Writing Read Aloud Picture Books

Tom wrote into the blog with a question about read aloud picture books. Check out my answer in video form, or read the transcript below. If you want to dig deeper into picture book voice, here’s my post on reading your way to great writing voice.

How Do You Write Read Aloud Picture Books?

Hi, this is Mary Kole and welcome to kidlit.com. Today I have a question from Tom, and it is all about read aloud potential and work for younger readers. So here we’re talking about picture books, we’re talking about chapter books, early readers, those sorts of categories. Some parents do read middle grade with their kids, but since you’re getting kind of into independent reader territory there, I’m just gonna talk about these younger categories. So Tom wrote into the blog and he said, “You know, I noticed that some works really, really have great read aloud functionality. If you wanna call it that. Some works are just great to read aloud, I read ’em to my kids, everybody enjoys it, it’s this great kind of family moment,” which is what we’re hoping to create when we write for kids, right, “and some works just don’t. They fall flat, the language doesn’t flow.” So he is asking, you know, how do you create more of the good stuff and less of the clunky dry voice that doesn’t lend itself well to read aloud potential.

“Read Aloud Potential” Is A Great Query Hook

Now, read aloud the potential is a phrase that I’m using very deliberately because when I used to look at query letters as a literary agent, one of the sales hooks for a picture book that would get my attention is if the writer had written “This book has great read aloud potential”. And then when I would turn around and pitch that book to an editor, that would also be a sales hook that I used all the time. Because when you’re pitching, you really want things to have hooks, you want to be able to say something, encapsulate a benefit of that particular project. Now if you’re thinking of writing a query letter, you should also be thinking along these lines of what are my benefits here for this project, other than it’s a great manuscript, right? We also want to try and find these little benefits, and read aloud potential is actually a great benefit. If you’re writing picture books, definitely put it in your cap and remember that saying something has great read aloud potential is something that sends a positive flag up in a query letter.

How To Identify Great Picture Book Voice

Now, the question becomes, how do you build that read aloud potential into a story? And that is where I think Tom’s question lies. So what makes for great read aloud potential? I have one tip that seems so incredibly obvious that I almost feel dumb saying it here, but I know that a lot of readers don’t think of it. I work as a freelance editor now with clients and writers all over the globe, and it is so much fun. But when I give this note, I’ve noticed that a lotta my clients sort of have a light bulb moment, and it’s like they hadn’t really thought of it before. So when I say this, you might be like, “Duh,” which is why I’m here, I hand out duh moments, read your work loud as you write it, as you revise it, read that work aloud. Only then will you know exactly what its read aloud potential is.

Here’s the thing that happens. We are…we train ourselves when we write in the flow and cadence of our own voice, if that makes sense. We know what our voice is about, we’re used to it, and that’s natural, right? It’s our voice, it’s coming from how we talk, how we write, we’ve had our entire lives to get used to this voice, and then that’s what’s most natural for us to use when we’re writing fiction. The thing is, you’re used to your voice, but what about anybody else? And this is where people tend to get tripped up because if you’re only writing in your head, your head is used to your own voice. And when you write something on the page and then read it back to yourself, again in your head, not by speaking, you gloss over things that tend to be clunky in the writing because you’re used to your own writing style.

read aloud picture books, picture book voice — If you want to create great picture book voice, try reading your work aloud.

Catching the Speed Bumps

It’s… One of my favorite parts of my MFA experience was the workshop part, where we would take our manuscript, pass it to the person next to us, or across the room, or whatever, and have them read it to us. It was most, most often an enlightening experience and embarrassing experience because they’re not used to our writing style, they’re not used to our voice. So when they read a piece of writing that they did not write, they’re coming to it for the first time and they start to struggle. You know, this sentence is really clunky, they trip over it because they’re not expecting the words to be in a certain order. When we’re reading that sentence in our heads during the revision process, we probably gloss right over it because we’ve read that sentence before, we know our own writing style, it just sort of we don’t notice where the bumps are. But if you have a writer reading it back to you, you’ll start to see that’s a speed bump, that’s a little hiccup, they tripped over that sentence, you’ll really start to sort of hear it in a way that you haven’t heard it before. And having somebody read your work is the ideal application of this advice, but not everybody has a person sitting there ready and waiting to read your manuscript to you. And if it’s a novel, nobody’s gonna read 80,000 words of your stuff without a whole heck of a lot of a bribery.

