It will get the reader on the character’s side. Just like in real life, in fictional life, an apology or owning up to a mistake go a long, long way.
Vulnerability in Thoughts
Here are some examples of writing vulnerable characters. If a character is being cruel to another character, they could do something like this:
“Takes one to know one!” I shouted. I was being so terrible to Brady, but I couldn’t get past him telling the teacher on me. He was supposed to be my friend.
While the reader may not agree with the behavior, at least they know that the character acknowledges it and has a reason for it. Even if that reason isn’t that valid, at least the character knows they’re in the wrong. Even if the emotion blows over soon, the character has taken the time to guide the reader through their less-than-noble feelings. The character here is being a butt, but the behavior is coming from a place of hurt. In other words, vulnerability. (More tips on writing believable characters here.)
If they admit that woundedness, they become more human and less of a jerk in the reader’s eyes.
Vulnerability in Actions
The same applies to actions. Play with vulnerability and motivation there, too. For example:
I knew it was wrong to steal. That’s the first thing we learned in Sunday School. And yet here I was, sitting in my car with a brand new MP3 player, still in the box, burning in my pockets. They hadn’t even stopped me. I can sell it and help Mom with rent. I can sell it and help Mom with rent. I kept that on a loop in my head, but it didn’t make me feel any better about what I’d done.
In this example, the character has shoplifted something expensive. But they feel bad, which is one layer of vulnerability. And they did it for a noble reason, which is another. So we have two things that help sell the reader on the behavior.
Vulnerability After the Fact
The other vulnerable thing to smooth over tough-to-swallow words or actions is how they handle themselves after the fact. Does the first character apologize to Brady, even if it’s at the very end of the story? Does the second character go back to the store and pay them for the MP3 player once the financial emergency is over? Admitting their wrongs to the reader in the moment, and admitting their wrongs to others in the story: a two-pronged approach to broadcasting vulnerability.
If you have tough-to-motivate stuff in your manuscript, how might you use vulnerable characters to help build a bridge to the reader?
Working on crafting vulnerable characters? Hire me as your novel editor and we’ll make sure you’re creating fully realized fictional people on the page.
When I talk to client about novel world building, I talk a lot about context. If, for example, there is a magic in worldbuilding, I want to know if a) magic is common, b) the protagonist has experienced magic before (if yes, how much? what kind? etc.), and c) how they feel about it. So when a streak of green lightning flies across the room, I am looking to the protagonist for clues. How they react to it will tell me a lot about how magic operates in the world.
But this sort of approach isn’t just for novel world building. You can add an emotional stance to almost everything, even if your book is set very much in the real world. Think of it as a worldbuilding approach to all of your writing. It’s also a principal tenet of interiority. How does your character see the world? How they react to stuff will be a very good guide.
Adding emotional layers to a story is just like novel world building, only without the unicorns (in most cases).
Emotional Novel World Building
For example, if they see the new kid in school, they might say:
There’s Bo, the new kid in school.
This is merely factual, but is there an emotional signature there? No. Do some worldbuilding! So the reader is still wondering … so what’s the deal with this Bo guy? Do we like him? Is he weird? If he’s important, I want to know more about him right away. One answer (other than putting Bo in the plot or in scene with the protagonist, which I would also recommend) would be to add an emotional stance into your novel world building. (For more tips about describing emotion.)
For example, here are some more complex reactions we can have to seeing Bo:
There goes that Bo, swaggering like a show pony. Who does he think he is?
There’s Bo, on the fringes of the cafeteria with the cool drama kids already. Would he say something to me today? I hope so.
And then there was Bo. Was he the one who shot off that green bolt during homeroom? What if he’s an algae elemental? What if he can help me figure out the Slime Pond mystery?
Novel World Building As It Applies to Character
Here we have three different attitudes about Bo, because I’ve let the narrator have an emotional stance inaddition to providing basic information (“There’s Bo”). In the first example, the emotion about Bo is quite negative. In the second example, it’s attraction to Bo. He’s already off fraternizing with some other group, but the narrator hopes that he’ll come pay him or her some attention, too. The third example gives worldbuilding context but there’s also an emotional signature of intrigue. (Learn more about writing relationships between characters.) We get the feeling that algae elementals (ha!) are quite rare, and they’re desirable, at least for the narrator.
