If you can’t boil your book down to two sentences then it isn’t ready.

This is true.  It also follows that if you can’t boil your book down to two sentences then you can’t write the hook at the top of your query/cover letter.   But, what goes into this all important mini-paragraph?

Two words:  Dramatic Conflict

Dramatic Conflict is basically this pattern everytime:  Somebody wants something, but there’s something big in the way.   So he’ll have to give it all he’s got to even have a shot at it.  Will he win or lose?

Here’s some ridiculous, made-up examples:

John loves Martha.  The only problem is–Martha’s marrying someone else in two weeks and doesn’t even know he’s alive.  Can John get her to fall in love with him in time or will he lose her forever?

Chewing bones is the highlight of Bob Dog’s day, but his owner has gone vegetarian and put Bob on the diet.  How will Bob persuade his owner to forgo the tofu and bring back the pork shoulder?

Shelly Sheep has gorgeous wool and a nasty shearing phobia.  Every time the clippers turn on, she throws up all over herself and shorts out the clippers.  If she can’t get it together soon, she’ll end up at the butcher’s instead.  What will she do?

If you follow this pattern and can sum up your book in this way, then your conflict is tight and your cover letters/queries will be compelling enough to get your story read with interest.

But not all children’s books are about conflict!!!  True.  Most of mine are that way too.  But, in my experience, the best hooks present the material as a solution to conflict outside the book.  A child’s desire to explore versus his the difficulty of the material…or his need to know versus his age-appropriate disinterest…of his endless curiosity versus the limited availability of books on the subject.

More ridiculous, made-up examples:

ALPHA MANNERS, a 400-word picture book, uses ironic gross-out comedy and ridiculous rhymes to keep the young reader engaged as he learns his ABC’s and improves his interpersonal behavior skills.

The picture book HAIKU MAMBO leads the young reader into the fascinating world of Italian-Japanese nature dance.  With rollicking rhythm and deep meditative imagery, young readers will be simultaneously entertained and enlightened by this cross cultural passport.

RECYCLED JOE is a picture book that leads the young reader through the steps of recycling–not just what and where to recycle, but follows the journey of one particular coffee cup through the recycling plant as he is reprocessed into the very book the child is holding.  RECYCLED JOE not only reinforces the need to recycle, but helps the reader see each piece of recyclable trash (and, metaphorically, the people around him) not in terms of  what it used to be, but what it can now become.

HA!  Those crack me up.

In summary, the best teasers promise a great ride through fictional obstacles for a fictional character OR an engaging leg up on real world obstacles.

1. You’re carefully manicured manuscript makes it’s debut on a desk, somewhere inside a publishing company.  If the reader likes your manuscript–it goes to the editor.
2. If the editor likes it, he/she may call you then, but more than likely, he/she has taken it to a few meetings already where people have talked about market potential etc.
3. You get THE CALL.  “We like it!  Let’s do this thing.”
4. If you have an agent, they take over.  If you don’t have an agent and want the best deal–now is when you call one.  Now is also the easiest time to get one.  And don’t be all pessimistic like, “Of course, they want their 15% and I did all the leg work!”  Any agent you really suspect of being that way shouldn’t be your agent.  What a contract offer does is tell the agent that you are pre-screened.   If you aren’t sure you want to marry an agent right now, just contract for them to negotiate THIS DEAL and play it by ear from there.
5. At some point, usually MONTHS later, a finished contract arrives.  In triplicate.  You initial all the pages and sign on the dotted line a few times.  (Not as bad as buying a house, but more than renting a car.)
6. At some point, usually WEEKS later, you get revision requests from the editor with whom you furiously email back and forth until he/she declares the whole thing done. (There may also be some “Hey, I’m talking to this illustrator, check his site” emails during this time.)
7. You may not hear from them for a year.  But during that time, a check arrives.
   