Read Your Work to Yourself

So the most common and useful application of this advice is to actually read your own work to yourself. This is more approachable, this is what most writers can actually do. And it’s different from reading something to yourself silently because it forces you to pay more careful attention to the page. It is my number one piece of voice advice, it’s my number one piece of read aloud potential advice, and if you’re writing picture books, early readers, and chapter books especially, you have no excuse, those manuscripts are short at the end of the day. So if you’re just sitting there and revising, open your mouth. Open your mouth and say the words, it’ll help you focus on the page in a different way, it’ll help you see what’s on the page in a different way, and you’ll be able to actually experience what it’s like to read that work aloud because a lot of these younger manuscripts are meant to be read aloud by parent to child. And it’ll really help you kind of see what you’re doing in a different way. And as you’re doing it, I wouldn’t even try to edit, like, right there on the page. I would actually have a pen in my hand, have the physical manuscript, have your voice ready to go, start reading, and then every time you stumble, every time you have to start over, every time something comes out in a way that maybe you didn’t intend, and without realizing, you’ve sort of put something clunky on the page, just mark it. Just mark it, circle it, put a check mark next to it, do whatever you have to do, come back to it later. And then as you’re trying to fix it, speak. You know, storytelling is a verbal art form. We started out storytelling around the campfire with our voices and our bodies, it’s a physical thing. And when we tend to, you know, just sit on the screen typing, we get disconnected from that very physical, very vocal art of storytelling.

Revise Aloud

So I’m sort of inviting you to bring that practice back into your writing life. Ideally, you would be doing this from the very beginning of writing your manuscript, but a lot of us have manuscripts already where we didn’t do it, so the next best thing is to revise aloud. And then when you’re coming across a section that you marked as clunky, when you edit that, speak several options aloud, see which one flows the best. Especially for these… My dogs are killing me, they are just snoring right there. Sorry about that. So especially for these younger readers, the shorter the manuscript, the more you want to speak what you’ve written, the more you want to revise with that in mind because those words really will be spoken. They’re not just gonna lie on the page like they do in a novel. So the best way to know if you have a voice with read aloud potential, is to read aloud the voice. Tom, I hope this helps. Thank you for your excellent question and I look forward to answering more. Thanks for watching.

Struggling with picture book voice? Let me help as your picture book editor. An experienced set of eyes on your work will put rocket boosters on your progress.

Writing Nonfiction Picture Books

I often work with clients who are writing nonfiction picture books. This is a tough proposition to publish. Let me explain what I mean. The book features characters and a plot, and also a sizeable number of facts. For example, a girl finds an unusual frog, learns that it belongs in a rain forest, and journeys there to return it. In the process, we have a character with a strong objective, plot points, as well as a lot of interesting information.

nonfiction picture books, writing nonfiction for kids — If you’re writing nonfiction for kids, do you need to add an element of whimsy in order to hook readers?

In theory, nonfiction picture books are a great idea. We have all the charm and imagination of fiction, as well as that all-important educational value. So what goes wrong with this type of manuscript? It lies in the nonfiction part that the writer is attempting to attach to the fiction. There are two problems that usually arise. Too much information, and too little.

