How to use this Page

By Maureen Lynas

Awesome first lines

Happy New Year!

As a children’s author, editor and writing coach, I spend a lot of  time talking about writing and/or publishing books for children and young adults. I feel so blessed to do the work I do, and to belong to such a warm, supportive and buoyant community of fellow readers, writers and children’s book lovers.

So I thought I’d start this New Year off a little differently. I want to begin 2015 by listening… really listening, in order to help me best serve those who share the dream of writing or publishing a children’s book or young adult novel in the year ahead. Will you help me? Please tell me…

What’s your #1 question about writing and/or publishing books for children or young adults?

What holds you back? What do you feel like you don’t know, or need to do or have in order to fulfill that dream?

To answer, simply click on the link below and write your response in the box provided:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BIGGESTKIDLITQUESTION

Thank you for sharing your dreams and questions with me, and here’s wishing you all possible success in your creative endeavors in the year ahead!

The world of children’s books—young adult, middle grade and picture books—has seen more growth in the last ten years than any other category in the publishing industry. Countless articles and op-eds have analyzed the booming success of now-iconic series like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Fancy Nancy. But while critics are debating the triumph of a particular series, readers—both children and adults—are clamoring for more books and new titles that will enchant and entertain them.

But in such a competitive market, how do you make your book stand out as a quality submission? How do you walk the fine line between capturing the attention (and purchasing power) of both child and adult reader? How do you find the best agents and markets to submit your work to? How do you know what category your book falls under?

In this brand new Writer’s Digest Boot Camp starting Dec. 5, 2014 called “Sell Your Children’s Book,” the agents of The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency will answer all those questions and more. They’ll also critique your work and allow you to ask any questions you like. Registrants can choose to hear a tutorial on how to craft an amazing picture book, and then get their picture book critiqued—or they can choose to hear a different tutorial on writing MG and YA, and then get their first 10 manuscript pages critiqued.

This program will show writers of Young Adult and Middle Grade the following:

— What the difference is between middle grade and young adult, and why it matters to understand how the two categories differ
— What is commercial and what is literary in children’s books—and how that affects what agents and publishers you will target
— Why an agent will tell you, “I love this story, but I can’t sell it”
— How to start your work strong and create engaging characters for both editors and readers to love
— How to avoid the common mistakes of writing for MG and YA that sink submission chances—such as talking down to your reader, or having a story that begins too slow. (Sign up for the boot camp here.)

This program will show writers of Picture Books the following:

— How to come up with a great plot
— How to create page-turning points
— How to make a dummy book, and why you need one
— How to use language to reach a very young audience
— How to think visually
— How to avoid the taboos in writing for children
— How to handle illustration – what to do if you’re an illustrator, and what to do if you’re not
— How to learn from all of the great picture books throughout history that changed the way we write for children today.

Here’s how it works:

On Dec. 5, 2014, you will gain access to two special 60-minute online tutorials presented by literary agents from Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. Jennifer De Chiara will present a tutorial on writing picture books, and Roseanne Wells will present a tutorial on writing and selling Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction. (Sign up for the boot camp here.)

After listening to your choice of presentations, attendees will spend the next two days revising materials as necessary. Also following the tutorial, writers will have two days in which to log onto the Writer’s Digest University boot camp message boards and ask your assigned agent critiquers questions related to revising your materials. The agents will be available on the message boards from 1-3 p.m. (ET) on both Saturday, Dec. 6 and Sunday, Dec. 7. No later than Monday, Dec. 8, attendees will submit either their completed picture book text (1,000 words or fewer) or the first 10 double-spaced pages of their middle grade / young adult manuscript. The submissions will receive feedback directly from the boot camp literary agents.

The agents will spend up to two weeks reviewing all assigned critiques and provide feedback to help attendees. (The agents reserve the right to request more materials if they feel a strong connection to the work and want to read more; note that multiple agents have signed writers before from WD boot camps.) No later than Dec. 22, agents will send their feedback to writer attendees.

Only registered students can access the Writer’s Digest University boot camp message boards. You’ll also be able to ask questions of your fellow students. Feel free to share your work and gain support from your peers

Please note that any one of the agents may ask for additional pages if the initial submission shows serious promise.

In addition to feedback from agents, attendees will also receive:

Download of “An Agent’s Tips on Story Structures that Sell,” an on-demand webinar by literary agent Andrea Hurst
1-year subscription to the WritersMarket.com Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market database

PLEASE NOTE: Only Jennifer De Chiara and Roseanne Wells will be on the discussion sessions. Jennifer will handle questions related to Picture Books, and Roseanne will handle questions related to Middle Grade or Young Adult books. However, all the agents will be assisting in critiquing submissions. Jennifer De Chiara and Stephen Fraser will be critiquing Picture Books. Marie Lamba, Linda Epstein, and Roseanne Wells will be critiquing Middle Grade and Young Adult.

Sign up for the boot camp here.

When I first started writing fiction, I never expected to end up writing YA. But once I discovered what a vibrant, challenging category it was, I was hooked. I love young adult fiction, and I love the authors working in the category. Explaining to my friends and family, though, what YA is and why I was taking my career in a new direction was a bit of a challenge. Here are some great reasons to write or read YA, and why I do it myself:

Column by Kate Brauning, author of HOW WE FALL, a YA first cousins
romance releasing November 11, 2014. She grew up in rural Missouri and
fell in love with young adult books in college. She’s now an editor with
Entangled Publishing and pursues her lifelong dream of telling stories
she’d want to read. Kate loves unusual people, good whiskey, dark
chocolate, and everything about autumn. Visit her on Twitter: @KateBrauning.

1) A wide audience. By writing YA, we’re not crossing out adult readers. YA isn’t a reading level, it’s a category of story about a particular stage in life. Many of my adult friends thought if I started writing “teen fiction” it wouldn’t be a story they’d enjoy. But about half of YA readers are over 18, and a huge portion of the adult readers of YA are over 30. I didn’t find YA and start reading it myself until I was in college—and I’m so glad I did find it, because it reminded me how honest and surprising and deeply human fiction can be.

When you write YA, you’re writing to a wide, diverse audience. Adults buy and read YA all the time. Of course, it’s important to write with teen readers in mind, too, since they’re a significant portion of the audience, and no one can sense preachy messages or condescending stories like a teen.

(Headed to a conference? Learn how to approach an agent.)

2) A point of change. YA explores the teenage years of a person’s life, and those years are a significant point of change for most of us. Teens are tackling adult issues for the first time—serious relationships, jobs, shifting authority structures, new limits and opportunities—but they’re doing it without the experience and often without the resources that adults may have. It’s a vulnerable, heady, thrilling stage in someone’s life. Teens are also adjusting to greater independence and more authority in their own lives, but might still be dealing with limitations at odds with those things, like curfews, not having a car, house rules, and the structures of school. I didn’t start reading YA until I reached my twenties, and I wish I’d found it earlier—seeing so closely into the lives of other teens who are wrestling with the same changes and struggles I was would have been so helpful as a teen. I still find myself identifying with the characters in these stories, because people never stop struggling with change. You don’t grow out of YA.

