Last week, in class, we started talking about picture books.
Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul is our text book for this section of the class and a fantastic read for anyone who is interested in (you guessed it) writing picture books! This book has everything you might need to know for writing picture books.
She starts off by talking about picture books and children in general. Then she moves on to the components of a picture book. How do you write a good first line? It talks about the three part act. It talks about creating characters and the journey of characters. It talks about if you should or shouldn’t rhyme, and many other things that authors of picture books should know. She also includes writing exercises after every chapter.
One of the things that I took away from the book that I really didn’t know is that the author needs to give the illustrator a lot of power over their work. Now as an author, this was weird for me to hear. What? Let someone else control MY story? Absurd! But it’s true. Illustrators need to have the freedom to work. Maybe you said something with words that the illustrator could very easily say with a picture or two.
I’ve never written a picture book before, but I’m excited to see what I can do with it. This week, we start working on a picture book dummy. I can’t wait to share that experience with you!
Keep writing, keep reading!