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Every month Simone Kaplan answers questions in her newsletter that people send into her. I thought the one she answered this month was a good one that you would be interested in reading. Here it is:

Question: Let’s say a number of good manuscripts come into an editor’s office. All have good grammar, good punctuation, etc.; and all are by first-time writers. In other words, all things are equal. What would make one manuscript stand out so much that the editor would want to publish it? Donna R

Simone’s Answer: First, Donna, I have a question for you: when was the last time you walked into a bookstore and asked for a book with “good grammar, good punctuation, etc.”?

I thought so!

Good grammar, clear sentences, and a cohesive structure are the basic requirements of a manuscript. Without them the manuscript doesn’t stand a chance of publication.

So let’s turn the question around. What were you looking for the last time you went into a bookstore or library? It could have been a book about a subject that intrigues you or the young person you’re with. It could be because you’re looking for a different way to look at bedtime battles or visits to the doctor. It could be because the child you were with loves dinosaurs or trains or fairy princesses. In other words, it could be because of the subject.

But given several books about the subject in which you’re interested, which is the one you’ll pick? I’m willing to bet it’s the one that delights you—or the child you’re with. The one that delivers lovely language, great insights, humor. One that, for whatever reason. is compelling. One that makes you want to read it again.

Editors are looking for the same thing. Something that surprises and delights them, something that makes them sit up and take notice, something that brings a smile to their face, a tear to their eye. They might be looking for manuscripts about specific subjects or in a specific genre. But once that requirement is satisfied, it’s the manuscript they love that is the one they want to publish.

And here’s another thing. When you’re in a bookstore, what is it that makes you hand over your cash or your credit card and decide to take the book home as opposed to get it from the library? The fact that you love it, right? That you think you’ll be able to read it again and again. That it’ll become a meaningful contribution to your family’s literary tradition—and if that sounds pretentious, it’s because it is! But it’s also true.

Editors are looking for the same thing. They need to justify spending upward of $50,000 on the manuscript. They need to be able to want to live with the work, feel that they’ll enjoy working on it, and know that it’ll make a tangible contribution to the bottom line of the house for which they work.

There is much about the publishing process that is fuzzy. Much of it has to do with taste, personal preference, and aesthetic judgment. But publishing is also a business; and there is much that has to do with hard facts, such as how much the book is going to cost to produce, how many copies the sales department feels they can sell, how much revenue the subsidiary rights department feels they can generate.

So the decision about whether or not to publish a book happens at the place where art, business, and taste intersect.

The only way to make sure that your work stands out is to write a stand-out manuscript. And correct grammar and punctuation are only the beginning. So focus on writing your best work. And use spell check!

Have a question for me? Send your question about any aspect of picture book writing that intrigues, confuses, or frustrates you to [email protected]. It could appear here along with my answer.

ABOUT SIMONE KAPLAN

Simone Kaplan has more than two decades of insider experience at major publishing institutions such as Henry Holt and Company and HarperCollins Publishers, during which she’s personally accepted, edited, and rejected hundreds of children’s picture books. She knows how the words of your manuscript can jump off the page and spark the interest of an editor or agent. She has also learned about the process of creating picture books and can break it down so as to be most useful to authors at every stage of their development.

She provides creativity-enhancing, skill-building, heart-expanding support for the creators of picture books so they can write the best possible books they’re able to write.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

1. You Need More Than a Good Idea You come up with an idea or a character. Maybe it’s a line you overhear in the grocery store that inspires you. You go home to write. And you find that you don’t have a story or a structure that works. Ideas are impulses, triggers for the creative process; and often they need to be nurtured, seduced, and teased into life. Here’s what another creative professional—the artist Delacroix—wrote in his journal: “The original idea, the sketch, which is so to speak the egg or embryo of the idea, is usually far from being complete.” I love that quote because it captures the formlessness of generating ideas as well as the potential. Sometimes it takes years for the impulse to resolve into a manuscript. Years in which authors hold the idea in their unconscious minds or in their hearts. Years of revisiting, reexamining, re-creating the work. Sometimes the challenge will be a creati ve one; sometimes it’ll be a technical one. But published writers know they have to stick with the process. And if they do, they’re more likely to be rewarded. Expecting to create a superb picture book in one or two short sittings is about as realistic as growing blueberries during a Maine winter. Better to set yourself up for success by doing the work. Regularly. Consistently. Consciously.