The experiences we have in our teenage years are formative ones, and the mistakes and choices we make can follow us into adulthood. There’s great opportunity, uncertainty, and passion in those years, and they leave a mark on us. So when you write YA, explore that point of change.

3) Trying new things. Experimenting with craft is another reason I love YA. It’s a brave category. Novels in second person and novels in verse. Unreliable narrators. Thick, several-hundred-page stories. Companion short stories or novellas. Genre-blending, and epistolary-style novels with texts, blog posts, letters, and graphics. So much can be done in YA, and no story is off-limits. I love being challenged as a writer, seeing a tough story and figuring out how I can tell it, and YA is a great place to be doing that. Don’t let yourself be limited by what has or hasn’t been done before—explore new devices, new ideas, and new ways of telling these stories. Like teens themselves, YA is known for being brave and taking risks.

Writing books/novels for kids & teens? There are hundreds
of publishers, agents and other markets listed in the
latest Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market.
Buy it online at a discount.

4) Exploring tough issues. One of the main reasons I love reading and writing YA is that the category tackles such tough issues. Along with all the new independence, vulnerability, and vibrancy of teen life come problems—things we’d like to think teens don’t have to deal with, but are so often a part of their lives. Our ideas about adolescence are often at odds with the struggles of it. The weighty, bitter truths of growing up sometimes get painted over when we think about childhood. Like adults, teens have to deal with bullying, neglect, abuse, physical and mental illness, assault, discrimination, addiction, broken relationships, loss, regret, and personal failures. YA fiction is a great place to explore what those teen years really look like, and how we can adjust, heal, and reinvent ourselves. And sometimes those harsh truths take over, and YA can give us those stories, too. Sometimes the biggest struggles are crushes and cliques at school, but that’s not usually the case. The best YA is genuine and honest about what it means to be a teen.

(What writing credentials will impress an agent or editor?)

5) Why not? A final reason I love YA is that there’s no reason not to. Teens are every bit as complex as adults, and they can think as deeply, too. Of course they can. Teens aren’t a more simplistic or less demanding audience, and their stories aren’t any simpler or less worthy. When I came to YA as an adult, what drew me in was the depth of these stories, and that’s what I’ve stayed for, too.

Teens are people, and people have fascinating stories. There’s no reason we shouldn’t write or read their stories, and there’s every reason to do exactly that. We read and write YA to remember that stage in life, to explore, to see someone else’s life, to empathize. To keep the teenage part of ourselves alive. For catharsis. For fun. To be challenged. To think. To create, and to participate.

The stories in YA are first and foremost human stories. When you write YA, keep that in mind, because regardless of which category we put it in, that’s the core of a good story.

Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:

• Agent Spotlight: Genevieve Nine (Andrea Hurst & Assoc.) seeks YA, MG, NA and Fiction.
• Why Your Goal Should Be To Collect 100 Rejections.
• How I Got My Literary Agent: Julie Lawson Timmer (Fiction).
• Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and writing a query letter.

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

The 2015 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is out and available in major bookstores! What better way to celebrate its release than a giveaway contest? The CWIM a great resource guide for writers of picture books and novels for kids (young adult, middle grade) as well as illustrators.

The new 2015 edition of the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is updated and packed with info. Now in its 27th year, the newest edition still provides great market and submission/contact information for book publishers, art reps, international publishers, literary agents, contests, magazines, conferences and more. In addition to hundreds of markets for your kids book, this new edition has the following:

• Interviews with some of today’s most amazing writers and illustrators, such as Lauren DeStefano (Wither series), illustrator Loren Long (Of Thee I Sing with Barack Obama), and Kathy Appelt (The True Blue Scouts of Sugarman Swamp), among many others.
• Interviews with 13 debut authors, explaining how they came to get their picture books, middle grade, board books, and young adult books published. Hear their stories and learn from them.
• Interviews with 9 debut book illustrators, explaining how they came to see their work come to life. Hear from their stories and learn from them.
• Instructional articles on Writing For Boys (and Other “Reluctant Readers”), How to Write a Query Letter, Your Presence on the Web (Connecting With Readers), How to Write & Sell Nonfiction, Middle Grade vs. Young Adult, Tips on Selling Your First Children’s Picture Book, and more.
• “New Agent Spotlights” that pinpoint new/newer literary reps who are actively seeking submissions and clients NOW.
• A supplemental webinar all about how to revise & self-edit your own work to make it amazing before you submit. The webinar was recorded by contributing editor Harold Underdown, who runs The Purple Crayon website.
• And much more.

Buy it here! (It is available wherever books are sold, including Barnes & Noble or on Amazon, but know that when you order any product from our Writer’s Digest shop, you get the same deep discount you find on Amazon.) Need more reasons to buy? How about 8 darn good testimonials below from these very cool people, many of which are bestsellers, and some of which have even had movies made out of their books.

THE GIVEAWAY!!! Comment on this post and just say anything nice about any element of Writer’s Digest you enjoy — from a blog post to a class or a book or anything else. In two weeks, I will pick 3 winners randomly to win a copy of the book! It’s that easy. Note: If you share news of the contest on Twitter, you’re entered into the contest twice instead of once. To do this, simply share this tweet — The 2015 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is out now! Giveaway contest: http://tinyurl.com/lj72wx9 – via @chucksambuchino — and then comment on this post and leave your Twitter handle in your blog comment.

“Whenever anyone asks for publishing advice,
I tell them to grab the latest edition of Children’s
Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market.”

- JAY ASHER, author of the #1 New York
Times bestseller 13 Reasons Why
and The Future of Us

“CWIM is a great resource for artists and writers
who are ready to share their talent with the world.”

- MEG CABOT, author of multiple #1 New York Times
bestsellers, including the Princess Diaries series

“CWIM is an invaluable resource for any aspiring
writer hoping to get published. It helped me a lot
and I recommend it to everyone.”

- JAMES DASHNER, New York Times best-selling
author of The Maze Runner series, the first book of which
is soon to be a major motion picture.

“Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is invaluable
for writers of children’s books. Chock-full of publishing
resources, it’s a must-have.”

- BECCA FITZPATRICK, author of Hush-Hush
and Crescendo

“If you’re serious about writing or illustrating for
young people, the information, tools and insights
within the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market
will get you started on the right path.”

- WENDY TOLIVER, author of Lifted

“Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market has all the things
a new writer needs to know about the business, like who’s
who and how to submit to agents and publishers, but it also
has all the intangibles, like advice and encouragement.
Buy it for the information, keep it for the inspiration.”

- JOSEPHINE ANGELINI, international
bestselling author of Starcrossed.

“Chuck Sambuchino’s Children’s Writer’s and
Illustrator’s Market has all you need to
master the publishing process.”

- JULIE CANTRELL, New York Times and
USA Today bestselling author of Into the Free

“In my pre-published days (and there were many), purchasing
and perusing the new edition of the Children’s Writer’s &
Illustrator’s Market guide was such a hopeful time of year
for me.  I really got my optimistic juices flowing while reading
the articles and highlighting names of editors and agents.
You’re part of a great publication!”