When There’s Too Much Information

That means the character and plot elements of the fiction part are too thin. The issue is usually that a person really wants to be writing nonfiction for kids, but they worry that it won’t have enough pizzazz in the marketplace, so they try to spice it up with a protagonist. There are characters, but they don’t do much of anything, for example. It’s if we had Dora the Explorer but we didn’t know anything about her. She just had a name and a little bit of a personality, but she was only really there to have a learning experience. A glorified tour guide, if you will. In my original frog premise, it would be if the girl just went to the rain forest (without a frog or a mission to return it) and walked around, learning about the various plants and animals. There’s technically a fictional “frame” on this book (the girl whose eyes we are seeing things through) but it’s mostly nonfiction.

My recommendation, in that case, would be to rewrite your nonfiction picture book as straight nonfiction. It’s going to be easier to place, anyway, if it’s easier to categorize. A fact-based look at the rain forest (or any other topic) without any distracting character element is the bread and butter of school and library NF picture book programs. The lesson? You don’t have to tack a character on to a manuscript if your passion is nonfiction children’s books. If you are qualified to write factually on a subject, do your best at that and pitch it as NF.

When There’s Too Little Information

This is the other potential issue with nonfiction picture books. The lack of information raises a lot of questions. It would be if the girl went to the rain forest, had some really awesome adventures, but only learned about one plant and two other animals. Why that plant? Why those animals? Why those facts about that plant and those animals? If your goal is to teach, why not teach more comprehensively? Why pick only five facts to span the course of a book?

I recently encountered this issue with a client who was writing nonfiction for kids. (I’m going to change the details of the premise for the sake of confidentiality.) The writer a century’s worth of decades, let’s say the 20th century. And their character stopped in each decade for one page. They learned one thing about each decade. Why that thing? Out of everything that happened in that decade, why that one thing? The educational element was too thin.

Pick a Specific Angle When Writing Nonfiction Picture Books

If you’re going to cover a topic (the 20th century), then you need to pick a specific angle and really dive in. A nonfiction picture book on the 20th century isn’t going to sell that well, no matter how charismatic your characters are. It’s too broad. Now, a tour of the Roaring 20s? Getting there. Maybe just the music of the Roaring 20s or the fashion of the Roaring 20s? Very specific. A character recreating the fashion of the 1920s for a fashion show? Bingo. That represents a good blend of fiction and nonfiction.

I would say that a good example of nonfiction picture books is the Magic Schoolbus franchise. The class is always up to something. There’s action involved, a mystery to solve, etc. The learning happens almost “under the table” as they pursue an objective. But the books are chock-full of information, and they represent a very comprehensive look at a particular topic.

If you’re writing nonfiction for kids and find yourself stuck halfway between fiction and nonfiction, make sure you have enough substance for each category, otherwise, you may be better off committing fully in one direction or the other.

It would be an honor to be your picture book editor, and I can help you address the picture book or nonfiction question before you submit.

Writing Rhyming Children’s Books

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?

rhyming children's books, rhyming picture book manuscript format — 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!

Picture Book Author Notes and Backmatter

I received a question the other day (thanks, Kate!) about picture book author notes and backmatter, and an author notes example in manuscripts. Great stuff. Let me give you some information on the topic so that you can move more confidently forward with your picture book submissions.

picture book author notes, author note, author notes example, author notes, backmatter, nonfiction manuscript — When you want to add extra information to your manuscript, use an author note.

When and Why to Use Picture Book Author Notes in Nonfiction

First of all, you see author notes more frequently in nonfiction work. After the topic is covered in the manuscript, it’s widely accepted to hear from the author (limited to about a page, with text that’s not too dense). The purpose is to add a few interesting tidbits that maybe didn’t fit into the actual narrative (maybe you’re covering a certain period in history with the text, and want to add some “footnotes” of what we’ve learned about that period since), or to personalize the subject.

Authors will often speak to why they gravitated to a particular subject or why they find it particularly fascinating. You shouldn’t style it as a diary entry, but as long as you can keep up the same tone and level of interesting content, you can take a more personal approach. The tone is friendly and engaging.

