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by Deborah Underwood

It’s the end of the month. Hooray! And congratulations!

If you’re brilliant, you have thirty picture book ideas, all of which can be transformed into stunning manuscripts. If this is you, stop reading here; take the rest of the day off.

If you’re like me, however, you have thirty sparks. Thirty scraggly shoots. Thirty teensy brown-paper-wrapped parcels of hope.

Now it’s time to test them for viability.

Here’s the image that always comes to my mind during this part of the process: I’m in a dentist’s chair. The dentist pokes and scrapes at a suspicious tooth, gently at first, then harder, then really hard. I silently pray, “Please don’t find anything wrong. Please. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.”

My ideas are my babies. I love them. But my ultimate goal is to get manuscripts out into the world. If an idea isn’t strong enough, better to let it go than to spend the next month banging my head against my desk.

So here are some suggestions as you begin your deliberations:

1)  Check for competition.
If my idea hinges on a distinctive title, I Google and hope the title doesn’t turn up elsewhere. If it centers on an unusual animal or situation, I go to Amazon.com or Books in Print and search for similar books. If it’s a hook-y concept, and I can’t remember if I’ve seen it before, I ask around (a good children’s librarian can be your best friend for this type of thing).

2)  Make sure the plot—or the concept, for concept books—is strong.
Sometimes I turn an idea over and over in my mind and come to the sad realization that it’s just not different or special enough. Out it goes. But if you have a great character drowning in a mediocre idea, toss him a life preserver; maybe you can find him another home.

3)  Think about marketability.
We all know the picture book market is tough. If I have a choice between developing a high-concept story or a clever but obscure idea that will require a book with expensive flaps, pull tabs, and a triangular fuchsia mirror, I’m going to go with the former.

4)  Don’t think about marketability.
Ha—fooled you! It’s good to be aware of trends.And if an editor says she’s looking for a book about platypuses, and you happen to have one (or think you can write one), you’d be silly not to give it a shot.

But.

If you have a potentially hard-to-market idea that you really, truly love, an idea that floods you with energy and fills you with joy, here’s my advice, courtesy of Admiral Farragut: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

We simply cannot allow our creativity to be controlled by conventional wisdom. I know everyone’s saying picture books need to be—what is it now, less than seven words long? Maybe it’s six this week.

You know what? I’d bet good money that in the next year or two, some brilliant, 2,000-word picture book will take the publishing world by storm. It will be a bestseller. It will be adored by both critics and kids. And it will exist because some writer had the courage of her convictions, and because some editor was gutsy enough to take a chance on it.

I adore Press Here by Hervé Tullet

by Brenda Reeves Sturgis

I’m in the throes of marketing madness. It’s a whirlwind. The view from the eye of the cyclone is breathtaking! Ideas are swirling all around. Each wind gust propels me forward. However, promoting 10 TURKEYS IN THE ROAD is not something I have done alone. I’m certainly glad that I started the process a year ago, because marketing takes on a life all its own, and it’s imperative to have innovative and trustworthy people in your corner.

What did I write? Who was I? What did I stand for? What did I have to offer? These questions were always in the forefront of my mind. I wanted people to know exactly what they’d be getting from my book, a critique, or an author visit from me.

Each step has been its own adventure. All writers must walk their own steps, sing their own song, and dance their own dance. What I’ve learned over the past several months, as I’ve prepared for the release of my book, is that you can NEVER start marketing early enough. EVERYTHING takes a tremendous amount of time, along with a conscious effort and many different resources. I’ve met and worked with some of the best people in this industry over the last year—top-notch, top-of-the-line creators!

After assessing my web presence, I realized that the first thing that needed a complete overhaul was my website. My website is my business card. I surmised that it is my introduction to the literary world. Through it, librarians, teachers, editors, and parents would catch a glimpse of my life and my writing style.

I held to the old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” and I kept that close to my heart. I needed and wanted to put my best professional foot forward, and so for me, this meant a completely fresh design.

I wanted a site that was colorful and fun in the same taste as the art of 10 TURKEYS, illustrated by the talented David Slonim. I turned to Donna Farrell who executed exactly what I needed and wanted. She did a superb job. We had the same vision, and she didn’t  disappoint. She goes over and above for her clients, and each website she designs is unique in its own right.

Marketing takes money, and you’ll want to make sure that you plan accordingly. I was fortunate to find talented people along the way that added a sprinkle of magic to everything that was created for my site. My teachers’ guides were written by my daughter-in-law, Whitney Reeves, a stupendous and creative educator and inventor. Whitney is not only a fabulous writer but also co-creator and founder of Bitzy Baby, a revolutionary company that provides safe sleeping and innovative crib bumpers for infants.