I could play with this stuff forever. For example, what if algae elementals weren’t rare? How would we convey that idea through the narrator’s emotional stance?
And then there was Bo. Was he the one who shot off that green bolt during homeroom? Great. The first new kid we’ve had in ages and he’s another dang algae elemental. This stupid school is teeming with them.
Don’t just settle for describing something or someone. It’s in how you describe them that the reader will be able to read the narrator’s attitude and emotion toward them. It’s all about context, folks!
Layering interiority into your story can be hard. If you want to master novel world building, hire me as your developmental editor and we’ll dig deep together.
There’s a subtle error that I’ve been seeing a lot lately as I’m editing writing. It really is quite simple to notice, once you know what to look for. I don’t know if it’s something in the air, with this beautiful spring in full blossom outside, but I have noticed it in almost every MG and YA I’ve been working on so far in 2016.
Get out your red pen when you’re editing writing, you’ll see basic errors you might’ve missed.
Editing Writing for a Subtle Grammatical Error
See if you can spot it:
He ran as quickly as he could, his lean body like a jaguar.
Want another one?
Her arms jerked like a robot as she scrambled to hide the candy into her backpack before the store owner saw her.
What’s the common thread? Both sentences make comparisons. However, both compare a part of the protagonist to a whole, rather than the same part. The fix is very easy to implement when you’re editing writing. Look:
He ran as quickly as he could, his lean body like a jaguar’s.
Her arms jerked like a robot’s as she scrambled to hide the candy.
So easy! So elegant! The more correct choice is to compare the protagonist’s part to the corresponding part by making the subject possessive. This way, the girl’s arms are like the robot’s arms instead of the whole robot itself, which muddies the image. As you’re learning to write, smoothing out these details will make your work stronger and easier to read.
Avoid Basic Errors When Writing to Get Published
As long as we’re talking about editing writing, I would love for everyone to read up on what a dangling modifier is, and try to avoid them. These guys are tricky, and another good detail to nail down when you’re learning to write. In my exuberance to get my point across, I still find myself using them all the time. I’m sure there are a few in this blog, or even in my book, and I’ll be the first to admit that I have my own grammar and spelling blind spots, as everyone does. (Fun fact: The word “mustache” is misspelled in my book as “moustache” in one instance. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. What a terrible failed hipster I am!)
The Bigger Picture in Editing Writing
Now, to put your minds at ease, you are not going to get immediately disqualified if you don’t catch every little mistake when you’re editing writing. Everyone has their off days. If you keep doing it throughout a manuscript, then maybe. If you keep doing it and then some with other errors, then you’re calling your credibility into question. The bottom line is, you are a writer and you’re submitting a piece of writing to agents and editors who deal in the trade of writing. So, your writing needs to be of very high quality in order to compete with every other writer who is trying to break through. You need to work out all the bugs when you’re learning to write, and then pour all of your knowledge and experience into crafting an agent-worthy manuscript (check out the difference between editing and revising).
Words and grammar are your stock in trade. If I was hiring a seamstress (because I suddenly live in the 19th century), I’d look at her stitching. And if it’s shoddy, I wouldn’t hire her. Because I’m not hiring her to trim a mustache, I’m hiring her to sew. Right? That’s just how it works.
Increase Your Chances With Literary Agents
Sure, an agent will overlook some typos, but why submit a manuscript with typos, misspellings, incorrect formatting, and grammatical errors? I have actually heard some writers say, “Well, that’s what an editor is for. It’ll get fixed once someone buys it.” Are you kidding? Why would a publishing house take a (potentially expensive) gamble on a writer who can’t submit a manuscript that demonstrates a basic grasp of grammar and writing? If you’re making sloppy errors or you just haven’t managed to nail dialogue formatting (the capitalization and punctuation surrounding your dialogue), which is another problem that I’ve been seeing in almost every single manuscript, then what confidence is an agent or editor going to have in your skills?
If you’re not editing writing, then you’re probably leaving simple spelling, grammar, and formatting errors in your manuscript. The simple truth is that you’re setting yourself up for a completely preventable tragedy. And what am I always talking about? Giving yourself a stronger shot at success. The two don’t go hand-in-hand.
