THINK IN PICTURES
An
advance copy of my new counting book ONE FROG SANG just arrived at my door from Candlewick Press. You may have heard me cheering!
The book is beautiful. The artwork surpasses my hopes.
Speaking
of artwork, one of the first questions a picture book author is asked is, “Did you do your own pictures?” or that
question’s close cousin, “How did you find your illustrator?”
When
you show off your picture book, your audience will immediately comment on the illustrations. They may read your text. They
may not. After all, reading takes time and you have probably joined your friends for conversation.
Pictures
will always speak louder than words, but unless you are a professional illustrator, you will have little to do with the artwork.
You need to think in pictures while writing, but not to depend on the pictures to tell your story. A good illustrator may
see more than you’ve planned and add wonderful details. The background for ONE FROG SANG is the most gorgeous summery
country evening imaginable with flowers and rabbits and a boat in the water and so much more than I’d pictured in my
head. But the text still must tell the story.
When
I find myself protesting to my critique group, “The illustration will explain that,” I’ve learned to stop
and think again. Because maybe the illustration won’t. Years ago, I wrote a weekly humorous column for a local newspaper.
Once (and once only!) I wrote a caption that introduced the subject by quoting a highway sign. The sign midway down a steep
mountain pass read, “Runaway trucks must bypass rest area.” With that as a caption, I began, “I should hope
so!”
Well
and good. Except that the newspaper editor changed the caption. The story lost impact in a big way and the opening sentence
no longer made sense.
Lesson
learned: Put what needs to be said into the story. That’s just as true with picture books as with newspaper stories.
Make sure that what you need to say comes clearly through your text.
So
how do editors choose illustrators for your book? I once asked that of an editor who came to San Francisco for a meeting. She had invited me to drive over from my home south of Sacramento and join her for lunch. Her house had just published my first book ever. Holding
the book in my hand was an indescribable thrill. So was having lunch with a real live editor.
However,
the illustrations were all in blue and black inks showing a sad-faced child who didn’t feel to me as if in keeping with
the tone of the story.
Years
later, an electronic version of the same story would be published with vivid illustrations that sang on the page portrayed
on the computer screen. That version won an award called an Eppie for best electronic children’s book of the year, thanks
in no small part to the vibrant illustrations.
When
I asked the editor of the print book about illustrations that day in San Francisco, she said, “In one of my desk drawers, I keep a portfolio of sample artwork submitted by
illustrators. When I buy a story, I look through the artwork to find an artist whose work gives me the same ‘feel’
as I experienced with the story.”
That
makes sense to me. We can’t control how an artist will see our work. Or how it will feel to an editor. We can only be
certain that the words we use say exactly what we want them to say.
ONE FROG SANG sold the very day I had the awesome
experience of seeing our daughter’s first baby born. Little Elizabeth celebrated her fourth birthday this past January 31. Four years between sale and publication, a
long time to wait.
Still
it’s amazing (and somewhat scary) to see how quickly the time passed—not to mention, how quickly Elizabeth is growing up!
An
author usually has little or no say in illustrations chosen for the work. Unless you are a professional artist yourself, do
not send pictures with your manuscript. Even then, send only sample illustrations with the caveat that you are willing to
sell the story without the artwork (unless, of course, this is not true).
Thinking
in pictures is essential. When writing, picture the book unfolding. Page turning is a form of punctuation. Suspense builds
on the right hand page, is satisfied to some extent on the following left hand page, then begins to build again on the right.
This is most clearly illustrated by the type of story quest that has a character moving forward through the story with each
right hand page saying “And then he saw…” and the child turning the page to find the answer. More complicated
stories build in the same manner.
Just
as page turning punctuates your story, illustrations will move it forward as surely as the words. You should have at least
sixteen different story pictures in mind. If you’ve set the entire story in one location (to take an extreme example)
the illustrator will be hard pressed to create an interesting book in which the child reader will want to keep turning pages.
Yes, there are exceptions, but as a rule, think variety.
Children’s
books are put together in groups of pages called “signatures.” Each group is composed of eight pages. A picture
book will have from three to four signatures, giving your book a total of twenty-four to thirty-two pages. Remember that some
of these must carry title, copyright and so forth. The story will probably begin on page five.
The
editor and artist will ultimately decide whether to use two-page spreads and which text will go where. You may be surprised
by the final product. While creating the book, to assure myself of enough different pictures with right hand pages moving
the story forward, I like to put together a simple dummy book.
Do
this by folding four sheets of blank typing paper in half lengthwise. Cut them down the fold and fold in half again. You now
have eight blank sides from each original sheet, or one signature. The four sheets make four signatures or thirty-two pages.
Print out your story and cut it into blocks, one for each page as you see the story. Starting with page 5, a right-hand page,
begin pasting in your blocks of text.
A glue-stick
works well because you can move text about if necessary.
When
your dummy book is finished, read through using your child reader’s eyes. Does the story hold your interest? Does it
keep moving forward? Are potential illustrations different for each double spread?
The
editor and illustrator may see the story differently than in your mental image, of course. They may decide to move your right-hand
suspense onto the next page for a two-page spread, but you will know on submitting your manuscript that the possibilities
are there.
You
will probably have a chance to see and comment on the artist’s first rough drafts. In ONE FROG SANG, my text said the
bullfrogs slipped beneath the water with only their eyes showing as I have seen them do, but the artist portrayed their entire
heads showing such whimsical mouths that I rewrote the text so the words and pictures match.
On
the other hand, a friend who did not see artwork before her picture book was published by a different publisher some years
ago, was dismayed to see a babysitter portrayed wearing fuzzy bunny slippers, which had no part in the story and seemed to
make no sense.
Think
pictures, think variety, think movement. Then accept the fact that while you may have little or even no impact on this very
important phase of your book, you’ve done your part when you’ve made certain that the words in your manuscript
clearly convey picture possibilities to your editor.
I would
love to hear your feelings on writing for children. Questions? Thoughts you’d care to share? Please email me at shirleyp@softcom.net. Watch for ONE FROG SANG to be published in mid-March.
If
you’re in the Sacramento area on March 31st, consider stopping by the Barbara Wackford Center for the Elk Grove Fine Arts Festival hosting writers, artists, musicians and
more and free to the public. See www.egfinearts.org for info.
Shirley’s Children’s
Books
I’ll Bet You Thought I was Lost, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard; 100+Pig
Jokes, Puns & Riddles, Scholastic Books; Jelly and The Spaceboat, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; The Talking Coffins
of Cryo City, Elsevier; A Space Age Cookbook for Kids, Prentice-Hall; Crunch It, Munch It and Other Ways to Eat Vegetables,
Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; Secrets of Scarlet, Children’s Press; Blue Hands, Blue Cloth, Children’s Press. One Frog Sang, Candlewick Press will be out mid-March of ’07.
Shirley’s Adult Books
The Naked Huntress, Harlequin Historical; Golden Prospect, Harlequin
Historical; Hemlock Feathers, Harlequin Historical; Vulnerable, Ballantine Books; Hot Springs, Ballentine
Books.
Shirley wrote a weekly column
for the Elk Grove Citizen, Elk Grove, California for many years
