If I can give any picture book writer one piece of advice, it would be this – TEST DRIVE YOUR WORK.
Picture books are meant to be read aloud, whether by a loved one to a child snuggled on their lap, a librarian to a buzzing storytime group, or a teacher to a classroom of eager students. Picture books not only have to tell an interesting story, they must do so in an engaging, and ideally ear-pleasing way.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up a picture book and read it aloud, only to be disappointed by a clunky text that doesn’t flow. Even the most fascinating or endearing story falls flat when written in stilted prose, or worse yet, cumbersome rhyme.
As a writer, you can avoid this terrible fate befalling your work by making sure to test drive it often throughout the writing and publishing process. You might already be reading your work aloud to yourself as you go, and if you are lucky and have access to your target audience, you might be testing your work on them, too.
But don’t forget that even if your picture book is written for children, it will most likely be read aloud by grownups. If at all possible, get other grownups to test drive your manuscript aloud. This is absolutely imperative for anyone who writes in rhyme. A phrase might flow beautifully and the rhyme work perfectly when read aloud exactly the way you intended, but people often pronounce or stress words differently, thus ruining your carefully crafted rhyming structure. And as any librarian or teacher can tell you, few things are more unpleasant to read aloud than a rhyming picture book that just doesn’t work.
When test driving your work, try to note down if there are any areas that tend to trip readers up – are there any tricky phrases, any potential tongue twisters that make the experience less pleasant for the reader? Are there any words that don’t sound quite right when read aloud, or any rhymes that feel forced? Something that worked swimmingly on paper might not translate so well when spoken aloud – trust me, I speak from experience!
I probably wouldn’t have even considered this aspect of the writing process if it wasn’t for my experience as a children’s librarian. Reading countless books aloud to children of all ages in a variety of settings has really driven home for me just how important it is for texts to be carefully test driven before they’re published, and how apparent it can be when they aren’t.
Beautiful illustrations can hide a multitude of literary sins, but not even the most talented artist can overcome clunky writing.
So, for the sake of all the grownups who will be reading your books aloud to avid young listeners, take those texts out for a good spin before passing them on to us – we’ll all thank you!
Excellent advice!! Some rhythmic tales are such a pleasure to read, like they’re leading you through a song, while some are just painful. So important for authors to select words and phrases that have only one way to pronounce them, and one way to naturally stress the syllables!
I honestly never thought much about it until I listened to my partner read books aloud to our son, and he often reads them so differently than I would! It was a great reminder to me not to assume that everyone will read the words that same way.