My friend, critique partner, and the very talented author/illustrator Carrie Clickard (Victrica Malica, Flashlight Press, 2012), created my puzzles, puppets, book trailer, and also my sorting game, along with some snappy songs. Carrie has a plethora of advertising knowledge, and she helped me compose fun activities for children of all ages.

I hired Renee Gray-Wilburn of A Way With Words to proof and copy edit content. Renee questions every comma and picks up on every grammatical error!  I was determined to give 110% to my site, just as I do to my writing because it is all interconnected. If you want your site to be the best it can be, you must seek out those who can add their

by Aaron Zenz

Kids are an amazing source of inspiration.  They haven’t yet learned the conventions and “rules” that so often inhibit our own grown-up imaginations.  My kiddos constantly astound me with the creativity that pours forth from their pencils.

My kids have a couple of blogs where I showcase their art and ideas.   Two years ago I set up a challenge for professional illustrators to use a drawing from the kids’ blog to fuel a piece of “Fan Art.”

For example, this is a drawing my daughter Lily made:

And here’s my interpretation:

Here’s a drawing from my son Isaac:

And here’s my take:

I expected that perhaps a handful of people would join me in participating. Instead, over 70 pieces of amazing art poured in from people all over the world.  You can see the full results of the celebration HERE.

It was so much fun, we just had to do all over again two years later.  One of the illustrators who contributed both years is J.C. Phillipps of “Wink the Ninja” fame.  This year she chose to recreate an image by my daughter Gracie:

And here’s J.C. Phillipps’ version:

But then, something else happened…  Here’s what Mrs. Phillipps had to say:

“I decided to give the rabbit a girl.  As I was making the girl, she started to speak to me.  Turns out, her name is Esmerelda and she loves it when things go wrong.  As I was putting this collage together, all these little story ideas started weaving their way into my mind and I now think I have a new idea to write up.  Time can only tell where it all leads—but I think little Esmerelda and I are going to have a lot of fun together.”

Awesome!  And that gets me to thinking of a particular picture book idea that I’ve had rattling around in my brain for years, sparked by one of the kid’s pictures.  I’ve yet to work it up.  Perhaps PiBoIdMo 2011 is just the time to do it!

So here’s your challenge for the day.  Write up a story idea based on the random wonderfulness of a kid drawing.  If you don’t have a kid close at hand, here are a few drawings for inspiration:

by Laura Crawford

What do the TV show Jeopardy, a friend’s Facebook post, my car radio and  five second-grade boys have in common?

The correct answer is….they are all places or things that gave me an idea for a nonfiction picture book!

I frequently hear about real life situations that inspire fiction authors…but that never happens to me. As hard as I try, I cannot think of funny stories or books that tell a lesson.  I am drawn to the strange and unusual facts.  I now have a list of thirteen nonfiction subjects (thank you PiBoIdMo!)

For example, in The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving From A to Z, readers are always shocked to find that the Pilgrims did not wear buckles or black and white clothing. Also, did you know that turkey was not served on the first Thanksgiving? In The American Revolution from A to Z, I discovered a fascinating young woman who dressed as a man to fight in battle…and I recently completed a picture book about her heroic life.  I love it when one book turns into two!

All six of my picture books support the science and social curriculum in elementary schools.  As I third grade teacher, I found the text books were sooo booooring!  It is now my goal to present the sometimes dry and dull material in a fun way and I always keep my eight year old students in mind.  And an added bonus:  since they know I’m an author, I always have kids coming up to tell me what to write! Moral of the story; ask them what they want…they will tell you!

Now back to the first question:

Jeopardy introduced me to Harriet Quimby, a female aviator. A Facebook post about eagles from a photographer friend inspired me.  Two years ago, I heard a story on the radio about an adopted goose named Harley who flies next to his motorcycle-riding owner. And thank you to the second grade boys who MUST know about a platypus’ eyeballs!!

You never know when a nonfiction picture book idea will pop up…

Laura Crawford is a reading specialist in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois. She has six picture books for children: In Arctic Waters from Sylvan Dell, The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving From A to Z and The American Revolution From A to Z from Pelican Publishing and The Postcard From Washington, DC series from Raven Tree Press. And….she just sold another ABC last week!

by Linda Ravin Lodding

Here’s the problem with doing a PiBoIdMo blog post at the end of the month:

I was going to write about setting. But Tammi did that.

I was going to doodle. But Debbie already did that.

I was going to send you an Inspiration Fairy. But Courtney already sent you one.

I thought about chicken nuggets. But so did Sudipta.

So, what’s left?

Endings!  Big, bold, surprising, clever, tender, awww-inspiring endings!

As we ease into the final stretch of PiBoIdMo, like you, I have a list of ideas. Some I’ve even started writing. But none of them have endings. (Yet.)

Many of us experience the first flush of excitement when  a new idea tickles us until we have to put words down on paper. We have an idea! A character! A setting! Maybe we even have conflict!  But, if you’re like me, you hope that by the time you hit the 700 word mark the ending will just write itself. But here’s the problem with endings that just write themselves. They’re usually flat.

