Bang for your Book

Mem Fox.

This is a woman who knows her stuff.  She needs no introduction.  I recently read her

site almost from cover to cover.  Here are her "DOs" for writing picture books.

(My favorite is Where is the Green Sheep?)

Next month, I will feature her DON'Ts.

Thanks for all this good info Mem, and thanks for allowing me to share it
with others.

DO read recent picture books over and over again.

DO make friends with a bookseller or librarian or stoyteller: their advice and guidance can be enormously helpful.

DO be original: try not to copy the ideas or structures of recent well-known books.

DO become familiar with the nature of rhythm in exquisite prose or poetry by reading it aloud: learn speech from Shakespeare, or several verses from the King James version of the Bible, or a long peom fpr children. Understanding brevity, rhythm, and cadence in prose will keep rejections at bay.

DO ensure your story makes an emotional impact: the reader should be changed by the reading.

DO ensure that the content of the story will interest both children and adults, not just adults—a common fault which might well lead to publication but will never lead to best-selling status.

DO write with narrative tension ie. solve a problem.

DO ’show’ and do not ‘tell’: try to reveal action and character through what the characters say and do.

DO keep the text under 500 words if possible. Minimise description. The fewer words the better, since the pictures will provide many of the visual details in the story. A picture book is always thirty-two pages.

DO remember that the secret of good writing is re-writing.

DO constantly re-read drafts aloud during the drafting process: hearing is one way of perceiving what’s wrong in the text, especially in regard to rhythm.

DO send the text to publishers without any accompanying artwork unless you are both the author and the illustrator.

DO ensure the text is written grammatically, and the spelling and punctuation are correct.

DO type the manuscript on one side of the paper, with decent margins, double-spaced. It is acceptable to write the story in blocks of print, which suggest appropriate page-breaks, or simply as a straight telling from start to finish.

DO remain confident and up-beat after rejections. Re-write, re-think and send the story off to another publisher.

DO stay out of the illustrator’s way. Interference by an overbearing author is rarely appreciated.

DO retain humility, even after a best-seller. Success may not last and you may need the comfort of friends. Those who boast have no friends.