- CLARE VANDERPOOL author of the
young adult novel, NAVIGATING EARLY
(Delacorte, 2013)

Pick up the 2015 edition of CWIM here!

THE GIVEAWAY!!! Comment on this post and just say anything nice about any element of Writer’s Digest you enjoy — from a blog post to a class or a book or anything else. In two weeks, I will pick 3 winners randomly to win a copy of the book! It’s that easy. Note: If you share news of the contest on Twitter, you’re entered into the contest twice instead of once. To do this, simply share this tweet — The 2015 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is out now! Giveaway contest: x — via @chucksambuchino — and then comment on this post and leave your Twitter handle in your blog comment.

Lunch Ticket is now accepting submissions for its Summer/Fall 214 issue. Starting August 1, 2014, the following genres are encouraged to apply: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry, Writing for Young People, & Visual Art. 

The deadline is set for October 31, 2014. 

Send us your best work! For guidelines and submission manager, visit our website.

If you're involved in children's writing and/or illustrating in any way (which I assume you are since you're reading this blog), and if you don't already know about SCBWI, let me enlighten you. Because this organization will help you in perfecting your craft, learning about the industry, connecting with colleagues, and avoiding many mistakes that will save you time. 

The world's most unpronounceable acronym stands for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Our international headquarters is based in Los Angeles, and we have regional chapters throughout the world. The region we're in is Utah/southern Idaho. You can learn lots more at the web site scbwi.org and at our region's page on that site. 

Tonight--yes, July 18, 2014--you have a chance to connect in person with others in the organization, including me. We're gathering for the annual summer potluck, which is just a time to socialize, talk shop, and generally have a blast.  Here are all the details:

by Anna Staniszewski

As an author who’s slowly been transitioning from novels to picture books (my first picture book will be out in March 2015), I’ve realized that picture book techniques have started influencing my novel-writing process. Here are a few examples.

1. Brevity and Word Choice
This is probably the most obvious connection. When you’re used to working with 500 words, you tend to get a little pickier about the words you use in longer projects. Even when I have 50k words to work with, for example, I still find myself making sure to cut out unnecessary phrases (particularly unneeded dialogue tags) and using strong verbs and interesting nouns to make each sentence count.

2. Tying the End to the Beginning
This is my favorite picture book technique. In picture books, the ending almost always echoes the beginning of the tale. I love using this approach in novels, reflecting something from the opening chapter in the closing chapter in a different context. This technique shows us that the character has grown and changed, and it also makes the story feel cohesive and satisfying.

3. Repeating for Emphasis
Repetition can be great in picture books, but in novels it can feel like telegraphing. A strong repeated image, however, especially one whose meaning deepens over the course of the story, can work well if it’s revisited throughout the novel. It can help show how the meaning of that image or experience has changed for the character over time.

4. Using the Senses
In picture books, we have to be mindful of not focusing too much on the visual details so that we don’t step on the illustrator’s toes. That means we have to use other senses to give the story depth. I try to use a similar multi-sensory approach in my novels, so I’m not simply describing how things look to the characters, but I’m also thinking about the smells, sounds, and textures around them. I’ve also found myself using a lot of onomatopoeic words—kapow!

For those of you who write in longer and shorter formats, how do you find the two influencing each other? What’s your favorite picture book technique to use in novel-writing? Please comment below and join the conversation!

.

Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Staniszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. Currently, she lives outside Boston with her husband and their crazy dog. When she’s not writing, Anna spends her time reading, daydreaming, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. She is the author of the My Very UnFairy Tale Life series and the Dirt Diary series. Her newest novel, The Prank List, released on July 1st from Sourcebooks. You can visit Anna at www.annastan.com.

WD’s July 2014 Agent One-on-One Boot Camp is shaping up to be an awesome opportunity for writers of children’s books. The new topic is “How to Write and Sell Great Children’s Books: From Toddler to Teen,” and this boot camp is for writers of picture books, middle grade novels, and young adult novels.

It all starts on July 15, 2014, and features the amazing agents at Full Circle Literary offering instruction and critiques to all attendees. Picture book writers get their entire book critiqued while MG & YA writers get a query critique and five-page critique. This is a great opportunity to get a professional’s thoughts on your work, and possibly attract the attention of an agent at the same time. There is a limited number of seats for this event (75, and it reached capacity last time it was done), and WD Boot Camps frequently sell out, so sign up quickly.

DESCRIPTION

The world of children’s books has seen more growth in the last ten years than any other category in the publishing industry. Countless articles and op-eds have analyzed the booming success of now-iconic series like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Fancy Nancy. But while critics are debating the triumph of a particular series, readers – both children and adults – are clamoring for more books that will enchant and entertain them.

But in such a competitive market, how do you make your book stand out as a quality submission? How do you walk the fine line between capturing the attention (and purchasing power) of both child and adult reader? In this Writer’s Digest Boot Camp, the agents of Full Circle Literary will teach you:

• The key elements to writing a successful children’s book, be that a picture book, young adult novel, or middle grade story
• The pitfalls to avoid when writing for kids – whether toddlers or teens
• What agents and publishers look for in submissions
• How to make your opening pages shine

You are the new generation of authors, creating that next iconic book as we speak. Let’s get to work.

Sign up for the July 2014 WD Agent One-on-One Boot Camp here.

Here’s how it works:

On Tuesday, July 15, 2014, you will gain access to one of the following online tutorials presented by the agents at Full Circle Literary. It’s your choice.

1. How to Write Successful Picture Books (45 minutes)

2. How to Write Successful Middle Grade and Young Adult (45 minutes)

These webinars will focus on the particular challenges and lessons for each category of children’s books. While there will be some overlapping information, please choose the webinar that speaks to your chosen genre. After listening to the presentation, you’ll spend Tuesday evening revising the opening of your project as necessary.

Sign up for the July 2014 WD Agent One-on-One Boot Camp here.

CRITIQUE

You are then invited to submit one of the following for review:

1. For picture book authors: Query letter and up to 1,000 words (i.e. recommended length of full text) of your picture book
2. For middle grade/young adult authors: Query letter and your first 5 double-spaced pages

Also on July 15, you will be notified about your assigned agent. You will submit your pages for review by EOD, July 18, attached as a Word document. The agents reading and critiquing submissions are Stefanie von Borstel, Adriana Dominguez, and Taylor Martindale.

They will spend the next few days reviewing their assigned pages and providing feedback as to what works and what doesn’t.The agents will return your pages with their critiques within 10 days. Please note that any one of the agents may ask for additional pages if the initial submission shows serious promise. (Several agents have signed writers after seeing their work through boot camps and webinars.)

In addition to feedback from agents, attendees will also receive: A 1-year subscription to the WritersMarket.com Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Database.

Sign up for the July 2014 WD Agent One-on-One Boot Camp here.