8. After the year of less/no contact, you may email your editor to see if he/she is still alive and nicely ask about the schedule. They will give you a season like, Fall 2009.  This is the time to say nicely that you would love to do any other project they have in mind and, in passing, mention some of your ideas.  (It’s funny how New Yorkers are famous for being so blunt in personal matters, but when it comes to business decisions, I’ve found them to be quite indirect.  We Southerners are seriously blunt about business decisions, but famously indirect about personal matters.)
9. Somewhere around 10 months before the drop date, you get “proofs.” Big sheets of paper with the pictures and text.  Usually it’s just a courtesy to send us one.  The illustrator really needs it, but it’s nice to check the typos and all.  Like we had several versions of one line in my poem and a previous version was in the proofs.  Good time to catch that.
10. It shows up on Amazon!!!!
11. I don’t know, cause I’m not that far yet!!!

When I first started, I poured SO MUCH time into the query.  And I got really good at it.  But here’s the main point…no matter how good your query, THE BOOK is what sells.

So, if you’re going to pour your time and effort into something, put it in THE BOOK.

I have rarely, if ever, heard of someone who wrote a GREAT BOOK that was derailed by poor queries.  Truth be known, some really poorly edited letters and manuscripts still sell because the idea or story is SO GOOD.

A publisher is going to dump thousands of dollars into your book and the best query on earth won’t convince them to do that unless they love the material.

Believe me, I know.  I wrote hundreds of queries and got really good at it.  I got requests from all over.  I looked very professional.  But nothing sold until my twentieth manuscript.

The query that got my agent’s attention was something along the lines of –Help, Scholastic is calling and I can’t sell.  Here’s the teaser.  I’d love to send it to you.

It sounded a little more professional than that, but you get the gist.

The point is, if you’re submitting and submitting and getting no sales…it’s probably not the queries causing your problem.

But, if you’re still saying to yourself, but I see crap out there all the time!  Why won’t they take MY stuff.  It’s better than that. Read this.

You do not have to find your own illustrator.

If this is news, you haven’t been doing this very long.  HA!  This is news to all of us in the beginning, but the truth is that the ‘house’ that publishes your text will choose the illustrator for you.

Picture books are a DUAL artist medium.  Notice I didn’t say COLLABORATIVE.  You never meet them.  You never talk to them.  You get NO INPUT other than the text of your book.

If you’re not okay with that, you have three choices:

1.  Get really good at art and design so you can be an author/illustrator.

2.  Go with a really small publisher that will let you choose your own.

3.  Write novels.

• Use regular paper in a regular 12pt font , like Times.
• Put your title about halfway down the first page, centered.
• Put your name below that.
• About 3/4 of the way down, start your text, double spaced, regular margins.
• On the top left or right of each following page, put your name, the manuscript name, and the page number.  Something like this:   Caswell/FIRST BALLET/2
• If you’re doing poetry and want to show stanza changes, put in an extra space.

Don’t obsess!  Any editor that will toss your ms out because you used 1.25 margins instead of 1.0, or put your name in all caps instead of just the first letter is NOBODY you want to work with.  EVER.

Some people would advise you to find out ALL you can about an agent before you submit to them.

Meh.

But definitely do it before you sign.

And truthfully, that’s not as easy as it sounds.  Personalities are hard to read second hand.  If you’ve been to a conference and seen them or been on one of Verla’s chats with them, maybe you have a bit of an idea, but in my experience, what people say about themselves isn’t often representative of what it’s like to work with them.

I mean, who says, “I’m the type of agent who’s really jealous if you already have a relationship with an editor.”  Or, “I say I’m going to submit a lot of your work, but what I mean is PRETEND to submit a lot of your work.”

Your best bet is to interview people who are WITH the agent and find out why they like him and why they think others have left him. ”

If they say_______, you say __________:

“They didn’t think he sent out enough manuscripts.”  How many does he send out?

“They didn’t think he kept enough contact.”  How often does he call/write?

“They thought she asked for too many revisions before submitting.”  How much revision does she request?

“They never sold anything.”  Why do you think that is?

Now, NONE of us ever do this until after the fact.  But if it occurs to you and you can find someone willing to talk…you’ll never regret it.