Though I am primarily a developmental book editor, I offer proofreading and line editing services with each manuscript critique.
Rhyming children’s books were the bane of my existence as an agent, honestly, because not many people are that great at writing rhyming picture books. I had one rhyming PB client out of maybe fifteen PB “generalists.” And yet 8 out of 10 picture book manuscripts that came into the slush were in rhyme. That’s a pretty big disparity, right?
There’s not a lot of demand for rhyming texts, so you need to be writing rhyming children’s books that stand out.
The Problem With Writing Rhyming Picture Books
Part of the issue is that a lot more picture books used to be in rhyme than are being published now. So some writers still have this idea in mind that PB = cutesy rhymes. To those writers, I would suggest a trip to the bookstore, so they can see what’s being actively published now. Last week’s post on children’s book writing trends would apply a little more heavily here…
Whether it’s a misconception that you have to write rhyming children’s books in order to find a publisher, or an affinity for rhyme, or a misconception that young kids can only communicate in rhyme, I’d like to discuss this controversial topic with a little more clarity. (Get some inspiration for picture book ideas here.)
Now that I’m a freelance editor, I actually love working with rhyme. Why? Because I have creative writing training, know my poetics, and can identify rhyme issues a thousand miles away. I’m not bragging, but I am here to ruin your day a little bit: Rhyme involves a whoooooooooooooole lot more than putting cute words at the ends of sentences. Yet a lot of people who choose to write in rhyme don’t seem to make that connection.
How to Find Unique Rhymes
First of all, most of the end rhymes I see in manuscripts are about as inspiring as “cat” and “hat,” and I’m pretty sure someone else has already cornered that market. The point of rhyming children’s books isn’t to find a word that works and wedge it in somehow, the point of rhyme is to delight, impress, and surprise. If I see an unexpected rhyme in a manuscript, that immediately tells me that the writer knows what they’re doing.
A big mistake I also see is letting rhyme dictate story, not the other way around. Writers become so fixated on getting those rhymes in that things become arbitrary. Why is her name “Dorange”? Because you had to rhyme with “orange”? Okie dokie… Why is he sitting on a wall? Who does that? Oh, so he can have a great fall? Gotcha. But are you writing rhyming children’s books in service of your story or reaching for a rhyme? If the story falls by the wayside, you are choosing style over substance, and that’s problematic. The integrity of story must come first.
Rhythm and Rhyme in Picture Books
Yet another consideration is rhythm. This is where the poetics training really kicks into gear. Shakespeare didn’t just write in iambic pentameter to torture college students. There is actually a lot of (please forgive me, for I am about to sin) rhyme and reason to rhythm in poetry.
If you haven’t read your rhyming children’s books aloud and counted your syllables at least once, what are you doing reading this blog post? Make haste! Because if I try reading your rhyming picture book manuscript aloud, and the rhymes are fine, but your syllabic counts are all over the place and I’m tripping over my tongue with each line, this is what it looks like to me:
7 syllables
6 syllables
7 syllables
8 syllables
9 syllables
7 syllables
Books Teach Us How to Read Them
Whyyyyyyy? Why are you making my head hurt? What’s the pattern? Books, especially poetry books, teach us how to read them. Rhyme is a pattern. It says, “You are about to learn that if one line ends with rhyme A, the next line will also end with rhyme A. Then the next couplet will introduce rhyme B…” The rules are right there. So if you’re going to go through all that trouble with end rhyme, why would you not consider your rhythm, too?
I think that reading your rhyming children’s books aloud will be extremely illuminating to you if you’ve never even considered counting syllables. The trick here, of course, is actually reading your work as it’s written, not reading your work with the rhythm that you want to impose on it.
It’s amazing how writers tend to snap into their ideal rhythm when reading, even if that’s not exactly the rhythm they’ve written. Better yet, have someone else read your work to you. Where do they falter? Which sentences trip them up? It’s an incredibly illuminating exercise.
