On Writing
The end of the How to Write a Children's Book Series You’ve finished your first children’s book and might have some questions. The question of what to do now that you’ve written your children’s picture book has one answer that is true for all
On Children's Book Writing
This is it. These are the final steps to writing your children’s book. The finalization stage comes to you in three parts: a read-aloud session to make corrections, a clean read-through, and a celebratory saving of the file and victory dance. Read your story aloud as if you were
On Children's Book Writing
Let your book rest for at least one day. This is going to be the longest 24 hours you have had in a while, but they are necessary. One of my many writing teachers recommended we let our work rest for 24 to 48 hours during one of her lectures,
On Children's Book Writing
PHONE-A-FRIEND At this point, your story should feel pretty solid, which means you need to stress-test it seriously. In the final step of the Drafting process, we are going to perform the phone-a-friend draft. For this part, you will have someone read your story to you. The Drafting stage comes
On Children's Book Writing
RECORD AND LISTEN With that step completed, it is time to move on to the next task which is the Record & Listen draft. In this section, you are going to record yourself reading your book at a normal pace. Listen to the recording and listen for clunky word choices,
On Children's Book Writing
I may have tricked you. Mapping is essentiallyMapping is essentially your first draft. Look at that! You’ve already written the first draft of your children’s book, and you didn’t even notice! Since you’ve already completed your first draft by filling in your book map, it is
On Children's Book Writing
Mapping is the stage in which your book begins to take its actual form. I highly recommend starting with a 32-page structure. Yes, you can make your book longer or shorter, but, on average, children's picture books are 32 pages in length. Picture book pages are printed and
On Children's Book Writing
SPILL TWO You should be feeling pretty comfortable with the direction and flow of your story now. To wrap up the summarization stage, you will need to write one more spill. This time, the goal is to tell the story to entertain. Once again, imagine you are telling the story
On Children's Book Writing
Spill One We have twoWe have two more steps to go. Now that you’ve completed your sales description task, it is time to move into spills. The final two steps in the summarization process are to write two spills. A SPILL IS A QUICK SUMMARY. Much like the sales
On Children's Book Writing
The summarization step happens in three smaller steps. In this section,In this section, you will be writing a sales description, spill one, and spill two. SUMMARIZING your story in a couple of sentences helps you understand what you are writing. This is going to seem counterintuitive, but you will
On Children's Book Writing
CLEAR YOUR SPACE OF DISTRACTIONS You have one mining session to go, and it is a big one. Just one moreJust one more step to go. That step is to take your three most viable story candidates and choose one. This is our “one ring to rule them all” moment.
On Children's Book Writing
CRITERIA In the second mining session, we will start to find some clarity. To continue the mining process, you will choose three items from your lists that have the most potential. Do not just select your favorites. You need your chosen items to reflect specific criteria. The items you select