This year I’ve been reading a lot of picture books. This has given me a lot of ideas about writing my own.
Yes, I have written a few of my own (“Waiting for Fairies”, “The Little Spider” and “At the Laundromat”) as well as collaborating on “Ducks Love Hats”. However, new ideas help with planning new ones because writing picture books is fun and challenging.
Planning Picture Book Text
Books for adults are little more than text. Picture books are mostly about the pictures. The amount of text can vary from none to a short story with illustrations.
If there is no or very little text, the illustrations must tell the story. I like this approach and often try to use it. A number of authors do this.
“Wolf in the Snow”, “Tuesday” and Mr. Wuffles” are good examples of picture books with no text. Another technique is used in “The Most Boring Book Ever” where the text and the illustrations tell related stories. The stories give lots of play to a child’s imagination, although the illustrations do have a narrative sequence.
Other picture books are really stories with pictures. These stories can be read without the illustrations and do well. The illustrations only back up the tale.
Most picture books fall in between these. Some, like ones by Jan Brett, can combine the two. Her main story is an illustrated one. Her sidebars can tell another story than is related to the main one.
Picture Book Illustrations
Reading picture books shows what a wide range the illustrations can have. They can be little more than line drawings with color to illustrations good enough to hang in an art gallery.
The youngest readers haven’t had an art education yet and so accept this wide range easily. They can even help the readers develop an appreciation of various art styles.
Highly detailed illustrations can encourage the reader to study them to find all the details. Doing this makes the reader slow down and actually see the illustration instead of glancing over it.
What Will I Do?
I’m not sure yet. With my first two picture books, the text came first and the illustrations were planned to show the text. In the book about Agate, I have no text yet. All I see are the illustrations.
Reading Picture Books
One thing reading many of these books does tell the writer is that each one is approached separately. Even those part of a series with a standard illustrative approach must be done separately to become a successful book.