Author Notes Example in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction

For nonfiction/fiction hybrid and straight-up fiction manuscripts, where there’s a nonfiction subject but it’s fictionalized or the project deals with a nonfiction principle applied to a more artistic main text, the author note switches function. (More advice on creative nonfiction and nonfiction picture books.)

If your project, is, for example, a fictionalized account of a historical figure or a purely fiction story whose plot has a lot to do with the life-cycle of Monarch butterflies, for example, you want to use the author note as a teaching tool, to provide concrete information. The text is all about Bonnie observing the Monarch life-cycle, but the author note sums it up with additional facts that would’ve weighed down the text itself. In this picture book author notes example, the tone is more academic.

How Long Should Your Picture Book Author Notes Be

So what kind of author note do you have on your hands? Are you “softening” a nonfiction text or are you adding factual scaffolding to a fiction or fictionalized text? For the former, you’ll want to keep your author note brief. If your text is 2,000 words, 250 additional words wouldn’t be uncalled for, or an eighth of your manuscript length. This word count is a good author notes example. (Do note that nonfiction picture book texts tend to run longer than fiction, because it’s understood that there’s more information to communicate and the audience is on the older end of the spectrum.)

If you are working with the former “scaffolding” style of note, 500 additional words, or a quarter of your main text, would be your upper limit.

These are not hard-and-fast guidelines, but more of an exploration of the issue. Use the author note to say enough, but don’t write a second manuscript. If you find there’s a whole lot you want to add in your postscript, maybe there’s a way to revise the main text? Remember, the note shouldn’t do the heavy lifting. The main text has to be the star. (Curious about picture book word length? Read more here.)

How to Mention Picture Book Author Notes In Your Query Letter

As for mentioning the author note in your submission, that’s easy-peasy lemon-squeezy: “The main text of TITLE is X,000 words, with an author note of X words at the end.” Ta-da!

I’ve discussed picture books primarily in this post, but MG and YA novels also have tons of room for an author note. A good author notes example, say, is if your YA is largely inspired by the historical character of Lizzie Borden, feel free to spend even 2,000 words or so on some of the bloody facts of the case, and why your twisted little mind ( 😉 ) decided to use it as inspiration. Word count limits apply less to novel author notes, though you still want to keep them engaging and quick.

Working on picture book nonfiction or fiction with a real world subject? Let me help you hit the appropriate tone, voice, and level of information as your picture book editor.

Using Your Own Children’s Book Illustrations

If you’re considering using your own children’s book illustrations in your picture book, you’ll find that it’s tougher to break in by just submitting illustrations — rather than going in with an author illustrator dummy.

illustrating your own children's book, children's book illustrations — Awww, look at these cute little guys! They’re just begging their illustrator to write them their own story…

Barriers to Using Your Own Children’s Book Illustrations

Breaking Through Layers of Consideration

The basic rub with illustrating your own children’s book illustrations is that a lot of houses have hordes of illustrators that they already work with. So when a manuscript that needs an illustrator comes in (text only), an editor goes through the following thought process:

1) Did we pay enough for this manuscript and is it a big enough idea to give to one of our “famous” stable illustrators? We need to keep them happy with projects. If not…
2) Are there any other house illustrators that would be a good fit? Let me ask my colleagues about their stables, too. We want to keep these guys at our house. If not…
3) Here’s a stack of postcards for illustrators that I’ve been dying to work with but haven’t found a project for. Might this work for one of them? If not…
4) I’ll poke through the submission pile for any new postcards that have come in. Maybe there’s someone in there.

At this point, as a newbie illustrating your own children’s book, you’d be starting at the fourth (outermost) layer of consideration. Sure, you can definitely catch an editor’s attention, but her mind is going to be in a million other places when considering an illustrator. It’s a very tough road. There are a few agencies that deal mostly with illustration, like KidShannon, but even they would prefer to launch you in front of editors with an author illustrator full book project. (Check out this post for more info on the picture book author illustrator and literary agent relationship.)