The Odds Against Rhyming Children’s Books
Now, you might think that I’m just being a stickler. Or that having the letters “MFA” somewhere in my personal history have put me on a high horse. Here’s the real poop on rhyming children’s books, and I know you’ve heard this before: Most agents and editors don’t love them. When I was an agent, I didn’t love them because I didn’t know a lot of editors who loved them. When you’re an agent, it makes a lot of sense to really love stuff that sells well, because then you’re providing great service to your clients and making money.
And I’m betting that editors see a whole lot of rhyming manuscripts, too. Maybe not 8 out of 10 submissions, but maybe 5 out of 10. And let’s say that their houses are pressuring them to acquire more quirky/funny picture books along the lines of Peter Brown and Mac Barnett. So they only have room for 2-3 rhyming PBs on their lists each year.
Examples of Great Rhyming Picture Books
Then there’s the idea that there are people out there who really, really, really, really know how to write rhyme. My example in this category is always BUBBLE TROUBLE by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. I took one look at that text and never wanted to try writing rhyming picture books, because I think it’s just such an accomplished, virtuoso rhyming text.
If there are writers out there who are carrying Margaret Mahy’s torch and talents for rhyming children’s books, they are going to get those coveted and limited PB acquisition slots. Because they know what they’re doing. And the editors who want to work with them are going to hold them up to Mahy-like standards, since that’s an example of rhyming done extremely right that’s already out in the market.
Make Sure You’re Doing a Good Job
As you can see, there are a lot of considerations to writing rhyming children’s books. And finding a good end rhyme to shoehorn in there is just the first level. If you are at all curious, college poetics textbooks are always enlightening, even if you have to also invest in some toothpicks to prop your eyelids open. Long story short, poetry is an ancient art form that has tons of rules and ideas all its own. It’s a system. And if you’re going to bind yourself to a system, you better know the system.
Within the system, you might just find a lot of freedom and creativity. Otherwise, if you don’t know it well or you’re just playing around with it because you think it’s what you have to do, it’s a set of handcuffs that will start to chafe pretty quickly. And it’s likely that you will not be truly competitive.
If you’re writing rhyming picture books, don’t freak out. Just make sure you’re doing an excellent job (read even more about how to write rhyming picture books). I mean, that’s good advice for any type of writing, or any pursuit, really, but I’ve found that it especially applies to getting rhyme past gatekeepers. Because rhyming PB texts often come from good, but misguided, intentions.
Hire me as your picture book editor and we can dig into your rhyming text together. All picture book edits include feedback on other picture book ideas you might have!
Today I was thinking of the very important and potentially controversial issue of children’s book publishing trends and creating fiction with a market in mind. What do I mean by this? Well, if you see that novels about alligators (ridiculous example) are heating up in the marketplace (“the market”), do you pursue that above any idea you may have come up with organically? Or do you keep writing what you’re writing and put relative blinders on as to what publishing is doing?
Is the current publishing trend worth following, or are you better going your own way?
Are Children’s Book Publishing Trends Worth Chasing?
Writers tend to fall into two camps on the issue of children’s book publishing trends. Let’s talk pros and cons to help you see it more comprehensively.
By paying attention to the market, the market-minded writer is aware of what publishing is doing, and probably more aware of various guidelines. For example, you know that you could very well write a 200-page picture book, but that it probably wouldn’t get as much traction as if you’d slated your work toward the common 32-page format.
Sure, you can do whatever you want, but it’s going to come to a screeching halt if you try to wedge it into a marketplace that has no category for it. Categories, as we all know, are especially important in children’s books, where writing for specific ages means you have to pay attention to things like word count, protagonist age, etc.
You are of the opinion that you need to know the game before you step onto the playing field, so paying attention to what’s getting published is a way for you to learn the business and (potentially) get a leg up, especially if one of your ideas happens to align with what’s currently sought-after. Think of market awareness as giving yourself a stronger potential chance for success.
If You Don’t Pay Attention to the Publishing Market…
If you’re a writer who ignores children’s book publishing trends, you may be surprised when you try to submit. “What do you mean they’re not publishing 3,000-word fairytale storybooks anymore?” you ask. “I’ve put two years of my life into illuminating this manuscript with my daughter’s kindergarten illustrations!”