2. Sometimes Good Manuscripts Don’t Get Published Publishers are in business to make money. They do so by publishing good books. But not all good books make money, and so publishers consider manuscripts not only in terms of aesthetic quality, but in terms of commercial potential. If you’re asking a publishing house to invest tens of thousands of dollars in your book, they need to believe their investment will pay off. Editors are evaluated by how well their books are received both critically and commercially, and astute editors are very aware of the “commercial” piece of the equation.

Here’s the part that’s really painful: even really good manuscripts sometimes get rejected. They’re rejected because “fantasy doesn’t sell,” “we’re looking for manuscripts targeting a younger audience (or an older one or girls or boys),” “folktales have been overpublished,” “talking pumpkins/cats/teapots don’t work for me,” “we only want very young picture books,” or any one of a myriad different and valid reasons. So published authors pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and submit their work to another editor; or they revise in accordance with the feedback they get, or they put the manuscript in a file folder and get on with the next manuscript. And they know that their value as a writer isn’t determined by the moods of the marketplace.

3. Important Feelings Don’t Necessarily Translate into Good Writing The great English poet William Wordsworth famously wrote: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” If an experience triggers a moment of connection with what you feel to be an eternal truth, that’s wonderful. But profound feeling can become didactic or heavy-handed when translated into words. It requires distance from the event, “emotion recollected in tranquility,” and consciously engaging the intellect to be able to articulate the impulse in the form, language, and structure required by a picture book. Although writers honor and love those moments of deep feeling and profound inspiration, it’s important to evaluate them with the same critical faculty that you bring to any other writing.

4. All Manuscripts Are Not Created Equal Some manuscripts are easier to write than others. There are many unfinished drafts and half-written, partially conceptualized manuscripts sitting in the file folders of even the most successful published authors. Not every idea develops into a full-fledged manuscript. You’ll probably start many more manuscripts than you’ll finish. Writing is a little bit like digging for gold. Digging won’t ensure that you’ll find gold, but if you don’t dig, you absolutely won’t find it. No manuscript is a waste. By writing in a thoughtful, considered way, you refine your craft, develop your ideas, and get better at doing both. And in time those unresolved plots, vexing characters, and impossible rhymes might resolve, focus, and reward you for your patience and perseverance. And even then they just might not be good enough to show to the world. No matter. Write on!

© 2012 Picture Book People, Inc.

This article appeared in this month’s Picture Book People Newsletter written by owner Simone Kaplan. Simone has more than two decades of insider experience at major publishing institutions such as Henry Holt and Company and HarperCollins Publishers, during which she’s personally accepted, edited, and rejected hundreds of children’s picture books. She knows how the words of your manuscript can jump off the page and spark the interest of an editor or agent. She has also learned about the process of creating picture books and can break it down so as to be most useful to authors at every stage of their development.

She provides creativity-enhancing, skill-building, heart-expanding support for the creators of picture books so they can write the best possible books they’re able to write.

Here is the link if you want to sign up to receive Simon’s monthly newsletter or if you would like to have Simone work with you on your picture.  http://www.picturebookpeople.com/

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

What do picture books and sonnets have in common? Simon Kaplan from Picture Book People knows. Here’s Simone:

There are the obvious connections: wonderful language, the distillation of a concept, the rhythm, the (sometimes) rhyme.

And the fact that both are made up of fourteen units.

The sonnet is essentially a fourteen-line poem. That’s the important thing about a sonnet.

And a picture book is essentially a fourteen-spread form. That’s the important thing about a picture book. There are, of course, other important things. There’s never just one. But the one that might just be of most help to writers structuring their work is to think in terms of fourteen spreads.

Here’s how I get to fourteen spreads.

Standard picture books are thirty-two pages long. Printing presses work in sheets of paper each of which yields eight pages—the most commonly used for a picture book is thirty-two pages. Go and find a picture book, then count the pages. Really, do it. I’ll wait. Maybe I’ll go and make a cup of tea. . . .

Are you back? Did you count the pages? You might have found that some books are twenty-eight pages long, some might be forty, but most are thirty-two pages—excluding the endpapers. Please keep the book with you. I’m going to refer to it again in this article. Because although a book is many things that aren’t tangible, the physical object—paper, ink, glue, binding, cardboard—is one thing that is. And this physical object—and how its constraints affect the making of the book as a piece of art—is an important part of the process of writing one.

There are certain conventions of book making that come into play too.

The reader wants to know what the book is called, who wrote it, and who illustrated it.