Competing with MFA-trained Illustrators

You also need to consider that you’d be competing with the hundreds or thousands of MFA-level trained illustrators who are out there looking for projects. These are visual artists who have oftentimes done years and years of study in just illustration.

I’m not trying to crush your soul by listing all these barriers; I just want to underscore the fact that illustration is highly competitive. It isn’t the easy secret backdoor to publishing that some might imagine it to be.

You Need a Strategy

At least for your first project, focus on your strength. If that’s children’s book illustrations, great — put together an illustrator portfolio. If it’s writing, put together some manuscripts (more on how to write a children’s picture book here). If you’re handy at both, put together a dummy. But all routes are quite difficult, and there’s no real shortcut to any aspect of children’s publishing, including children’s book illustrations.

Hire me as your picture book editor and I’ll guide you through the process of creating an author illustrator dummy.

Relatability: What Makes Relatable Characters?

A New Yorker article that made the rounds a while back questioned the merit of relatability in characters. “The Scourge of ‘Relatability’” by Rebecca Mead is a great think piece. It goes into a brief history of the word “relatable,” takes some pot shots at Ira Glass, and completely denounces the concept of relatability as the act of readers or viewers demanding “a flattering confirmation of an individual’s solipsism.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, The New Yorker. You look a little tense. Take a seat, loosen your tie. Would you like a drink? You seem a little … peaked.

relatable characters, relatability — Young readers want relatable characters who validate their own experiences; who hold up a mirror and say, “This weird thing you’re going through? Me, too.”

I Still Believe in Relatability

I’ll be the first to admit that I talk a lot about the concept of relatability as it, ahem, relates to writing fiction, especially for picture book, middle grade, and young adult fiction readers. And no, I did not have an epiphany reading this op-ed piece about how that’s stupid and “hopelessly reductive” to advocate. I still believe that relatability is very important when targeting younger readers, because one has to take their mindset into consideration. Today’s MG and YA readers, especially, thrive on connection and are going through a lot of stuff that they don’t have the facilities or life experience to process yet. Good stuff, and negative stuff. And a lot of the time, they run into problems when they feel alone. They are bullied, they are abused at home, they feel like they have no voice, something secret gets out about them and they feel like they have no control over it, etc. etc. etc. Readers in these age groups want to read to form relationship.

Weird is Relatable

And relatability is a natural extension of wanting to capture a readership that craves connection. Do we make each character an Everyman meant to emulate and capture the widest possible audience by having the most generic (more relatable?) traits possible? No, nobody said that. I would argue that even the more quirky or odd or unsympathetic characters in fiction are relatable by virtue of how weird they are. Because we all have, at one point or another, felt like a profound freak. And even if they’re not the same kind of profound freak, we find solace in their freakishness.

One of my favorite “weird” characters is Beatrice from Natalie Standiford’s How to Say Goodbye In Robot. I have a lot in common with Beatrice and a lot absolutely not in common with her. But something about her is so damn relatable that I can’t stand it. Why? I believe it’s because the character is so specific. She feels real. A lot of detail went into her creation. She is the very opposite of the wide net Everygirl trying to be all things to all people. And yet she’s one of the most relatable characters I’ve read.

Relatability Isn’t Necessarily Bland

Rebecca Mead says that relatability is a pox because it somehow demands that a work to “be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader… (who) remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her.” Again, I disagree. Those works that pander to the audience and try to grasp the loose concept of relatability might fall to this flaw.

But when Natalie Standiford was writing Beatrice, I don’t think she was coming from a place of “I have to construct this girl to appeal to all.” Writing character development, for Standiford, meant creating a quirky and TRUE character. Now, what’s true about Beatrice to you might be very different from what’s true about Beatrice to me. And that’s okay. The fact remains that there’s just so much there to choose from about this rich and complex characterization.