If like the rest of us, you neglect to check personal references, (or don’t get them at all) look for REAL excitement about your work.  And I  don’t mean they SAY they’re really excited, but that you could tell the were excited, even if they were mute.

My friend signed with an agent that said she was excited, but it was more like being in a multi-level marketing group.  Contracts keeping my friend from ever submitting alone.  Lots of criticism with a smile.  Lots of work protecting THEIR image from her mistakes.  They weren’t excited about her work.  They were really excited about building their own reputations.

My agent called, said he loved this piece and could he go ahead and submit it to Hyperion.  He sold it in 48 hours.  THAT’s excitement.  And interestingly, he made no rules for me. All I needed to do was give permission.  He wanted to sell THAT BOOK, right now, no strings.

Aside from excitement, here’s what else you need to know about your potential agent (and yourself):

• Are you a good-contracts-make-good-associates type or do you work on a handshake?
• Do you take control of the whole portfolio or just specific projects as they come?
• Do you throw it all against a wall or sell only one or two super special ones a year?
• How often do you contact?  Blow by blows on submissions or just results?
• How will it be handled when you have a disagreement?
• Once the author-editor relationship is established, do conversations about future projects need to go through the agent, or can you just keep them posted?
• And if you do finally get around to interviewing people who are with this agent, finally, see if you can find out who has left this agent and why.  It’s probably that the agent and writer didn’t match up on one of the issues mentioned above.

I am a poetry PB writer.  But, my agent would like a mid-grade mystery from me.  Unfortunately, I haven’t ever written anything in prose that he likes.

Bummer.

But, I’m in this great Butt-In-Chair Club that stays on me and keeps me semi-productive.  And the leader, Anastasia, tells me that I need to go read a few mid-grade mysteries to get in the groove.

I feel like I’ll never get the hang of it!!!

Since I already have a couple of books, I can’t be a one hit wonder, but I’m currently a one style wonder.

Something pretty.  Blah-blah-blah.

Something else pretty.  Blah-blah-blah.

Just wait till the book comes out…and the second one.  And the one that’s being shopped right now.  Oh, and the one my editor requested.  ALL THE  SAME.

How am I ever gonna learn to write decent prose???

When you’re starting out, any non-relative critique is a good critique. Doesn’t matter if the person is a great writer or not. It’s important to experience your work through another’s eyes. Writing is about communication. You can’t communicate until you know how you’re being heard.

So, how do you find a critique group? My crit partner and I met through BOOST (which became a paid service and now I can no longer find.) It was free back then. We were randomly chauffeured into the same online group with a moderator. I’m still friends with some of those gals. But the point is, join any of those free online critique swaps and get your feet wet. Along the way, you’ll find some folks like you and you’ll split off into your own group.

Some folks like to gather groups at the Blue Boards or the Yellow Boards or the SCBWI boards. That’s fine if you want to do that, but I feel it’s hard for a single newbie to break in. But, if you meet a friend on a larger critique site then you two ARE a group, and you can go advertise on those boards for people to join your group. You will have no shortage of applicants.

A third way to find a critique group is to take a writing class. In my experience, most writing classes force you out of your comfort zone into personal critique land and the group trust lasts long after the class itself is over.

Regardless of how you go about it, critique is a very important part of being a good writer. Not so much that we CAN’T write well alone, but that nothing past your first manuscript draft is ever done alone, so critique ends up being a part of your everyday life anyway. And we want to make all our embarrassing mistakes with peers, not the editor, right?

Everyone has a ‘process’, but it starts with an idea.

1. Ideas for my books are always one to three words:
A Ballet.
A Train Ride.
Day at the Beach.

2. Once I’ve settled on a subject, I decide if my main character a boy or girl and figure out what season it is. That sets my mood for the whole piece.