About the Agents:

Stefanie von Borstel is co-founder of Full Circle Literary. Prior to agenting, she worked in editorial and marketing with Penguin and Harcourt. Stefanie represents children’s books from baby to teen, as well as select adult books. On the adult side, her focus is on family-interest, craft/design/lifestyle, and creative nonfiction. Representative clients include: Meg Mateo Ilasco, Barb Blair, Justina Blakeney, Betz White, and Kelly McCants of Modern June, among others. On the children’s side, she is especially seeking middle grade fiction and nonfiction, and is excited about the latest books from her clients Diana Lopez’s Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel, Karen Benke’s Leap Write In!, and Sarah Burningham’s Girl to Girl. For picture books/chapter books: author/illustrators, character-driven stories, unique nonfiction, stories that keep her turning the pages, and books that inspire imagination of the young and young-at-heart. Clients include: Monica Brown, Jennifer Ward, Toni Buzzeo, Carmen Tafolla, Rafael Lopez, Cindy Jenson-Elliott, and SCBWI Grand Prize Portfolio Award Winner Juana Martinez-Neal, to name a few. Stefanie is thrilled to work with clients that have a distinct style or expertise that can crossover to both the children’s and adult markets. Most of all, she loves authentic voices and viewpoints that make us look at the world and ourselves in new ways. When not reading, Stefanie is probably searching for green fig beetles or exploring tidepools with her son.

Adriana Dominguez has 15 years of experience in publishing, most recently as Executive Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, where she managed the children’s division of the Latino imprint, Rayo. Prior to that, she was Children’s Reviews Editor at Criticas magazine, published by Library Journal. She has performed editorial work for many children’s and adult publishers, both on a full time basis and as a freelance consultant, on English and Spanish language books. Adriana is also a professional translator who has worked on a number of translations of award-winning and best-selling children’s books. She is a member of the Brooklyn Literary Council that organizes the Brooklyn Book Festival, and one of the founders of the Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference in New York City. Adriana joined Full Circle in 2009, and is based on the East Coast. She is interested in children’s picture books, middle grade novels, and literary young adult novels. On the adult side, she is looking for literary and women’s works of fiction that feature characters with unique voices telling unforgettable stories. In the area of non-fiction, she seeks pop culture, and how-to titles geared toward women of all ages, written by authors with rock-solid platforms. Adriana has a long trajectory of publishing underrepresented authors and illustrators, and welcomes submissions that offer diverse points of view. Her client list includes seasoned authors such as Reyna Grande, Las Comadres Para Las Americas, Tim Z. Hernandez, Lorena Siminovich, George Ancona, and Rafael Lopez, as well as newcomers such as Angela Cervantes, Michaela & Elaine DePrince, Katheryn Russell-Brown, and Lila Quintero-Weaver, among others.

Taylor Martindale is a literary agent with Full Circle Literary, actively acquiring fiction and non-fiction projects. She began agenting with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency and is a graduate of The College of William and Mary, where she studied English and Hispanic Studies. Taylor is looking for young adult fiction, literary middle grade fiction, women’s fiction, and select non-fiction projects. She is interested in finding unique and unforgettable voices in contemporary, historical and/or multicultural novels. She is looking for books that demand to be read whether the stories are light-hearted or address important issues (she adores both). More than anything, Taylor is looking for character-driven stories that bring the world vividly to life and voices that refuse to be ignored. When considering non-fiction projects, Taylor uses much the same approach, and hopes to find authors with fresh ideas and perspectives, with writing that is accessible, entertaining, and compelling. When not working, Taylor can be found traveling, cooking, spending time with loved ones, or (surprise!) lost in a good book.

Sign up for the July 2014 WD Agent One-on-One Boot Camp here!

Hunger Mountain is accepting submissions of young adult and children's literature. One first place winner receives $1,000 and publication and three category winners receive $100 each and publication. The categories are: Young Adult (YA) Middle Grade (MG) Picture Book Writing for Young Children. Enter your original, unpublished piece under 10,000 words. Your entry may be a short story or a novel excerpt, but if it’s a novel excerpt it should really stand alone. 

The 2014 judge is Katherine Applegate, the Newbery Award winning author of The One and Only Ivan. About: Hunger Mountain is both a print and online journal of the arts publishing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. The print issue comes out annually in the fall.

Entry fee: $20.00

Deadline: 7/1/14

Enter here.

You may be wondering–what ever happened to Tara? It’s been almost a month since she blogged. (Or you may not. You may be relieved your inbox has been devoid of my blog blivel. I made that word up, in case you’re wondering. A portmanteau of blog and drivel.)

Well, I’ve been traveling! I’ve actually changed out of my pajamas several times in the last few weeks!

Not so pristine whiteboard.

At the end of March I drove down to MD/DE/WV SCBWI’s Annual Conference to present my workshop “From Concept to Dummy for Picture Book Writers”. About 70 writers attended–it was a full house in our little room. The attendees got a taste of my imbalance. Yes, my mental imbalance, but also my MS imbalance. Luckily I didn’t topple the whiteboard. I did, however, have one sinking moment when I thought I used a permanent Sharpie on the pristine white surface. It reminded me of NJ-SCBWI 2008 when I volunteered to hang signs on the aging plaster of the Princeton Theological Seminary, only to take chunks of wall with me when I removed the signs. Be forewarned, I cause mayhem and destruction at SCBWI events.

I think many will agree that the best part of the workshop was when we read the beginnings of successful picture books to discern the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN in each opening line. Incorporating these details makes your reader ask WHY and eagerly turn the page to find out.

Many new writers mistakenly begin stories with, “My name is Jamie and I’m six years old.”  This tells a reader nothing about the story to come. And more importantly, an editor who reads this plain first line will most likely stop there. YIKES. Not what you want. You have to break out of that slush pile with a line that captures the editor immediately.

After reading a dozen picture book openings, with me screaming WHY? WHHHHHYYYYY? and bending over in feigned painful anticipation, shaking my fists at the sky, I challenged the participants to rewrite their opening lines. Everyone was quite thrilled to get their own Tara WHHHHHYYYYY? in response to their improved introductions.

Writer Sarah Maynard summarized my workshop with bullet points, to which I’ve added my thoughts from the event:

• You have 30 seconds to grab their attention. MAKE IT GOOD!
  Like a resume to obtain a job, you have limited time to make an impression with an agent or editor. They can have hundreds of manuscripts to read each week, so they give each one only a few moments to grab them. Punch that opening, make them want to continue reading.

• “Writing a picture book is 99% staring and 1% writing.”
  There is A LOT of thinking involved in writing a picture book. Don’t worry if you’re not actually putting words on paper every day. Think about how to resolve problems in your story. Stare at your manuscript. Your subconscious will most likely be working on a solution and it will pop out while you’re doing mundane chores, like emptying the dishwasher, folding laundry, or taking a shower.

• Learn who YOU are as a WRITER.
  A lot of authors, including me, espouse advice that may not work for you. Discover how YOU work best and stick with it. For instance, routine doesn’t jive with me, although it works for a lot of other people. I used to force myself into routine only to get frustrated, losing my creative mojo. Only you know how to thrive in your creative mode. It’s very personal. Don’t take advice that doesn’t serve you well.