Well, if you had been in a bookstore in the last few years, you would’ve seen very clearly the way the wind is blowing in terms of length, tone, and illustration quality. Hey, whether or not the market is right or wrong in not really publishing the type of book that you want to write is up for debate, and that’s not really the scope of this post.
The truth remains that there are publishing trends and preferences to today’s publishing culture, and that it would behoove the savvy writer to at least know what they are if they intend to offer up a product for sale. The same applies to any economy. If I happened to notice that twee handmade jewelry and adorable knit caps are selling like gangbusters on Etsy, I wouldn’t, for example, try to hang my shingle out as a lady mechanic selling rusty old car parts. I’m not going to get as much traffic there as I would on, say, the fantasy marketplace of RustyOldCarParts.com. The same idea applies here. It’s just common sense.
When Market Savvy Can Pay Off
There are, however, potential cons to paying too much attention to children’s book trends. You can become a slave to trends and lose what’s yours about your work. Your ideas will start to sound like copies or rip-offs of what’s currently trending, and you might lose some passion for your projects because you are chasing publishing trends instead of your potential contribution to it. The market is also fickle, and trends come and go.
There’s also lag time to consider. What you’re seeing published now was acquired two years ago, so unless you are very connected or have an agent in your corner, it’s hard to know what editors are looking for at the present moment. Paying too much attention to the marketplace tends to create anxiety, whether it’s founded or not, and takes the fun out of the creative process.
The Pitfalls of Trendy Manuscripts
And if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, and approaching it with a more mercenary attitude, chances are good that others will find it more difficult to be passionate about it, too, and treat it like a project-of-the-week. Emotionally, this can lead to bitter grumblings where writers are asking some variation on “How do bad books get published?” I heard it a lot during the Twilight era. “Why did that stupid vampire novel get published, while I have a perfectly good vampire novel and nobody wants it?!” writers would gripe.
There’s no good answer to that question. Maybe the stupid vampire novel was submitted before yours, or the writer had started it before the Twilight epidemic as an original, unlikely idea, and it’s full of that type of passion, whereas the griping writer’s novel was written in haste to make a few quick bucks. Who knows. But sometimes trend-driven projects take on a competitive edge that wouldn’t otherwise be there, and prove unpleasant to their creators.
Plus, a lot of the wild successes of publishing have come out of left field, as far as categories are concerned. So there’s something to be said for originality influencing the market, not the other way around.
The Perfect Blend of Publishing Trends and Timelessness
I think an approach somewhere in the middle ground is the best. Familiarize yourself with children’s book trends so that you can give yourself a fighting chance. But don’t dwell on trends or haunt the deals notices too closely. Stick to your original ideas and pursue them passionately, as long as you’re also keeping a distant eye on what it might be like to sell them down the road. This, to me, is the sane road.
What kind of writer are you when it comes to paying attention to publishing trends? Do you let it dictate, or do you follow your heart and then see if there’s a spot for what you’ve created? Or are you a little bit of both?
Wondering if your idea has market potential? Hire me as your book editor or manuscript consultant and I can give you feedback for where your project might fit into the publishing scene.
Your book has some high stakes. But are they too high?
It seemed that, for a while in the early 2010s, every book I was getting in the slush as an agent had something to do with the end of the world. Dystopian fiction was all the rage, The Hunger Games were exploding off the shelves, and the Mayans had supposedly hinted that the end times would happen in 2012. (Maybe they did and we are all a dream that one of my pugs, who sleeps pretty much continuously, is having?)
Stakes in writing: find a balance between too small and too huge, and always make them specific to your character.
Point being, I saw the same iteration of high stakes in writing over and over:
Kid is arbitrarily chosen to save the world, because the world is definitely ending, usually by a mechanism that is large, ominous, and largely outside of anyone’s control. The phenomenon is either natural (disaster, asteroid, climate collapse, virus, etc.) or manmade (shadowy government forces, global war, etc.).
Stakes in Writing: the “Chosen One”
I’ve written before about the unique challenges of the “chosen one” style of story, where a child is, seemingly, arbitrarily plucked from obscurity to avert global disaster. This is a very tough type of book to pull off, and yet that doesn’t stop pretty much everyone from trying. Basically, it opens up a lot of questions that never seem answered quite to my satisfaction. Why this totally ordinary kid? Why such profound magical powers out of nowhere? If this kid is so special, why haven’t they been groomed for the task from birth? Who decided that this one child, on a planet of 8 billion people, was the only hope?