Instead of producing a cookie-cutter character and a one-size-fits-all book to strive for Rebecca Mead’s portrayal of relatable characters, Natalie Standiford created a work where relatability was a natural byproduct of a lot of tough, honest, and incredibly specific characterization and plotting (see the difference from relatability and boring characters here). Nobody cut any corners, in fact, I bet it was harder to write someone so nuanced.

Young Readers Need Connection

Long story short, I think that PB, MG, and YA readers are precious. And if they’re anything like I was in those age groups, they are searching. They crave connection. If the idea of relatability urges writers on to write even better characters and stories for readers who will very much flourish when relating to the work, I’d say it’s an amazing thing. Let The New Yorker see the glass as half-empty, I see it as half-full of great inspiration and potential for writers.

(Also, and not to ruffle any feathers with my off-the-cuff attempt at humor, I am a damn theatre major and I think that a lot of Shakespeare sucks. It’s a rigorous mental exercise, and a lot of fun to perform, and it revolutionized the English language, and all that is fine and good, but, as a modern woman, I’m happy to leave it at that without putting it on a pedestal. I’ve read the complete works once, when I was young and full of idealism. And you know what? Ain’t nobody got time for that!)

Working on character relatability? Hire me as your novel editor and we’ll make sure you’re creating fully realized fictional people on the page.

Rhyming Picture Books and Writing in Rhyme

In my career, I’ve worked a lot with rhyming picture books. Not on my agenting list, unfortunately, since the market for rhyming picture books was (and remains) tough. Of my dozen or so picture book author clients, most were author-illustrators who could bring a unique art voice and sense of balance between text and image, the rest were prose picture book writers, and only one was writing in rhyme exclusively. Tough odds. The rhyming one did get a book deal during our work together (the absolutely charming Goodnight, Ark by Laura Sassi, illustrated by Jane Chapman), but I heard over and over again from editors that children’s rhyming books were tough.

rhyming picture books, writing in rhyme, rhyming children's books, picture book writing — There’s more to rhyming picture books than end rhyme. Prepare to have a good time.

Rhyming Picture Books Need Rhythm, Too

Well, let’s leave rhyming out of it and talk about rhyming’s black sheep sister for a minute: rhythm. If you want to write rhyming picture books, I would actually argue that rhythm, not rhyme, is king of the genre. Most people get so caught up in finding the right rhyme that their rhythm is all over the place and completely sinks the manuscript, almost before it gets started. Are you writing in rhyme and failing to count your syllables? Start doing this now.

The biggest mistake people writing rhyming picture books make is letting rhyme dictate story. Why does the dog have fleas? Because it has to eat cheese in order for the rhyme to work? Wrong. You’ve written yourself into a prison and you’re going to keep sacrificing the integrity of the story just to hit your rhymes. That’s not great. (Picture book structure is also a top priority, but that’s for another post.)

The second biggest mistake, as you might be able to guess, is not paying attention to rhythm. If you aren’t yet familiar with syllable counts, iambs, trochees, and all the other trappings of a book in verse, it may be worth your while to get a high school or college poetry textbook. That’s right. A textbook. Because there is stuff to learn about rhythm that was so intricate that you quickly repressed it in the 9th grade. People have been hammering away at poetry for centuries and centuries. Give their hard work at least a cursory nod and study the poetic form before you throw your hat in the ring. (Another great resource is Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver.)

You could have the most beautiful rhyming picture books in the world but if the read-aloud factor isn’t there, and it’s pitted like a road after winter, with starts and stops, your rhyming picture book will go flat. And if you aren’t reading your work aloud as you compose or edit, especially for rhyming picture books, what, exactly, are you doing?! (More on read-aloud books here.) That is absolutely essential, because how it sounds in your head probably isn’t how it sounds out in the air.

Ideally you compose for content (story) and cadence (rhythm). Those two come first and foremost. Only when you master rhythm can you even think about writing in rhyme.