• If it’s not apparent by words you’ve written, add an art note.
  One attendee told me I was the first person to speak positively about art notes. Yeah, I think they get a bad rap. They’re absolutely ESSENTIAL to use if it’s not apparent what’s happening by your words alone. If the text says your character is smiling but you actually want them to frown, you need an art note to convey that. Of course, you should not use them to direct the entire shabang, but to ensure there are no misunderstandings. Which brings me to the last point…

• Don’t make an agent or editor guess!
  I find that some new writers like to surprise the reader on the second or third page of a manuscript. This means the beginning is not entirely clear and the reader must guess what is happening. Well, what if your reader guesses wrong? Then they become hopelessly confused at the reveal and probably discard your manuscript. You don’t want an agent or editor to have to guess what is happening in your tale. Make it CRYSTAL either by the text or the addition of art notes. It can be as simple as “[art: the character is a bear]” to make everyone understand.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Maryland—the hospitality of the chapter went above and beyond. We had a lovely faculty dinner at the Craftsman-style log cabin home of former RA Edie Hemingway. Is there anything more writerly than that (I mean, c’mon, HEMINGWAY)? Edie has a charming home with a writing hut tucked into the woods.

Far better than my writing space—my unmade bed!

As I crawl back into my pajamas, I’ll be getting another blog post ready. This time, about my trip to Reading is Fundamental and the donation that my publisher and PiBoIdMo participants made possible, enriching the lives of children with BOOKS!

WRITE ON!

My friend, San Antonio SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator Akiko White recently tagged me to take part in a ‘Writing Process’ Blog Tour. It was fun because it got me thinking about how the kind of writing I’ve been doing is much like the writing I’ve always done, as the author-illustrator of three books for upper elementary […]

Sometimes writers need a good kick in the pants.

Wouldn’t it be great to have your own personal writing coach by your side every day to get you moving? She could whip the sheets off you each morning, bugle reveille in your ear, even toast  you an Eggo while you shower.

Eh, who am I kidding? Writers don’t shower!

Anyway…

Author Deb Lund brought together her 20+ years of teaching experience in a magical way—with 54 surprising writing prompts, tips and tricks for you to apply to your work-in-progress whenever you’re feeling stuck. It’s like having that writing coach right there with you, only a lot less annoying. It’s “Fiction Magic”!

For years, Deb taught 4th- and 5th-grade students how to write, and she wanted to make it cool for them, so she developed these cards. Her real “aha” moment came when she realized that she could teach adults the same way she taught children, using the same FUN strategies. ABRACADABRA! These “magical” cards act as triggers to pull something out of your head that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to coax out.

At the Oregon Silver Falls SCBWI Writing Retreat, star agent Jen Rofé of Andrea Brown Literary Agency attended Deb’s session and then exclaimed, “I want all my writers to have your cards!” Yep, she was that impressed. The only problem? Deb’s cards were a prototype that cost her $200 to produce. How could she make them for a dozen writers? A hundred? A THOUSAND?

Enter Kickstarter. Deb’s Fiction Magic campaign is on right now and it’s 94% funded already! But with just 10 days to go, she needs your help. And believe me, you want her help, too!

Let’s do a few tricks right now, shall we? Whip out your WIP and see if these magical remedies help!

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AGREE TO A BAD DEAL
Your characters must make some bad choices along the way. They may even have to negotiate for something they need or want with people they loathe. Characters may know they’re agreeing to bad deals but feel they have no choice. Or the deals appear good, but fall apart later. Or time factors make the deals even more ominous. Make the stakes of bad deals so high it’s difficult for your characters to back out of them.

When you feel stressed by all that’s on your plate, be gentle with yourself. Let your characters agree to bad deals, but the only agreement you need to make with yourself right now is to write, no matter how bad the writing may seem.

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REVEAL A SECRET
Secrets can be powerful tools or sources of trouble. Or both. What information could your characters unwittingly slip out to the wrong people? Characters could be in danger because of secrets. Other characters could reveal secrets that affect your lead characters, whether the secrets were theirs or not. In trying to cover up secrets or escaping from those trying to conceal secrets, what could go wrong? Who will be angry? Hurt? Feeling betrayed? Put in life or death situations?

Do you keep your dreams secret? Sometimes they need protection, but when you’re ready and the time is right, reveal them to others who believe in you.

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THROW IN AN OBSTACLE
If you’re lucky, you’ll pick this card over and over, because this is Key. Your characters are on quests. Delay them. Interrupt their journeys. Who or what could step in to make your characters stop in their tracks? The interruptions may be people, objects, circumstances, thoughts, feelings… Send your characters merrily down the road, and then run them into roadblocks. Keep tossing them unending hardship. Warm up your pitching arm and let it rip. Throw after throw after throw.

As a writer, you have plenty obstacles. For each one you throw at your character, remove one from your writing life! Where will you start?

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There are 51 more Fiction Magic tricks for you to try. But only if you help Deb reach her goal.

Check out her Kickstarter and create your own magic! (Even if that includes the bugle call. But that’s not for me. I am NOT a morning person!)

Meet Lisa Rose

It’s my delight to introduce you to vivacious, rap-writing debut author Lisa Rose. I first met Lisa through our regional chapter of SCBWI and was immediately attracted to her bright smile, energy and enthusiasm. And wait until you hear her good news . . .

Tell us about your book–details! We want details!
SHUMLIK PAINTS THE TOWN will be published by Kar-Ben in 2016. It’s about a painter named Shumulik who needs to create a mural for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day). He can’t think of anything to paint and soon all of Jerusalem will be there. What is he going to do? It has a funny surprise ending!

Can’t wait to read SHUMLIK PAINTS THE TOWN and find out what the surprise is. So, when did you know you wanted to write for children?
It sounds cliché, but I was in second grade. I wrote a poem and my teacher called me a writer. I always wanted to write. But my mother told me to do something that made money. So I became an elementary teacher and got really, really, really rich! Moral of the story: don’t listen to your mother.

Very funny, Lisa. Now, what is it about writing for children that appeals to you versus writing for adults?
Hope. All children’s book must end in hope or by definition they are not a children’s book.

What’s the best writing advise you’ve ever been given?
I was a playwright before I wrote for kids, but this still applies: “No amount of sequins can save a bad script.”

Love that. And it definitely applies to children’s writing too. As you know, Frog on a Dime is all about encouraging children’s writers, so what’s the most encouraging thing anyone has ever said to you (related to writing)?
It was from Michigan’s own Debbie Taylor. I was writing outside of my race and shared with her I wasn’t trying to be revolutionary, I just wanted to write about something that touched me. Debbie said, “That’s your answer!” Recently, I was working on a project and it just wasn’t working. I tried and tried. Until I realized I was writing it for all the wrong reasons. I think good writing must have passion and purpose. The idea must scrape your soul.

Photo by Vicky Lorencen

What advise would you give to someone who has been pursuing publication for a long time, with close calls, but no contracts?
Keep going and learn how to flip-turn. I was swimmer before I was writer. It is excellent training. I was used to going as fast as could into cement walls. Instead of crashing after rejection, I just turned around and swam as fast I could into another cement wall. I sent the editor at Kar-Ben over twenty stories. We were on a first name rejection basis. But she kept encouraging me to send more stories. And so I did. I told myself I was going to keep writing until I got a contract or a restraining order from her. Luckily for me, the contract came first.

