Act 1: Set-Up – transition/plot twist – Act 2: Conflict/Crisis – transition/plot twist– Act 3: Resolution

Let’s take a closer look:

Act 1 – Set up: This tells us the world we’re in, who the central character is, what s/he wants, and what his/her problem is. At the end of this section there is some kind of transition or plot twist that raises the stakes, and makes it matter all the more that the character achieves his/her goal.

Act 2: The character keeps trying, keeps going for what s/he wants. Obstacles occur – either from external circumstances, or from within the character’s own make-up. Finally, something happens, some major obstacle, and – crisis! This further raises the stakes. There is another transition/plot twist – perhaps s/he is about to give up, or there is some impasse. It seems as though all is lost.

Act 3 – One last ditch effort – and then, resolution! Goal met, objective achieved, prize won – the final obstacle is overcome, yet often when offered the prize, s/he has to decide whether to take it or not… thus satisfying the need created by something in the past (at the beginning).

Most types of dramatic writing – most film scripts, most play scripts, most full length novels – follow this strict 3 act format. It’s basic dramatic structure: beginning, middle and end, or set up, crisis and resolution, and it is just as true, necessary and important in a picture book as it is in any other kind of dramatic literature. It’s also referred to as the “dramatic arc” or “journey,” and can be illustrated visually by a hill, a bell curve, a hat, a pyramid.

Stakes rise… and rise… and peak… then move toward resolution.

I wrote it in a very simple but stylistic format, and gave it to my editor.  “This is sweet…” she said, “but I’m concerned about the artwork.  It seems like it will be page after page of a boy standing there with his arms outstretched and his parents looking worried. Can we get away from this scene at all? Can we go somewhere else? Can we shake it up a bit?”

Duh.

Sometimes a story isn’t picture-book worthy because there just isn’t enough visual interest.  That story ultimately ended up as a poem, and for that it works fine (I hope… If you’re interested, it’s included in our new anthology.  It’s called “Faith”.) But it wouldn’t have worked as a picture book because there’s no visual progression to the story. There’s emotional progression, but no visual progression.

Remember: Artwork is at least 50% of a good picture book, and tells as much of the story as text does. And in picture books, art shouldn’t just mirror the text, it should advance the story – adding dimension and detail beyond what the text reveals, so that the reader pieces the whole story together from both. Picture book authors must avoid writing what the art will show – but they must also ask themselves whether, and how, each scene will make for compelling artwork.

What do you want to say to your audience, and why?  It’s not enough to simply entertain – we want to offer our readers something to think about, a feeling, perhaps, or a question for further dialogue after the book is finished.  Your theme is your message, your point, your reason for writing this story… in a word, the gift you wish to give.

Let’s say you have an idea about a rescue dog: a compelling character with plenty of plot possibilities.  But what is it you want to say to kids about being a rescue dog?  Is it the value of home, family, courage, being lost and then found?  The task is not to preach or to teach – but rather to give. Think back to being a child, to what you needed to hear or to know, what would have helped you most on your journey to adulthood.

The most successful children’s books are those that have emotional resonance for children. They have a heart that kids can connect with and relate to. Obviously, as adults it’s our responsibility to help guide young minds toward the wiser choices we hope they’ll make… but we need to give kids the respect to make those discoveries themselves rather than having it spoon-fed to them, or worse, hammered over their heads.  We must work to ensure that our themes are relevant and valuable to our reader’s current experience… and most importantly, that they are there to be discovered – not overtly stated or screamed out from the page.

The best way to achieve this is to put ourselves in our reader’s shoes, and write in terms that he or she can relate to. That doesn’t mean we can’t use rich language, or that we can’t ask kids to stretch up a bit in terms of vocabulary. It’s about writing from the child’s point of view as opposed to that of an adult, and offering something that helps our young reader better cope with the challenges of growing up, even if it’s as simple as “you’re not alone…” or “you are loved.”

Here’s a great exercise to explore this further: Write a paragraph describing something – a person, place or object – from your adult perspective. Now, describe that same thing, but imagine that you are a six-year-old child as you write. You can write as either yourself at that age, or as a child you know. The difference should surprise you, and should give you a keener sense of how to connect with your young readers. Above all, it should help you give them the simple gift of being understood.

The central dramatic question can usually be summed up as: “Will ______ find, get, solve, achieve _____?”

When somebody asks what your story is about, the answer is not: “It’s about a little boy who misbehaves, and whose mother sends him to bed without supper, so he goes on a fantastic journey and meets monsters.” That’s the plot. What your story is about is the dramatic question it raises, which can be summed up in a single sentence: “My story is about whether a little boy will be forgiven – and will forgive himself – for his temper tantrum.”

