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Use Voice to Make Your Picture Book Come Alive
Many editors and picture book authors will tell you that the single most distinguishing feature between a great picture book and an okay picture book is “voice”. The problem is that “voice” is hard to define. Some think of voice simply as character dialogue, but voice is much more than that.
For me, voice is what gives your story personality. It’s the way your language usage and style create the mood for your picture book and stimulates emotions in your reader. It's the rhythm of your story. It's the way you structure your sentences. It might be how you leverage simile, metaphor, rhyme, repetition or contrasts. All of those things add up to the personality of your story and determine whether or not your picture book has the fresh, unique voice that an editor might be looking for.
The books PIGGY PIE and OWL MOON do a good job of illustrating how these elements work together to create two strong, yet very different examples of distinctive voice.
You can learn more about developing distinctive voice in your stories at the Picture Book Writing workshop I’ll be teaching at the WIFYR conference in June.
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