That’s great advise, Lisa. I’d never thought about flip-turns, but that’s a perfect analogy for the submission process. Time for one last question? Okay, name three things we’d be surprised to learn about you.
1. While I have this nice Jewish book coming out with Kar-Ben, most of my novels feature African-American characters and I am working on a digital media project with the former producers of rapper Eminem. Yes, I even write rap music.
2. I have partnered with a Detroit graffiti artist, Fel3000ft. to create a chapter book. I joke that I write everything from shalom to shazizzle!
3. I like eating ice cream with a fork.
4. BONUS! I have an e-book coming out with MeeGenius in the Spring: OH NO! THE TOOTH FAIRY BROKE HER WING! It is a sequel to OH NO! THE EASTER BUNNY IS ALLERGIC TO EGGS!

Hey, this was fun, Lisa. Thank you for stopping by Frog on a Dime. Wishing you many more publishing success stories. Keep doing those flip-turns!

Each year the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators sponsors two student writer scholarships to the Summer and Winter Conferences for full-time university students in an English or Creative Writing program.

Award:
–Full tuition to main conference events including keynotes and breakout sessions. (Award does not include travel or hotel expenses.)
–Exclusive exposure to industry professionals at the conference.
–An SCBWI Conference advisor to help navigate the jammed-packed weekend.
PLUS:
LA Summer Conference: An individual manuscript consultation of the first twenty pages of your manuscript with an industry professional and entrance to the Writers’ Intensive.

Eligibility:
1. You must be at least eighteen years old to apply.
2. All full-time students enrolled in an accredited educational institution are eligible to apply.

Guidelines:
One winner will be chosen from a graduate or doctoral program and one winner will be chosen from an undergraduate program.
Applicants are required to submit:
–Short cover letter stating why you want to attend the conference and a synopsis of your work.
–Five-page sample of a manuscript
–Copy of your student ID
–Letter of recommendation sent directly from a professor at your university.
Applications MUST BE electronically submitted as ONE PDF to:

kaylaDOTheinenATscbwiDOTorg (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

Letters of recommendation can be sent separately as a Word document.
Applications will be judged by a panel decided by SCBWI.
In the event that a recipient cannot attend for any reason, the grant committee should be notified as soon as possible. The scholarship may, in that event, be awarded to another applicant. The grant is not transferrable and cannot be postponed. SCBWI reserves the right not to award the scholarship in any given year.

Deadline: April 15

Soundings Review is the literary journal of the MFA program at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island, Washington. The magazine welcomes submissions of high quality writing in any area (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s/young adult). We are open to different styles and voices, but are passionate about accessibility and depth. We seek articles that create a connection with a reader on the first reading and spur increase understanding and pleasure after further readings. (Our only taboo: hate literature, which includes pornography, gratuitous violence, and all the “isms” that stereotype or disrespect others).

We also offer two semi-annual contests, the Founders’ Circle Contest for published writers, and the First Publication Contest for writers whose work has not appeared in a national publication. Winners receive publication and $300 (Founders’ Circle) or $100 (First Publication). Entry fees are $10.

Deadlines for submissions and contest entries are January 1 and May 1. Soundings Review is published twice a year. For more information, please see our submission guidelines.

Whether your manuscript is a picture book or novel, it can be tempting to create a wide variety of supporting characters to help tell your story.  But too many characters can be hard for young readers to keep track of, and can dilute the focus.  So how do you decide which secondary characters to keep? Keep these tips in mind:

* All characters should be multi-dimensional, authentic, believable and interesting to young readers – even if they’re bad guys.

* All characters should have a role to play in relationship to your main character. Whether they are a catalyst, a foil, a mentor, an antagonist, a challenger, a sidekick, the voice of reason, a tempter, or something else, they must serve a purpose in relationship to your hero’s journey.

* All characters must be in pursuit of something: a want, or a need, or a goal. They should also have to make their own choices to pursue that want or need.

* Consider whether or how the story would change without them. If you removed this character from the story, would it affect the course of events one way or another? If not, they should probably go.

* Secondary characters should also learn something or grow by the end of the story. They need to have journeys of their own. For example, in Where the Wild Things Are, the secondary character is Max’s mother (even though we never actually “see” her, she has a huge influence on the story and on Max’s journey, and is a presence nonetheless.)  We know Max grows and changes by the end, but Max’s mother does, too… because she delivers dinner to his room after she’s promised that he’s going to go to bed with no supper. We can infer from this that she has softened and forgiven him.  We want all our supporting characters to have the same kind of journey.

Hippity, hoppity…

Come meet some new kidlit authors with the Children’s Author Blog Hop!

I was invited to participate by Darlene Beck-Jacobson, an author I know from NJ-SCBWI whose historical middle grade novel WHEELS OF CHANGE releases next year. It’s set in 1909 Washington D.C. and follows a young girl who attempts to save the family carriage business during the proliferation of the automobile. (Really cool premise I cannot wait to read!)

To participate in this hop, you don a pair of your fluffiest Hello Kitty socks and…wait a minute! This isn’t the Children’s Author SOCK HOP? Oh darn. And I was itching to do the mashed potato, too.

Darlene and me at a NJ-SCBWI book signing’

To participate in the BLOG hop, you answer four questions, then pass the torch onto three other authors. One of the great privileges of writing this blog is to promote other talented kidlit professionals. I’m so pleased to introduce you to PiBoIdMo participants and authors you may not know yet—Elaine, Angie & Jacque—but you will!

And now the four questions…

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Whoops. Sorry. That’s the first of the Passover four questions. Maybe my Jewish friends had a chuckle. The rest of you are going HUH?!

1. What are you currently working on?

As you may know, I host Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo) every November. It’s the picture book writer’s alternative to NaNoWriMo. The challenge is to create one new picture book idea daily.

I caution PiBoIdMo participants NOT to post their ideas anywhere online. Concept is primarily what sells a picture book, and you don’t want someone to snatch your hook-y concept.

So I’m going to follow my own advice and be a little cryptic about what I’m working on. It’s a magical story about someone who’s not happy with magic.

My usual M.O. is to begin with a title, and that’s what I’m doing yet again. It’s got a snazzy, catchy title, something that will make people wanna snag it right off the shelf. The bad news is that I’ve already written this story once before—and revised it at least a dozen times. But it just didn’t work. In fact, I set aside this story for an entire year before I re-read my final draft again just last week.

WHOA! WHAT A STINK! WHAT DIED IN THERE?

In my zealous quest to perfect the manuscript, I darted further and further away from my original intentions. The story didn’t resemble anything I’d like to call my work. And so, it got filed in the circular file.

This week I began again with nothing but the title. I’ve got the opening down and I can already see it’s going far better than it did last year, but I’ve still got a long way to go.