3. Then, I sketch a tentative outline of ’scenes’.

Boy standing at station in the summer.
Sees train pull in.
Ticket to conductor.
Sits next to window.
Listens to the sounds of train starting.
And so on…

4. I note all important images that pop into mind. “Shiny buttons” on the conductors uniform. “Blurry cows” as scenery rolls by. This is my strength. This is what defines my style and makes it unique.

5. Then I put together some really terrible lines and send it all to my crit partner. She tells me where I’ve left out scenes. I usually leave out a LOT. “Where’s the packing, Deanna?” “Where’s the sand castles?”

6. Then I go back and write good lines and send them to her.

7. I repeat number six until we both think it’s finished.

8. I send it to my agent, who tells me if HE thinks it’s finished. (Usually yes.)

9. Then it goes to an editor, who has me rewrite some or all of it. HA!

Published book ideas come from two places:

1. You.

Not a surprise.

2. Your editor.

So, before you commit to a career as a successful author, understand that books are NEVER a one-man creation. To be an oft-published author, you must master two other skills apart from writing:

1. Always obey your editor.
2. Always obey your editor with a smile on your face.

But, what about MY ideas? Yes, of course. You can make suggestions or provide alternative rewrites, but only after you have obeyed your editor.

Showing them you’re right by disrespecting their directives may get you the book YOU want, but you certainly won’t be on the call list when they’re handing out ready-approved manuscript concepts. Which means, every book you write will fight an uphill battle to publication, just like the first one did.

To best prepare to be an oft-published author, prepare your attitude. Find a teacher, agent, friend and practice taking advice. Practice, practice, practice.

Meaning, MY way. Meaning, I have a distinct way of handling a subject that is recognizable from one piece of work to another. A style.

So, how does a new writer get one?

In my experience, it’s not something that one does on purpose and almost never appears consistently in the early work. It develops over time and experience as the baby fat comes off the writing.

There are several stages to developing, or more correctly, excavating a writer’s style.

Stage One: Learning the Rules

This is the stage when we re-learn how to punctuate, speak in active voice, form a three-step plot, and all of those other craft basics. For poetry, it’s about learning to hear the beat, stressed and unstressed syllables, perfect and near rhyme, etc. For novels, it’s about things like dialogue tags, communicating the internal thoughts of the character without standing them in front of mirrors every five seconds, eliminating redundancies and minimizing adverbs.

We all pop in and out of this stage as we develop and explore our medium, but until we are reasonably fluent in this area, it will blind readers and editors to all else.

Stage Two: Learning to see the world through another’s eyes

This is we can write a decent, well-formed story, but it’s nothing new. Yes, our kids are cute, our granddads had great lives, or we can write a fun fish story, but unless there’s a lot more to it than that, it’s not something editors are dying to pluck from the slush. They have a million more just like it.

To get through this stage, we must learn to pop into the heads of the audience and see things from their perspective, not ours. This is when we learn about layers. Writing stories that aren’t just coherent and cute, but work on several levels. This is when we learn the difference between our work and what’s being published.

Just like the previous stage, we fade in and out of this one over time, but at some point, when our critique partner says, “I think you need to start this story earlier. For a kid, the experience starts with packing the car,” we should see what she’s talking about and be able to make it happen.

Stage Three: Making Good Choices

This is the fun part. This is where you are fluent and understand how to write something others want. You can choose YOUR topic and write it for BOTH you and the audience. This is the time when you will settle into a favorite groove.

Some types of poetry will create the effect you like better than others. Some types of prose, perhaps. You approach the world with a distinct attitude and way of communicating and people can see “you” across your work.

Stage Four: External Style Recognition

For each medium in which we work, our style can be described in ten words or less.

• Deanna’s pb–Sparse, poetic childlike wonder, descriptive imagery.
• Ashburn pb–Bouncy, sassy, often adorably sicko.
• Wheeler pb– Seamless brisk rhyme. Punny, sweet stories.

Editors think of YOU when they want something with a certain attitude. “I want a new baby story in Deanna’s style” or “Kelly is so good at such-and-such humor. Her treatment of this subject would be perfect.”

That’s what we’re looking for.