Structurally, these stories also seem to follow a lot of the same steps, which now seem cliché. A milestone happens and they discover a secret about themselves that reveals a destiny. Then they are thrust into a completely new group of people. Cue meet and greets. Then they have to learn a whole new set of skills. Cue training montages (which contribute to a rather static “muddy middle,” since you can only write a few scenes of learning how to do XYZ before they start to run into one another). There’s a rival and a big challenge, then the character must do the thing they were destined to do. It looks unlikely for a second, and the Earth is splintering apart and shaking, and then, suddenly, they persevere at the last moment and the whole world is saved!
Can Stakes Be Too High?
The big issue with these stories, other than their relative sameness, is that the sky high stakes are maybe…too high.
Now, I can imagine you, dear reader, are about to throw your laptop at me. I keep talking about stakes and stakes and stakes and tension and friction and raising the stakes, and then I show up one fine Monday morning to tell you that, well, stakes can be too high. What do I want? Why am I so finicky? Is nothing ever good enough for Little Miss Goldilocks over here?
Hear me out. The issue with most manuscripts is, indeed, that stakes in writing tend to be too low. The action is small, there’s not enough personal investment from the character, and the consequences of each action and plot point are barely registering on the charts. However, the opposite extreme is also problematic. If someone ran down my street right now in their boxer shorts, screaming that the world was ending, I would…shrug? Go to a news website? Call my husband? Throw caution to the wind and eat a whole thing of ice cream? I don’t know. That’s such an improbable event (no matter how many times our imaginations have gone there) that it’s too big to believe.
Selling Huge Stakes Is Difficult
Once your inciting incident kicks off, you have a lot of convincing to do — starting with the character, then the reader. Is the world really going to end? Readers, by this point, are savvy customers. We know how these types of stories go. And we know that the world ain’t ended yet. And if it was going to, it would probably be turned over to the professionals rather than landing squarely in the lap of a 12-year-old kid.
So should you even bother with an apocalypse story? You can. There’s always something deeply fascinating to humans about the idea of the world exploding or being decimated by virus. I would imagine there are some hastily written zika virus manuscripts popping into agent inboxes right about now. If you still want to do this sort of thing, I would suggest that the character and plot need to be inextricably tied to make your high stakes believable.
High Stakes Need to be Tied to Your Specific Character
This specific kid needs to match this specific apocalypse in a way that makes them the only possible answer. Let’s say that their mother was a leading climate scientist who was recently kidnapped. Life sucks for the character as they try to put the pieces back together. Then it’s revealed that the reason for the kidnapping was that Mom had just stumbled upon a shadowy government conspiracy to overheat the Middle East in a desperate bid to end the conflict there. But it worked too well, and now the entire planet is in grave danger. Mom is presumed dead, but Kid has his doubts. Worse yet, Mom told Kid some very classified information right before she was taken, almost as if she knew what was going to happen. Now Kid might be the only one to reverse the runaway climate. But, even with the world (theoretically) at stake, Kid has their own skin in the game: to see if Mom is actually alive, and to bring those responsible for the kidnapping to justice.
Apocalypse story. Shadowy government conspiracy. Runaway climate change (giving the story a timely hook). But what do we notice about this premise? It’s not just some random kid. In fact, the kid has deeply personal reasons for springing into action. And averting the apocalypse is almost a byproduct of more intimate, meaningful goals.
Make Your Stakes More Personal
That’s what I would suggest doing if your stakes are too high: make them smaller (not in scope, but in terms of intimacy of objective and motivation). Make them more personal. Make it believable that a kid would rise up against huge forces to get what they want, because what they want is very close to their hearts. The stakes can remain huge (there’s still an apocalypse scenario) but their impact on your specific character is what has the power to set you apart in this very crowded category.
Hire me to be your book editor and I’ll help you evaluate if your stakes are too low or too high, and give you actionable steps to make them compelling yet believable.