I’m also putting final edits on LITTLE RED GLIDING HOOD, a punny skating adventure coming from Penguin Random House Children’s in October 2015. All your favorite fairytale characters will be along for the glide—Humpty Dumpty, Old MacDonald, even Jack Sprat and his wife.

2. How does it differ from other works in the genre?

The magical story will feature an adult. In fact, it opens with an adult. I know this is typically a no-no, but the adult is not an ordinary grown-up. You’ll see. Know the rules, but know when to break them, too.

3. Why do you write what you do?

I have always had a love affair with the short story. I prefer the brilliance in their brevity. And with picture books, I adore the juxtaposition of words and images. It’s like playing for a living.

4. What is the hardest part about writing?

Not letting the words get away from you. Sometimes the words have a way of writing themselves, pulling you in a direction you didn’t want to go. You have to learn to tame your words, and that’s no easy feat.

And now, ladies and gentleman and children of all ages, I’m pleased to present the three authors I’ve chosen to hop to: Elaine Kiely Kearns, Angie Karcher and Jacque Duffy!

E. Kiely Kearns is an elementary school teacher and a member of the SCBWI. She earned her Masters in Education from Fordham University. She dreams up wild and wonderful stories in New York State where she lives with her husband, two children, and menagerie of animals. She lives on coffee, chocolate and humor. Mostly humor. Get your “Book Smarts” fix at EKielyKearns.com.

Angie Karcher’s first book, WHERE THE RIVER GRINS: THE HISTORY OF EVANSVILLE, ILLINOIS came out in November 2012. It was part of the city’s Bicentennial celebration and is a resource book for local history in all third grade classrooms in Evansville. Her current project, THE LEGENDARY COWBOY JONES, about a 70-year-old jockey who’s still racing, comes out after the first of the year. She is a former Kindergarten teacher and professional storyteller. Read more of her story at AngieKarcher.wordpress.com.

Born in Brisbane, Australia, Jacque Duffy has always been creative and entrepreneurial. She has written, illustrated and self-published seven children’s books in a series. These books were sought and purchased by the Queensland State Government and placed into schools and libraries. In 2014 her first picture book THE BEAR SAID PLEASE will be released by Wombat books. Follow her down under at JacquesArtandBooks.com.

Happy hopping!

Reminder: New literary agents

About Jodell: Jodell earned her MFA in Children’s Writing from Hamline University. She is the author of Picture Book Lunch: 20 Tools for Pacing and Writing Picture Books to Wow, and has produced five Writer’s Digest University Tutorials on Children’s Writing. Her published articles include “Picture Book Pacing: Verbal and Visual Tools for Writers, and Picture Book Pacing: The ultimate 20 editing tools for your work,” in the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, 2011 and 2013, respectively. Visit her Picture Book Lunch

Jodell is seeking: Jodell is interested in YA, MG (especially funny) , fiction and nonfiction, book proposals, and picture books. She will also coach writers wanting to self publish.  She simply loves a well-paced story that moves her between joy and tears.

(Find more middle grade literary agents

How to contact Jodell: “We only accept queries and submissions via email. Please be sure your subject line reads: QUERY – Name or Title – Genre. Your query may be copied and pasted to the body of your email and should include SCBWI affiliation, publishing credits, etc. if applicable, etc. Tell us a little bit about you: your writing background and goals. Please send queries to: sadlercaravettesubmissions [at] gmail.com. You need only send one manuscript at a time. We will contact you to request additional material. For picture books, send a query and the full ms. For chapter books, young adult and middle grade, send a query and 10 pasted pages. For illustrations, send a query and 2-3 jpegs (or PDF) with pictures of children and animals. We make every effort to respond to submissions/queries within 2 months. Occasionally, it may take longer. As a general rule, if you have not received a response from your queried within 6 months, please assume that Sadler-Caravette Children’s Literary is not interested in your work.”

———

Loretta is seeking: Loretta specializes in MG fiction and early readers, and will focus on film rights management. Her academic article, Portrait of the Reader as a Young Child, was published in Children & Libraries: the Journal of the Association for Library Services to Children.

How to contact Loretta: “We only accept queries and submissions via email. Please be sure your subject line reads: QUERY – Name or Title – Genre. Your query may be copied and pasted to the body of your email and should include SCBWI affiliation, publishing credits, etc. if applicable, etc. Tell us a little bit about you: your writing background and goals. Please send queries to: sadlercaravettesubmissions [at] gmail.com. You need only send one manuscript at a time. We will contact you to request additional material. For picture books, send a query and the full ms. For chapter books, young adult and middle grade, send a query and 10 pasted pages. For illustrations, send a query and 2-3 jpegs (or PDF) with pictures of children and animals. We make every effort to respond to submissions/queries within 2 months. Occasionally, it may take longer. As a general rule, if you have not received a response from your queried within 6 months, please assume that Sadler-Caravette Children’s Literary is not interested in your work.”

I’ve had over 50 books traditionally published in a range of genres. Can’t remember the exact number but some have been plays for teenagers and younger children. Other books tied into characters on TV (such as Brum) and were joke, … Continue reading →

OK, silly title. And if anyone under 30 reads this post, they’re not gonna get the reference to Moon River.

But heck, I like it, so off we go…

Many kidlit writers hear “don’t rhyme” from picture book editors. It’s not that editors hate rhyme (well, maybe SOME do), it’s just that they see badly-executed rhyme so often in the slush, it’s easier to discourage it. Common rhymes like “me, see” and “you, two” and other one-syllable predictability can kill the joy of a story.

Remember “Celebrity Apprentice” when the men’s team gleefully authored “I know my A, B, C’s and my 1, 2, 3′s” as if it hadn’t been regurgitated in a googolplex of board books? They thought it was a rhyme worthy of victory and publication. Well, they did win the challenge, but the book Trump promised to publish was released by a vanity press, not a traditional publisher. No publisher was gonna touch it, ten foot pole or not.

Editors also see a lot of rhyme with flawed meter. Meter is a tricky thing. There’s stressed and unstressed syllables, plus the lilt of natural speech patterns that can render your meter more choppy than Zoanette Johnson’s drumming. If you read your own rhyme aloud, you might not even hear how off it is, because you are forcing yourself to follow the pattern you created.

Then there’s the near-rhyme mistake, when the words don’t really rhyme at all, unless you twist your tongue or alter your accent. Like “hat” and “what” or “hat” and “back”. Once or twice and you can maybe get away with it. More than that and the editor may assume you need the WaxVac.

Moreover, writers can find their story dictated by rhyme, getting trapped in nonsensical situations simply because “dishwasher” rhymes with “impostor” (almost). It’s obvious when a plot decision has been forced based upon one word.

For these reasons, editors will advise, “don’t rhyme”.

For these reasons, author Lane Fredrickson created RhymeWeaver.com.

Lane is the author of WATCH YOUR TONGUE, CECILY BEASLEY, a rhyming picture book with a joyfully jaunty rhyme. Remember as a child when you stuck out your tongue and a parent warned, “It will get stuck that way!” Well, Cecily finds herself in that very predicament. Hilarity ensues when a bird takes up residence on Cecily’s perfect pink perch. What’s Cecily to do?