And no wonder. A great ending is as difficult to write as an opening sentence. And as important.

Here’s what’s on an ending’s “to do list”:

• An ending has to resolve the story problem in a satisfying way (no plot points still hanging);
• It has to have the main character solving the conflict by the last page;
• It should either be predictable enough to emotionally resonate with the reader or unpredictable enough to delight;
• If it’s a humorous picture book it needs to deliver the final punch line;
• And, like a fine wine (or peanut butter fluffernutter sandwich), it needs to linger on your reader’s palette long after the meal in consumed.

So let’s think of how we can use page 32 to offer the perfect ending to your story.

Here are some possibilities:

Surprise Ending

Think beyond the obvious ending and offer the reader a surprise – the opposite of what’s expected.  It should still be logical, but it doesn’t have to be inevitable. Emma Dodd does that in “What Pet to Get” as does Cynthia Rylant in “The Old Woman Who Named Things.”  Both offer surprise endings but do so in very different ways.

Circular Ending

In my picture book OSKAR’S PERFECT PRESENT (2013), Oskar starts his journey looking for the perfect present for his mother. On the first page, he finds it—a  perfect rose! But as Oskar makes subsequent trades along his journey home, he is left without a present.  On the last page, however, he is reunited with the same rose he traded away at the start of his journey.  Circular endings—or those that somehow mirror the opening—are among my favorite endings since they offer closure in an often clever way.

Fulfillment

Sometimes a last page is simply the climax of the story, the fulfillment of the character’s desire. In “When Marion Sang”, Pam Munoz Ryan’s book about opera singer Marion Andresen,  Marion is denied to sing on many American stages because she was African American. The last page of the story reads, “. . .and Marian sang.”  In  my picture book THE BUSY LIFE OF ERNESTINE BUCKMEISTER, Ernestine is the queen of over-scheduled set, and she just wants to play. In the end, she does just that and the final words, “And sometimes she just played,” underscore that Ernestine is fulfilled.

Wordless

And ending can be wordless,  relying on a single-spread illustration to close the story. While the ending is wordless, it still needs to be “written” within the visual. This type of ending can be used effectively in both quiet books and humorous

by Carolyn Crimi

Here are three of my favorite things to do to generate picture book ideas. Pick one and try it out!

1) One of the first things I do is look at problems I’m dealing with in my own life to see if I can turn them into a story. For instance, my husband and I sometimes have “disagreements” about how tidy things need to be. I am, well, a bit of a messy person. He is a neat freak. I have had this problem with neat freaks my entire life. (Why do they always think they’re right?) Anyway, I decided to turn this problem into a book titled BORIS AND BELLA. It’s about a very messy monster named Bella LeGrossi who lives next to a very tidy monster named Boris Kleanitoff. Nothing has more emotional resonance than writing about your own problems. I wrote ROCK ‘N’ ROLL MOLE after experiencing extreme stage fright. I still get stage fright every once in a while, but at least I’ve gotten a book out of it, too, and it’s a lot cheaper than therapy!

2)  I love picture books. Being surrounded by them feels like home. So I’ll often read all the books on the Barnes and Noble picture book wall. Reading them leaves me feeling buzzed and ready to create my own great book. I also like to see what books moms pick out for their children and what books the kids themselves want to buy. I’ve heard some writers say they don’t read picture books because they don’t want to be influenced by other writers. I think that if you’re writing enough you won’t have that problem.  Read the new books and the classics. Keep up with the genre.  And if you find a book you love, buy it, take it home and type it up. You discover all sorts of things about a picture book when you do this.

3) Keep an Image Board. I have dry erase board in my office. I stick greeting cards, magazine clippings, poems and titles on it. It sits right in front of me as I write. Whenever I find a card that seems like it might have the seed of a story in it I buy it and stick it up on my Image Board. I may not think of a story for it for years, but the act of collecting inspiring images is just plain fun and it fills the well. Even if you don’t want to make your own Image Board, I encourage you to look through the greeting cards at your local drugstore and buy a few for inspiration. The illustration style is often very similar to picture book illustration style, and of course they are usually about major life changes.

If all else fails, go for a walk! Ask yourself at the beginning of the walk for a story idea and see if you get one by the end of the walk. I get ideas this way all the time!

Have fun!