I thought in the beginning that I was a humor writer, since that’s how I am in person. But, after loads of rejection, critique, and practice, I see that my best-received work always has a highly sensory, “beautiful” element to it. My fiction ‘funny’ is caustic and boring without a 98% poetic setting. Huh, who knew? Certainly not me. Not until I’d had about 100 critiques and about double that many submissions.

Let’s hope you’re a faster learner than I am!

Deanna

The general advice in the field is DON’T DO IT. However, many of us break into children’s writing doing exactly that. The more correct advice is LEARN TO DO IT WELL.

Rule Number One: Have the Right Attitude

When novice writers approach rhyme, they often do it from the idea that it’s easy to make something good enough in no time.

True, some books you read will have rhyme that you could write in your sleep (for a discussion of what’s going on when you see that, click here.) But, you won’t rise out of the slush thinking that way.

My agent once said that some of the books he represents make him thankful that the author was born. Aim for that.

Rule Number Two: Learn Your Stressed Syllables

Rhyme only works if everyone reads it the same way. That means that your stressed syllables must be the same as it is when spoken in normal conversation for the majority of people who speak your language. And in my experience, it’s the most common novice mistake.

Umbrella–um-BREL-la
Chicory–CHI-cor-y
Again–a-GAIN

No rhyming about the GLO-ry of Chic-O-ry.

And don’t forget your dipthongs! They’re part of how we speak and therefore how your work will be read. I about drove my crit partner nuts insisting that ‘fire’ had only one syllable.

Fire — FI-yer

Rule Number Three: Perfect Rhyme is best

So far, knock on wood, I haven’t been forced into a near rhyme situation. For me it’s an article of faith. If I can’t say it in perfect rhyme, then I’m supposed to be saying something else.

This is your new best friend. I own a rhyming dictionary, but I find them difficult to use. This website gives me all the rhymes I can stand in two seconds and helps me not get married to any particular word combination.

Rule Number Four: Make Your Rhymes Clever

The cat climbed up the tree, you see.
And looked right down at me, yippee!

Not good. I KNOW Dr Seuss rhymed cat, hat, and sat all the time, but he was an author-illustrator. Most of us are NOT. He didn’t sell that text to a company who then spent thousands of dollars to hire an illustrator to bring to life those brilliant rhymes. His was a WHOLE PACKAGE. (And a ground-breaking package at that!)

For another good example of this, see No David! by David Shannon. The title is pretty much the text as well. Author-illustrators can get away with writing text that we couldn’t sell for a nickle because it’s an entirely different medium. The words can play second fiddle to the pictures.

Rhyme important words. Words that carry the STORY. Don’t mark time and toss in adjectives, exclamations, and cliches just to get a rhyme. Make the rhymes important and clever.

My best writer friend wrote Hush Little Dragon, about a mama dragon trying to feed her baby kings, princesses, and knights for dinner. At one point, she rhymes ‘magician’ and ‘nutrition.’ Very cool.

Follow these four rules and you’ll be well on your way to writing great rhyme.

Deanna

When you're starting out, any non-relative critique is a good critique. Doesn't matter if the person is a great writer or not. It's important to experience your work through another's eyes. Writing is about communication. You can't communicate until you know how you're being heard.So, how do you find a critique group? My crit partner and I met through BOOST (which became a paid service and

When you're starting out, any non-relative critique is a good critique. Doesn't matter if the person is a great writer or not. It's important to experience your work through another's eyes. Writing is about communication. You can't communicate until you know how you're being heard.So, how do you find a critique group? My crit partner and I met through BOOST (which became a paid service and

When you’re starting out, any non-relative critique is a good critique. Doesn’t matter if the person is a great writer or not. It’s important to experience your work through another’s eyes. Writing is about communication. You can’t communicate until you know how you’re being heard.

So, how do you find a critique group? My crit partner and I met through BOOST (which became a paid service and now I can no longer find.) It was free back then. We were randomly chauffeured into the same online group with a moderator. I’m still friends with some of those gals. But the point is, join any of those free online critique swaps and get your feet wet. Along the way, you’ll find some folks like you and you’ll split off into your own group.