A variation on this idea ends up at the beginning of every book ever published, in the form of the “CIP,” otherwise known as the Library of Congress’s Cataloging and Publication Information. This is the sentence that describes your book and accompanies all your copyright info, acknowledgments etc. on the first (or last) page… and which ultimately assists librarians when it comes time to catalog your book in libraries. But it’s invaluable to sum up our stories in that one sentence long before the Library of Congress does. It’s not only a great exercise in terms of sharpening the focus of a manucript, it also serves as a powerful sales and marketing tool. You’ll use it in your sales pitch to agents and publishers, you’ll use it on the jacket copy, and you’ll use it in press releases and interviews once the book is published. It will serve you in every step of your journey, from publication through promotion.

There are very few people who can write verse as brilliantly as he did, although it is great fun to attempt to do so.  I confess to having written a few stories in “tribute to Dr. Seuss mode” myself.  I also confess to having had a number of those stories rejected by publishers. Verse is widely considered to be difficult to do well, and for this reason, it can be a tough sell. When in doubt, go for prose – but if you must write in verse, then remember this: story first, verse second.

Challenge yourself to write a version of the story in prose, so that you can be sure the story is leading, and that the verse is germane to the story and not just filler for the sake of a rhyme.  In my editing practice, I frequently see stories written in verse taking all kinds of detours because the writer is trapped by the rhythm or rhyme.  They lose momentum, and their central dramatic core.  Drafting a prose version, whether before or after you’ve written the verse version, forces you to review the key issues—character, plot, setting, theme- in order to ensure that you haven’t neglected story structure for the sake of rhyme.  Verse should be the icing, not the cake itself.

Finally, never force the meter, or assume the reader will hit the right emphasis on the right part of the word if it is out of sync with how we normally say something.  Make sure that the rising and falling tone matches, and that the rhyme is true.

Whose point of view the story is told from is one of the most important decisions an author can make. But how to determine the best choice?

Consider these questions:

• Can the central character be present for, and actively involved in, all the events of the story, or must they be elsewhere during some of the scenes?
• Does he or she have a stake in the outcome of this story?
• Is he or she the central focus, more or less on every page, with everything happening to them?
• Is it helpful to see the events that are happening to them through their eyes?

If the answers to these questions are mostly yes, then first person might be a good choice.  If not, a third person narrator’s voice may give you more freedom and flexibility.

There is also the question of tense. Will it be past or present? Is it going to be “once upon a time” or “he says/she says”? There is a great trend toward immediacy in the picture book market right now. Publishers like books in present tense, the thought being that it engages the reader more actively in the story. They’re experiencing it as it happens, rather than being once removed from something that happened before.

If you’re telling a story that is specific to a certain event or time – for example, “so and so saved the day in the school play” – you might want to tell it in past tense, because it’s a finite event that took place once upon a time. If you’re telling “a day in the life of…” story, where the events are ongoing, or could happen more than once, then the present tense might more engaging. For example, in Ian Falconer’s wonderful “Olivia” books, the first one – Olivia, which focuses on introducing the character and describes Olivia’s average day – is in the present tense. Subsequent books such as Olivia Forms a Band, in which Olivia celebrates the Fourth of July, are told in past tense.

There is no right or wrong approach. It’s all a question of style.

This series is part of a new e-course and group coaching program I am developing, as well as being fodder for a new book, so your comments here are most welcome and will help me shape the direction of all these offerings.  If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe to my mailing list (I promise, no green eggs and spam) so that I can let you know when the programs are launched.

And now to the first topic…

Q: Who’s Your Hero? (A: Your Reader!)

When my mother and I first started working on the Dumpy the Dump Truck series, we needed to come up with a driver for Dumpy. Since the character had to be of driving age, we thought a teenager might be the most interesting for young readers (never mind that our target audience was between the ages of 3 and 5). We presented the first draft to our editor, and she said, “Very nice – but where are the kids?”

She reminded us that a rule of thumb, the central characters in childrens books should be of the same age and spirit as the child reading them. She suggested we convert the teenage character into a little boy the same age as our reader, and add a grandfather who could do the driving. Light bulb! Now we had a central character our readers could relate to, and a bonus extension of our theme of finding value in older things (or people), even after they seem to have outlived their usefulness.

You’d think we’d have learned our lesson, but we made the same mistake again several years later when writing our first middle grade novel, Dragon: Hound of Honor. Because this was for middle grade readers, and because it was based on a medieval French legend, we thought it was enough to have the knights and ladies (and dog) as our central characters. Once again, our editor said, “Where’s the kid?” We came up with a young page, an apprentice in the castle from whose point of view the story is told, and who happens to be the same age as the target audience for the book.

What we’ve (hopefully) by now learned is that the heroes, or protagonists, of childrens books must be characters that young readers can identify with and relate to. The best way to achieve this when developing an idea is to imagine the specific child or children you are telling this story to.  How old are they? What are their interests, concerns, hopes, fears?  That’s your target audience… and that’s the age, physical and/or emotional, that your principal character should be.