Carolyn Crimi writes about things that make her laugh, or about things she loved when she was young. Sometimes that leads her down strange, twisted paths, since the things that she loves, like monsters and Pop Tarts, tend to be a bit odd. In addition to writing books, she also teaches adult education courses on writing for children, visits schools for Author Talks, and writes stories and articles for children’s textbooks and magazines. Her picture books include HENRY AND THE BUCCANEER BUNNIES, THE LOUDS MOVE IN (one of Tara’s favorite picture books), WHERE’S MY MUMMY? and many more. Check them all out at CarolynCrimi.com.

by Shutta Crum

PiBoIdMo is about beginnings—first ideas, first notes, and then, hopefully, first drafts from the exciting tidbits we’ve jotted down during the month. While thinking about beginnings I remembered one of my first writing classes: high school journalism. I don’t remember much from the class except that a good lead should always include the answers to four important questions: the 4 Ws. These are: who, what, where, and when. After a good lead, we were taught the story could move on into the details of how, or why.

Good leads are something that the news reader doesn’t really notice, but are crucial to keeping the reader’s attention. They quickly dispense with niggly concerns and important facts so the reader can settle into the story. It is a technique every picture book writer ought to know.

Answering those four questions right up front in any story tucks the reader in. However, as with many aspects of writing the picture book, the writer for the very young has to do it faster, with fewer words, and sometimes in verse!

Better than hearing this from me—and more fun—is studying how some of our best picture book writers, and illustrators, do it. Below are some of my favorite examples, in prose and in verse.

(Prose) Rosemary Wells, from MAX’S CHOCOLATE CHICKEN.

“One morning somebody put a chocolate chicken in the birdbath.”

Let’s parse this opening line. When: one morning. Who: somebody. (We also see a picture of that somebody—Poppa?) What: put a chocolate chicken. Where: in the birdbath. (And what a great hook for a young child! Why would someone do that?)

(Verse) Karma Wilson, from BEAR SNORES ON.

 “In a cave in the woods

in his deep, dark lair,

through the long, cold winter

sleeps a great brown bear.”

Where: in a cave in the woods in a deep dark lair. When: through the long cold winter. What: sleeps. Who: a great brown bear. (And she did all this with perfect meter! Note: be sure to read Karma’s earlier post, on Nov. 2^nd.)

Of course, we are blessed by the illustrations in our picture books. In addition to everything else they do so well, the art carries a great deal of this initial informational load. If the setting is a farm, we see that and it may not be mentioned at all in the text. If it is nighttime, or winter, or the main character is a bear . . . these may, also, not be directly mentioned. If it is not said in the text, it is then incumbent on the illustrator to add that context. Look at Jane Yolen’s Caldecott-winning book, illustrated by John Schoenherr.

(Free verse) Jane Yolen, from OWL MOON.

by Laura Murray 

Kids love to laugh (don’t we all!) And what’s better than a LOL (laugh-out-loud), giggle-inducing picture book?

So where do you get those snicker and snort-worthy ideas for your own picture books?

1. Be an eavesdropper:  I absolutely love to listen to my own children or my kindergarten students as they imagine and pretend. Listen when they are in the back seat of the car joking with their friends and they somehow forget you are driving. Listen as you sit on a park bench at the playground or when you help out in the classroom.  These places are loaded with funny kid conversations and picture book ideas.
2. “Baby Bloopers”: On the last page of Parents magazine, there is a section called “Baby Bloopers” where parents write in about the super funny things kids of all ages do or say.  When I received this magazine, I would tear out these pages and keep them in a file. (*Parenting magazine also had a back page called “How Embarrassing” that I collected too.)
3. Google “Funny things that kids say”: You will not only provide yourself with many laugh-out-loud moments reading the hits that come up, but you will also fill your PiBoIdMo idea notebook!

The idea for The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School  started as a funny line that came straight from my three-year old’s  mouth one day as she dubbed herself “one smart cookie.”  It reminded me of a school Gingerbread Man hunt we did in Kindergarten and …voila… several questions later, I had the makings of a Gingerbread Man story with a new twist.

What questions am I talking about?

The very same ones that Karma Wilson and Tammi Sauer mentioned in their earlier posts—

• What if? What if a class baked a Gingerbread Man, but he got loose in the school when they went to recess? What if he was really searching for them, instead of running away?
• What could go wrong?  Oooh—maybe he could land in a lunch sack, or get stuck on a rolling volleyball…

But there was one more question that I pondered for this particular story—

• How can I raise the funny factor? (What mischief would kids identify with in this school setting?)

Hmm… sliding down handrails, spinning in the principal’s chair, cookie-related word play, (and absolutely not “being eaten” in the end)!

So, as you look for your own ideas, remember to—

• Listen to kids (or read about their escapades.)
• Write down what they say and do, especially if it tickles your funny bone.
• Take the idea you love the most and start asking questions – What if? What can go wrong?
• And if your idea lends itself to humor—then ask, “How can I amp up the kid-LOL factor?”

There is nothing quite like hearing a child’s chuckle as you read your story, so…

GO FOR THE GIGGLE!

10 Comments on PiBoIdMo Day 22: Laura Murray Goes for the Giggle (plus a giveaway!), last added: 11/22/2011