Some folks like to gather groups at the Blue Boards or the Yellow Boards or the SCBWI boards. That’s fine if you want to do that, but I feel it’s hard for a single newbie to break in. But, if you meet a friend on a larger critique site then you two ARE a group, and you can go advertise on those boards for people to join your group. You will have no shortage of applicants.

A third way to find a critique group is to take a writing class. In my experience, most writing classes force you out of your comfort zone into personal critique land and the group trust lasts long after the class itself is over.

Regardless of how you go about it, critique is a very important part of being a good writer. Not so much that we CAN’T write well alone, but that nothing past your first manuscript draft is ever done alone, so critique ends up being a part of your everyday life anyway. And we want to make all our embarrassing mistakes with peers, not the editor, right?

Everyone has a 'process', but it starts with an idea.1. Ideas for my books are always one to three words:A Ballet.A Train Ride.Day at the Beach.2. Once I've settled on a subject, I decide if my main character a boy or girl and figure out what season it is. That sets my mood for the whole piece.3. Then, I sketch a tentative outline of 'scenes'.Boy standing at station in the summer.Sees train

Everyone has a 'process', but it starts with an idea.1. Ideas for my books are always one to three words:A Ballet.A Train Ride.Day at the Beach.2. Once I've settled on a subject, I decide if my main character a boy or girl and figure out what season it is. That sets my mood for the whole piece.3. Then, I sketch a tentative outline of 'scenes'.Boy standing at station in the summer.Sees train

Everyone has a ‘process’, but it starts with an idea.

1. Ideas for my books are always one to three words:
A Ballet.
A Train Ride.
Day at the Beach.

2. Once I’ve settled on a subject, I decide if my main character a boy or girl and figure out what season it is. That sets my mood for the whole piece.

3. Then, I sketch a tentative outline of ’scenes’.

Boy standing at station in the summer.
Sees train pull in.
Ticket to conductor.
Sits next to window.
Listens to the sounds of train starting.
And so on…

4. I note all important images that pop into mind. “Shiny buttons” on the conductors uniform. “Blurry cows” as scenery rolls by. This is my strength. This is what defines my style and makes it unique.

5. Then I put together some really terrible lines and send it all to my crit partner. She tells me where I’ve left out scenes. I usually leave out a LOT. “Where’s the packing, Deanna?” “Where’s the sand castles?”

6. Then I go back and write good lines and send them to her.

7. I repeat number six until we both think it’s finished.

8. I send it to my agent, who tells me if HE thinks it’s finished. (Usually yes.)

9. Then it goes to an editor, who has me rewrite some or all of it. HA!

Published book ideas come from two places:1. You.Not a surprise.2. Your editor. This is why once you're published, it's easier to get published over and over. The editor that worked with you on the first book will often have other ideas in mind for books they'd like to publish.So they call you.Isn't that amazing? Many of the books you see at Barnes and Noble were cooked up in collaboration

Published book ideas come from two places:1. You.Not a surprise.2. Your editor. This is why once you're published, it's easier to get published over and over. The editor that worked with you on the first book will often have other ideas in mind for books they'd like to publish.So they call you.Isn't that amazing? Many of the books you see at Barnes and Noble were cooked up in collaboration

Published book ideas come from two places:

1. You.

Not a surprise.

2. Your editor.

So, before you commit to a career as a successful author, understand that books are NEVER a one-man creation. To be an oft-published author, you must master two other skills apart from writing:

1. Always obey your editor.
2. Always obey your editor with a smile on your face.

But, what about MY ideas? Yes, of course. You can make suggestions or provide alternative rewrites, but only after you have obeyed your editor.

Showing them you’re right by disrespecting their directives may get you the book YOU want, but you certainly won’t be on the call list when they’re handing out ready-approved manuscript concepts. Which means, every book you write will fight an uphill battle to publication, just like the first one did.