I work with hundreds of writers a year as a picture book editor. Rhyming texts are my specialty. Let’s make beautiful music together!

Building an Illustrator Website

If you are an artist, I highly recommend having an illustrator website to showcase your online children’s book illustrator portfolio. When you’re querying, instead of attaching images (most editors and agents don’t accept attachments anyway), you can just send a link to your illustrator website. Add new things, change out images in your rotation, and keep it clean, simple, and maintained. That’s about it. Well, almost.

children's book illustrator portfolio, illustrator website — If you’re trying to break in as a children’s book illustrator, it’s important to have an illustrator website.

If you’re not tech savvy, you may be able to hire someone via Elance to build your illustrator website. This is a freelance marketplace I’ve used to find web designers, or contractors in any arena, in the past. You could also ask someone in your circle of friends to put your image files (scans or digital creations) online. Just make sure that if you use scans, they are of high quality and taken under good lighting that’s true to your intended color scheme.

Building An Online Children’s Book Illustrator Portfolio

I see a lot of artists gravitating to Wix and SquareSpace for building their illustrator website. They are built to be user friendly and easy on the wallet. You can use templates provided or get someone to customize your site. These options are modern, work well across multiple platforms, and are easy to link to your other online efforts. I haven’t used either but I’m coming up on a project in my personal life and seriously considering SquareSpace because I like the design and functionality of their sites. I’ve been on WordPress for years and years, so maybe it’s time to try something new, minimal, and graphics-focused!

An Easy Way To Get Started

If all of this is very scary to you, you can just start your illustrator website with a free Flickr account that showcases a gallery of your images. This is the bare minimum, and allows you to host your image and a description (I would opt for one if you can). Send links to the entire gallery in your query so that visitors can click through the whole thing instead of landing on just one image.

A Necessary Part of Querying

Many people overthink the process of building an illustrator website. Sometimes computers can be scary and the demands of building a platform seem overwhelming. Don’t let that stop you from putting up a children’s book illustrator portfolio. If you’re illustrating your own children’s book, having an online presence has become quite necessary these days. Agents and editors except to see several examples of your work, with different composition, subject matter, tone, palette, etc. (if possible), before they can decide if they’re interested or not (more on how to find a literary agent for children’s books).

Are you working on a picture book? I’d love to be your picture book editor.

How to Write Child Characters With Their Own Wisdom

Nobody wants to admit they’re preaching in picture books, but… Most people also start out wanting to write picture books and their idea has a point to it. Their child characters have to learn something. It’s usually a lesson about living that they’re eager to pass on to impressionable young minds. How to write child characters is a bit more nuanced than that, if you want to do it right.

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Even if that lesson is zany and fun and uplifting, rather than moral or serious in nature, there’s still an element of “Let’s distill some life experience when learning how to write child characters.” Even if it’s not as conscious or overt as all that, teaching is still part of the urge that draws people to writing for the youngest readers.

How to Write Child Characters and Avoid Preaching

There’s definitely a way to act upon these instincts and get across to these impressionable readers. Absolutely! But it’s not to preach or state your “message” aloud. Today’s market, and discerning young readers, don’t much appreciate the, “And then we all learned to share” kumbaya moment at the end of the book where everyone lives happily ever after in peaceful coexistence. The trick to how to write child characters demands more nuance than that.

Not only is it a bit Picture Book 101 to tell this kind of moralizing story, but think of your writing audience. You want to avoid the situation of “wise older character comes and tells the young child characters all about how life works.” Kids get this all the time from parents, grandparents, teachers, older siblings, pastors, babysitters, etc. They receive a lot of the “should” type of education.

Incorporating Message and Theme in a Picture Book

This way of conveying your idea also doesn’t show your child audience the utmost respect. Why? It implies (even if you didn’t mean it to, and many writers don’t!) that the kid doesn’t know all that much about much, and that it takes a wiser (usually older) character to set them straight. This takes all the power away from the kid and gives it to an adult. Again. Just like what happens all over your average 3-7 year-old’s daily life. That’s not as sympathetic to their experience.