Readers also might want to know when the book was published, who published it, and how you can reach the publisher. There’s the technical information that needs to be included: ISBN number and Library of Congress cataloging details. And legal information such as copyright notification. Then there’s the dedication, which gives book creators the opportunity to express love and appreciation.

All that information is called “front matter” because it goes, well, at the front of the book. The front matter usually takes up three pages: the half title, title, and copyright/dedication pages. Look at the book you have plucked from your bookshelf and examine it. Count the pages in the front matter. There are probably three—the minimum would be two.

Here’s another thing the front matter does. It acts like a curtain. You know how, when you go to the theater, you look at the stage and it’s—often—hidden by a curtain. There’s the wonderful moment when the house lights go down. Your attention is directed to the stage, and the theater becomes hushed. The lights shine on the curtain and then it rises. The performance begins. That is kind of what the front matter of a book does. It separates the experience of reading the book from your everyday experiences. It sets the tone of the book. It says: what follows is different from what happened before. It focuses your attention on this book, this moment, this story, and these pictures.

You can start to tell your story in the front matter. Mo Willems does it beautifully. But mostly the front matter sets the tone of the book. And what follow the three pages of front matter are twenty-nine pages—fourteen spreads and a single page at the end. That last page—page thirty-two—serves the same kind of function as the front matter. It ends the story, ideally, with a satisfying click; it ties it up with a bow. The story itself unfolds between the front matter and the last page. That’s twenty-eight pages, fourteen spreads. If you think of your book in those terms and use the information to structure your story—scaffold your manuscript—you can save months and years of work. I invite you to try it.

Editors and publishers are always looking for wonderful manuscripts to publish, but they don’t have the time or resources to cultivate talent in the same way that they used to. Editors need you to know your craft before you send them a manuscript–and the best way to acquire this knowledge is by obtaining great editorial feedback about your writing. It is precisely this feedback that Simone Kaplan offers you.  www.picturebookpeople.com Simone is part of the faculty for the New Jersey SCBWI Conference in June.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

So for those of you who write picture books, I thought you may be interested in reading this article written by Simone Kaplan.  She has more than two decades of insider experience at major publishing institutions such as Henry Holt and Company and HarperCollins Publishers, during which she’s personally accepted, edited, and rejected hundreds of children’s picture books. She knows how the words you write must spark the interest of an editor or agent.  Don’t miss signing up for her free monthly newsletter filled with good information about writing picture books.

Beginning with Beginnings

by Simone Kaplan

The thing about the beginnings of manuscripts is that they are important. In terms of the overall narrative, they’re not more important than any other parts of your manuscript—say middles or endings. But because editors, agents, and children read them first, they have to show, right from the start, that what follows is worth reading.

Publishing professionals receive and read hundreds of manuscripts a month. They don’t have time to read every manuscript through to the end. They start at the beginning, so the beginning has to grab their attention, pique their interest, and indicate either that the author can write or has a good idea in order to read further. If you write a good beginning, editors and agents will read on to find out if you can develop a compelling plot, create credible characters, and sustain reader interest. If you don’t write a good beginning, the manuscript is likely to be rejected before the reader gets to the end of the first page. Just as important is the response of the ultimate “reader” of the picture book: the child who is hearing the words and who either is, or isn’t, engaged by the end of the first few spreads. Thousands of picture books line the shelves of libraries and bookstores; yours needs to engage the reader from the beginning.

So the big question is: How do you write a beginning that makes the reader—either the professional reading a manuscript or a child—want to read further?

The solution is simple to articulate but difficult to achieve. There are no rules when it comes to writing, but there are some helpful ideas. And one idea that helps answer the question posed above is that of dramatic structure. Having a structure helps anchor your narrative and gives you a way to think of plot. Plot has been analyzed and described by many critics across many genres and eras. For our purposes, though, a plot is simply a way of organizing a series of related incidents, events, and situations leading to a satisfying resolution. It’s helpful to divide the plot into three sections: the beginning, the middle, and the end. This arrangement starts with the first section: the setup, or beginning.

A good beginning does three main things:

1. It introduces your main character or characters—the who of your story.
2. It introduces the circumstances and situation, showing your reader the world in which your story takes place, and gives the reader a sense of what the story is about—the where of your story.
3. It introduces the desire/need/conflict that is going to drive the character and the story—the what of your story.

That’s why beginnings are sometimes called “setups”: they establish what the story is about, engage your reader’s interest, and make him or her want to continue to read.

