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| Good Picture Books ... | ||||||
More Articles |
by Rick Walton | |||||
Interior Book Design and Typesetting How
to Maximize Book Expo America How
Can I Get an Agent? Good
Picture Books … Writing
Tip for Children’s Books |
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| Good picture books ... | ||||||
| • Are about something the author is interested in. | ||||||
| • Appeal to kids and adults. | ||||||
| • Are unique, not cliché. | ||||||
| • Have a plot. | ||||||
| • Have a shape. | ||||||
| • Are concise; don’t digress. | ||||||
| • Have real characters. | ||||||
| • Have limited description. | ||||||
| • Show, don’t tell. | ||||||
| • Don’t talk down to the child. | ||||||
| • Aren’t dated. | ||||||
| • Are unified in tone and style. | ||||||
| • Don’t moralize. | ||||||
| • Only use poetry if the story demands it. | ||||||
| • Jump right into the story. | ||||||
| • Tie things up at the end. | ||||||
| • Suggest plenty of pictures. | ||||||
| • Keep moving. | ||||||
| • Vary sentence and paragraph length; alternate narration with dialogue. | ||||||
| • Use few modifiers. | ||||||
| • Use all the senses. | ||||||
| These are rules of thumb. They can be and are often broken successfully. I break them all the time. But to break them successfully, you should know why they exist. And that will be the topic of future columns. | ||||||
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| Rick Walton is an award-winning children’s book writer with more than sixty published titles. He writes picture books, mysteries, poetry, activity books, articles and educational software. For more information about his work, visit RickWalton.com. | ||||||
| Posted with permission from Rick Walton. | ||||||
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