They come to stories for maybe another way of getting information. Maybe the “message” is buried in subtext, below the surface. It arises naturally from something the character might experience or realize as they journey through the story you’ve created. Writing child characters who come up with their own wisdom via life experience is key to creating an active protagonist.

I urge every aspiring picture book writer to try and stretch beyond this, maybe to the point where the character realizes some things, or better yet, comes up with the solution to the problem, all by themselves. Through seeing it experienced by a relatable character, kids will interpret your meaning on a deeper and more approachable level.

Want more advice on how to write child characters? Hire me as your picture book editor and we can convey your message without moralizing.

Nonfiction Children’s Book vs. Article

A reader wrote in over the weekend to ask about a nonfiction children’s book vs. an article:

I wrote a nonfiction article for a kids’ magazine. I sent it recently, haven’t heard back yet. Because I’m completely fascinated with the subject I wrote about, I sat down and wrote a different story on the same subject that ideally would be a nonfiction children’s picture book. I’ve sent it to just one agent a few days ago. No here’s my dilemma: I know all the “first-time rights” and “all-rights” lingo, but I’m wondering that, 1. does it apply because the mag article is different than the picture book story, and 2) in the 1-in-billion chance that the agent wants to pursue my book, do I need to jump up and shout- wait!- a magazine might publish a different-but-same-topic article I wrote. I feel like this could be potentially sticky…and I’m just wondering if there’s any justifications for my worries.

nonfiction children's book, nonfiction article — If you’ve written a nonfiction children’s book and article on the same topic, pay close attention to the text and make sure that you’re not publishing a close replica.

Nonfiction Article and Nonfiction Children’s Book: Are the Texts Close Replicas?

Rights to a book are pretty heavily connected to the text of a book. A lot of authors publish a nonfiction article in their subject area before writing a full-length book about it (and lots of people pitching nonfiction book proposals are told “This is more of an article” because there’s not enough meat in their topic/angle to support a full book).

In a nonfiction article and nonfiction children’s book scenario, you could wander into a bit of a gray area because I’m imagining that both texts will be shorter and will cover a lot of the same information–i.e.: both overview biographies or both simple explanations of a scientific principle, etc. This is where you will want to pay close attention to the text and make sure that you’re not publishing a close replica.

Strategize Your Approach

If your nonfiction article and nonfiction children’s book angles are very different, like one is an overview and one covers a much more specific area of the subject, you have nothing to worry about. But if the topics are close and lightning happens to strike twice in the form of a magazine acceptance AND a book publishing opportunity, there is nothing wrong with strategically delaying the article until you can share your concerns with an agent or editor (I cover some of this etiquette in my post about having more than one literary agent). As opposed to the book manuscript and publishing plan with your acquiring editor, the article will be a lot easier to edit in a way that still meets the magazine’s purposes.

Communicate Openly

A larger point deserves to be made here: If you have a magazine editor, agent, or book editor on the hook and they like your work or area or expertise (in the NF world especially), there is nothing wrong with communicating openly, asking thoughtful questions, or attempting to get that person to work with you if something like this should come up. Your nonfiction article editor might be perfectly willing to publish a slightly different piece or time the piece differently (delay it while negotiation is in process, run it closer to your nonfiction children’s book publication date to build momentum, etc.) in case you happen to get a book contract.

Potential Positive Career Step

The good thing about this potential scenario, of course, is that being published in various venues on a subject will help you leverage yourself as an expert on a certain topic. As you build your career, you’ll actually want to seek out these types of situations and get your name out there. I know some of these questions are stressful, but try and think of this as a potential positive, because it very easily could be!

Working on a nonfiction children’s book? Hire me as your creative nonfiction editor and I’ll help guide you through gray areas like this.