Knowing the difficulty of rhyme for picture book writers, Lane created RhymeWeaver.com to teach the bard-challenged the complexities of rhyming well.

Lane, your rhyme is perfection! How did you get to be so good at it?

Ha. Thank you, Tara.

The short answer would be: a gnawing question and a genetic glitch.

But there is also the long answer. When I first joined SCBWI, everybody seemed to be telling everyone else NOT to write in rhyme, like there was a disease associated with it. You know, literary sarcoma or writer’s blockjaw. You almost didn’t want to admit you were a rhymer lest they sit in some quarantined section and slap a scarlet R on your forehead. The other thing I kept hearing was that a person’s rhyme had to be PERFECT. I wanted to write PERFECT rhyme, but I could never get a really good answer as to what PERFECT rhyme was. This is the kind of scenario that drives a slightly obsessive-compulsive person to behaving obsessively compulsive. So I googled around and studied my Seuss and found a website that offered critiques for $50. The critique, although well-intentioned, was just plain bad advice involving “counting syllables.” And don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely given bad advice (but I’m pretty sure it was free when I did it). I totally get that sometimes bad advice seems good because it comes from multiple sources, but “counting syllables” is not the way to perfect meter and I had (being slightly obsessive compulsive) already figured that out. So I went back to school thinking I’d take a poetry class and clear up the PERFECT meter issue. But the thing about college is they don’t tell you what you want to know, they tell you whatever they want to tell you. So it took a BA in English and healthy stab at an MA in British Lit to figure it out that meter is a lot of things, but PERFECT is rarely one of them (I only stabbed at the MA, I haven’ t killed it yet).

What inspired you to put all your rhyming knowledge into a website?

I watched a lot of people go through exactly what I went through: trying to figure out the rules, trying to decide if writing in rhyme was worth the stigma, trying to find complete resources that explained everything. I have a degree in psychology, where I focused on cognition and development (which is the opposite of those people who ask you to talk about your problems). Cognitive and developmental psychologists look at how people think and how they grow, mature, and learn. I knew that I could show meter in a way that’s visual and image-based. I knew that I could break it down into constituent parts in a way that I had never seen done. I knew that I could make it easier to grasp. But I wanted it to be free because I’m trying to improve the status of rhyme in the literary world and the more people who rhyme well, the less it looks like I have a disease.

Lane’s website has already helped this ruined rhymer who can’t hear meter even if I got whacked upside the head with it. So I encourage you to pay RhymeWeaver.com a visit, Pin it, share it, study it, LIVE IT. Children deserve better rhyming picture books like CECILY BEASLEY.

And hey, you can WIN CECILY! Just leave a comment telling me about the most interesting thing you learned at RhymeWeaver.com. A winner will be picked randomly in a week (or knowing me and prize distribution, two weeks).

So don’t hesitate, get out there and rhyme, oh Kate! (Sorry if your name isn’t Kate. I had to end on a rhyme.)

“Don’t use art notes,” is what you may hear as a new writer.

It’s not that editors don’t like art notes. It’s just that many new writers want to dictate illustrations that do not require direction.

For instance, you shouldn’t pick what your character looks like. Red hair, blue shirt, green sneakers, pigtails, etc. are not for you to decide. The editor of Mary Ann Hoberman’s THE SEVEN SILLY EATERS thought the characters should be animals, like crocodiles. Marla Frazee, the illustrator, thought they should be people, and she was right. She even made the mother a cello player, which was not in the text, but it added a delightful layer to the mother’s personality. The options were wide open—the author never described the characters’ appearance.

The exception to this rule is when your character’s appearance is crucial to the story, like FRECKLEFACE STRAWBERRY. Although the title pretty much says it all, right?

You must trust that your editor and illustrator have ideas for what your scenes should look like. Better ideas than you. Leave the art direction to them (and the art director). Writing that the house has a front porch, or that the cat is calico, or that the car is yellow is all unnecessary.  Again, unless that car needs to be yellow for your story to work.

But you will no doubt read picture books with subversive text—where the character is doing completely opposite what the words say. Or books with text so spare, the action comes thru only in illustration. These are times when your text requires art notes. SCREAMS for them.

But if you have an art-heavy manuscript, where much of the story relies upon the illustrations, how do you submit it? Putting the art notes in [brackets and italics] is typically the way to go. However, too many art notes can interrupt the flow of the story. It gets difficult to read and comprehend.

So what do you do?

Maybe…submit your manuscript in grid format.

What?! But Tara, I’ve NEVER heard of this before.

I know, me neither. But my agent just submitted a manuscript like this. I was skeptical at first, but then I realized the grid was the best no-nonsense way to present the text with the illustrative mayhem. Yes, this book has MAYHEM. And FRACAS and PANDEMONIUM, too.

Here’s what the grid looks like in manuscript format:

The header includes your name, contact details and a word count.

Then the title (in caps) and your byline.

There is a general art note at top which introduces the story idea. Moreover, it states the art notes are “intended as a guideline.” Again, as an author, you cannot rule over all that is picture in picture books.

Next comes the grid. On the left is the story text, on the right appears “rough art direction.” Notice we said “rough” because they are only suggestions for the editor to understand the story. Remember that the illustrator may create something even better, funnier, more poignant. Remember the CELLO.

The grid continues for as long as it takes to tell your story. Typically one or two more manuscript pages.

Please note this isn’t a standard way to submit, it only serves as an example of what one author and her agent did. It’s like the photos on the front of frozen food boxes that say “serving suggestion”.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly became very hungry.

There is nothing like starting a manuscript (or a book) and getting hooked on the first page (or first few pages). Sure, the whole rest of the manuscript better live up to the beginning but there's nothing more exciting than being drawn in immediately.

Fortunately, there are tons of ways for this to happen:

• Dynamic characters - I don't mean that they do something on the first page. They can, but they can also just be fascinating people, and be showing just how fascinating they are on that first page.
• Unexpected plot twist - This is hard to do in only a page, but I've seen it done. One of my favorite books, The Amulet of Samarkand, does exactly this.
• Strong voice - Obviously the voice of your work always matters, but it really makes a difference in that very beginning when you are trying to get someone hooked.
• A really great idea - If you're world is truly unique or your book has some sort of really fantastic conceit, why not try to work it into the very beginning? (Unless of course it later acts as a surprise twist.)
• In medias res - Ah, high school English terms. However, starting in the middle of things can be exciting, and it can be a great way to get the story started.

© Copyright 2006-2011 Madeline Smoot. All rights reserved. May be excerpted and duplicated for educational purposes.

When I teach a picture book writing class or speak to new writers, I tell them I don’t subscribe to the “write every day” philosophy. That just doesn’t work for me as a picture book author. Sorry, wise writing sages.

However, I do give out this suggestion: “stare every day”.

Yes, I spend the bulk of my time staring (a.k.a. thinking) when writing a picture book. In fact, it’s about 50% of my time. And thanks to my friend Carter Higgins from Design of the Picture Book,  I can now share this secret with you in a nifty chart.

Can I get you a slice?

(Please note: “Writing” is the cherry on top!)