A good rule of thumb is that the beginning should take up about one-quarter of the book. If you think of a standard thirty-two-page picture book and do the rough math—which allocates a single page at the beginning to the half title, a spread to the title and copyright/dedication, and a single last page of the book—you have twenty-eight pages, or fourteen spreads, to tell your story. That means the beginning should be about three to four spreads. If you’re thinking in terms of a 1,000-word-count guide, that means 250 words. When you consider that the trend these days is toward even shorter books (600 words or less), you don’t have a lot of time to set up your story and engage your reader.

It’s not easy to do, but it is possible. Since you don’t have a word to spare or a sentence to waste, you need to be economical. The most economical way of starting your book is to find a way to introduce all three elements at once. The best openings establish the situation in which the protagonist finds him- or herself combined with the dramatized action, the conflict, or the expression of a desire.

A skilled writer can establish mood and tone and write an opening that contains the premise and the situation of the whole book. You can—and should—aim to do the same. At the very least, you should set up the who, the where, and the what of your story. It’s been done in almost every good picture book you can read. And you can do it too. Examine some of your favorite picture books to see how they are set up; you can learn a lot by analyzing some good beginnings and seeing how the masters handle the challenges. Then try to apply the principles that worked for them to your own work and create beginnings full of promise and excitement.

© 2012 Picture Book People, Inc.

Simone Kaplan is a picture book lover, editor, consultant, and writing coach, and is dedicated to making you a better picture book writer. She provides creativity-enhancing, skill-building, heart-expanding support for the creators of picture books so they can write the best possible books they’re able to write.

You can find out more about her work at http://www.picturebookpeople.com, or reach her at [email protected] ro read more about working with her at http://www.picturebookpeople.com/services.html

Don’t miss signing up for Simone’s free picture book newsletter.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

“READ ME,” WHISPERED THE MANUSCRIPT TO THE EDITOR: Formatting your manuscript for maximum visibility

written by Simon Kaplan from Picture Book People Newsletter

Years ago, when I was an editor at Henry Holt and Company, a visiting author looked around my tiny, paper-laden office and indicated a pile of manuscripts. “Are those all the people who you’ve kept waiting for way too long?” He asked pointedly. “No” I replied, showing him a bookcase that contained several shelves on which manuscripts were stacked deep and wide. “Those are.” He looked shocked.

THE REASON If you’ve never been inside the office of an editor or literary agent, it’s hard to imagine the volume of submissions that cross either one’s desk. If you’re submitting your work for an editor’s or agent’s consideration, it makes sense that you do everything you can to make the experience of reading your work as easy as possible. Before an editor reads a word of your manuscript, he or she notices the way it’s presented. Or rather, the editor or agent doesn’t notice the way it’s presented—which is what you want. You do not want your submission to be rejected because it’s difficult to read. You do want the format of your manuscript to be inconsequential so that the content stands out. You want your manuscript to whisper “Read me” so that the overworked editor takes notice and reads. So save your creativity for the storytelling, and format your submissions in the way that’s commonly accepted as standard.

THE FORMAT—A CHECKLIST: If an editor or agent to whom you’re submitting a manuscript requests a specific format, follow the requirements. If there is no set format, here’s the generally accepted way of doing things, presented in checklist format for ease of use.

Your work should be typed in Black Times New Roman 12 point Double spaced.

It should be Aligned left—the right-hand margin will be “ragged”— and have One-inch margins on all four sides Page numbers centered at the bottom of each page Page header at the top right-hand corner of each page following the title page that includes your last name/title of book The End in italics, centered, at end of manuscript.

If you wish to or feel you need to show page breaks, do so by including an extra line space. You can center a -; *; or # in the line if you feel you’d like to make more of a statement.

Picture books don’t require a separate title page, so your manuscript should include a title page formatted as follows: Aligned left and single spaced near the top of page are your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address—each on a separate line. Word count should appear in the top right-hand corner. About halfway down the page, the full manuscript title should be typed. A double space and then “by [Your Full Name].” Another double space and begin the manuscript.

WHY THIS FORMAT? This format is standard because it optimizes legibility, navigation, and information. Black ink stands out most clearly; the 12-point font is neither too big nor too small. Times New Roman is a serif face that draws the eye easily through the text. Double spacing ensures enough space between lines so that each line is obvious and clear without someone having to squint or transverse vast quantities of white space to get from one line to the next.

At one inch—pretty much the default in Microsoft Word—margins are generous but not excessive and so give a sense of clarity and space rather than a sense of claustrophobia. Pages that are clearly identified and numbered ar