Writing Children's Picture Books

Part 2: First Draft Writing

“Picture book” refers to any children’s book that contains illustrations on every page and is not broken up by chapters. Generally, “picture books” will mean a story for children ages 3-7, who are beyond “board book” concepts (ie. Shapes, colors, numbers, animals, etc.)

The first step is to pick a topic for your book. The best books use everyday events and activities from a child’s life. These ideas can come from anywhere; an event from your own childhood, something that happened from your child at school, something that happened at home, etc.

Rather than bombarding children with lessons everyday of their lives, I would urge you to write to entertain. Any message from the story should be conveyed by the main characters’ actions.

Once you have your topic, you develop your main character. This character can be anything from real people to animals, monsters or aliens! No matter who your main character is, it is important that he or she embodies the child’s point of view. The story should be about a child’s concerns and how a child sees the world. If using an animal, it should be like a child in disguise, and live a very childlike existence. Have the animal dressed in clothes and using inanimate objects that people would use.

Start by writing 2-3 sentences summarizing your book. If this gives you trouble, your story is too complicated for a picture book. Texts in picture books run from 100-1500 words, with about 1000 words being the average. My suggestion would be to keep your story simple and to the point. AND – always end the story on a happy note.

Write your first draft. Tell the story from the main characters point of view. You can either use first person (I said) or third person (Jill said). Keep the number of secondary characters to a minimum because you don’t have enough space to develop these characters.

Tell your story in a series of actions with dialogue scattered throughout. Let the words convey concrete, visual images. Children between the ages of 3-7 only understand what they can see and feel. They don’t think abstractly. Emotions have to be described in sensory terms (chattering teeth to show being cold, etc).