Writing a picture book is one of those things that look so simple and easy, even a 6-year old could do it. Except that this simplicity is actually what makes it difficult. Even a skilled writer will have a challenging time churning out one. It doesn’t mean that writing a picture book per se is hard. Anybody with average writing and drawing skills can write a picture book. But if you want to write a good picture book, you have to follow a few fundamental things. Read on to find out how to write a picture book:
Learn How to Draw for Kids
Look at the pictures in most picture books. What do you notice about the style? They’re good to look at but they’re not very complicated. Most are crude or use rough strokes. Remember that the readers will be kids, so you want pictures that aren’t too complicated – they show what needs to be shown, but leave out enough to help kids fill in the blanks. That’s one of the points of a picture book; it helps kids develop their imagination. There are cases where this isn’t necessary because someone else will do the illustrations. In those cases, it helps to remind the artist especially if his background isn’t picture books.
Write for Kids
You don’t have to write a kid. You have to write for a kid. There’s a big difference. Make sure you write like an adult who understands words, rhyme, character, story, and the fact that kids have wild imaginations and underdeveloped attention spans. Brevity is key. Distill details to their purest form and try to make sentences interesting. Ideally, you should be able to remember what you were like when you were a kid, write for that person.
Write for the Adult Who’s Going to Read
It’s not always the kids who will read the picture books. Majority of the target audience haven’t even learned how to read yet. Rather, it’s their parents, teachers, or older siblings who will read the picture book for them. Keep that in mind when writing – you don’t want to write a story that will cast the adult in a bad light.
Play With the Words
Learn how to write text that is tight but rich. The words and the art should have rhythm, and if possible, you can write sentences that can be read in sing-song. Rhyme where possible, and use repetition. Unlike adult readers, children enjoy repetition and it also helps teach them to recognize patterns, a skill that will be useful later on in life.
Don’t Worry Too Much About Moral Lessons
Don’t try to concern too much about preaching a moral lesson to the reader. As long as the picture book can entertain a kid without containing any bad elements, you have done your job. Even if your picture book is devoid of educational or moral lessons, if it encourages a parent to read to his child and a child to love books, you’ve already done wonders for that family’s lives.
Image credit: Denise Krebs on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0