To best prepare to be an oft-published author, prepare your attitude. Find a teacher, agent, friend and practice taking advice. Practice, practice, practice.

"That subject has been done a lot, but never in that way."There were two words in that sentence, spoken by my super-experienced agent, that made me want to jump up and down and call all my friends."...that way."Meaning, MY way. Meaning, I have a distinct way of handling a subject that is recognizable from one piece of work to another. A style. So, how does a new writer get one?In my

"That subject has been done a lot, but never in that way."There were two words in that sentence, spoken by my super-experienced agent, that made me want to jump up and down and call all my friends."...that way."Meaning, MY way. Meaning, I have a distinct way of handling a subject that is recognizable from one piece of work to another. A style. So, how does a new writer get one?In my

Meaning, MY way. Meaning, I have a distinct way of handling a subject that is recognizable from one piece of work to another. A style.

So, how does a new writer get one?

In my experience, it’s not something that one does on purpose and almost never appears consistently in the early work. It develops over time and experience as the baby fat comes off the writing.

There are several stages to developing, or more correctly, excavating a writer’s style.

Stage One: Learning the Rules

This is the stage when we re-learn how to punctuate, speak in active voice, form a three-step plot, and all of those other craft basics. For poetry, it’s about learning to hear the beat, stressed and unstressed syllables, perfect and near rhyme, etc. For novels, it’s about things like dialogue tags, communicating the internal thoughts of the character without standing them in front of mirrors every five seconds, eliminating redundancies and minimizing adverbs.

We all pop in and out of this stage as we develop and explore our medium, but until we are reasonably fluent in this area, it will blind readers and editors to all else.

Stage Two: Learning to see the world through another’s eyes

This is we can write a decent, well-formed story, but it’s nothing new. Yes, our kids are cute, our granddads had great lives, or we can write a fun fish story, but unless there’s a lot more to it than that, it’s not something editors are dying to pluck from the slush. They have a million more just like it.

To get through this stage, we must learn to pop into the heads of the audience and see things from their perspective, not ours. This is when we learn about layers. Writing stories that aren’t just coherent and cute, but work on several levels. This is when we learn the difference between our work and what’s being published.

Just like the previous stage, we fade in and out of this one over time, but at some point, when our critique partner says, “I think you need to start this story earlier. For a kid, the experience starts with packing the car,” we should see what she’s talking about and be able to make it happen.

Stage Three: Making Good Choices

This is the fun part. This is where you are fluent and understand how to write something others want. You can choose YOUR topic and write it for BOTH you and the audience. This is the time when you will settle into a favorite groove.

Some types of poetry will create the effect you like better than others. Some types of prose, perhaps. You approach the world with a distinct attitude and way of communicating and people can see “you” across your work.

Stage Four: External Style Recognition

For each medium in which we work, our style can be described in ten words or less.

• Deanna’s pb–Sparse, poetic childlike wonder, descriptive imagery.
• Ashburn pb–Bouncy, sassy, often adorably sicko.
• Wheeler pb– Seamless brisk rhyme. Punny, sweet stories.

Editors think of YOU when they want something with a certain attitude. “I want a new baby story in Deanna’s style” or “Kelly is so good at such-and-such humor. Her treatment of this subject would be perfect.”

That’s what we’re looking for.

I thought in the beginning that I was a humor writer, since that’s how I am in person. But, after loads of rejection, critique, and practice, I see that my best-received work always has a highly sensory, “beautiful” element to it. My fiction ‘funny’ is caustic and boring without a 98% poetic setting. Huh, who knew? Certainly not me. Not until I’d had about 100 critiques and about double that many submissions.

Let’s hope you’re a faster learner than I am!

Deanna

The general advice in the field is DON'T DO IT. However, many of us break into children's writing doing exactly that. The more correct advice is LEARN TO DO IT WELL.Rule Number One: Have the Right AttitudeWhen novice writers approach rhyme, they often do it from the idea that it's easy to make something good enough in no time.True, some books you read will have rhyme that you could write in