Mel’s Ten Steps to Writing a Children’s Book

1 Get into the mood.

Bark. Do a little jig. Pour mustard on your head. Take a shower. Whatever helps get your mind #1 (left brain ‘let’s be serious’ rational mind) connected to your mind #3 (right brain ‘let’s have fun’ limbic mind). Find your ‘right spot for silly writing’.

2 Discover your juxtaposition or create one.

Some examples from picture books:

Adopting a squash as a pet

A first-grader who eats her classmates

A gentle bull in a china shop

A mouse who frightens a monster

A school’s first day of school

A gentle bull in a china shop

3 Invent an empathic main character and voice.

Does this main character have a pain? Is he/she/it threatened. Is a beloved someone in danger? What is the challenge?

4 Jump into your plot/story. Set the stage early on. “Ervin awoke one morning to discover that he was wearing someone else’s glasses.”

Mr. Gills, the alligator, was not happy.

5 Replace ‘wordiness’ with ‘wordiless’.

If it’s a picture book, say it in less (than 500 words). Leave space for the collaboration of the illustrator.

6 Create anticipation with page turns.

Practise by making book dummies. Here are two e-books. Both are for dummies.

7 Spice your story up with irony, humor, rule of three, style, rhyme (for mavens)

8 Try to bring the story back to the beginning.

9 Find a winning title

10 Avoid the ‘don’ts’.

Don’t put the ‘moral’ of the story front and center.

Don’t write a picture book because you think you will make money.

Don’t self publish unless you are a self-marketing expert.

Don’t assume that your latest draft will be your last draft.

Don’t expect agents and publishers to line up in anticipation.

Don’t rhyme unless it’s sublime.

More here:

Bonus tip:

Read your story aloud and have someone read it to you aloud.