From Incident to Story

Somewhat over a year ago, I watched my then-two year old granddaughter Elizabeth in a bookstore play area as she placed small chairs around a table, then set stuffed animals on each.  Smiling to myself, I mused, “Bears on chairs.”

The phrase stayed with me. Although I’d had eight children’s books published years before when my own children were small, I’d moved into romance novels and then became involved in other pursuits. Now children’s books were back in my life and though I had never attempted a book in rhyme, Bears on Chairs insisted not only on rhyme, but on rhyme that repeated one sound in four-line stanzas.

Writers are often advised to stay away from rhyming stories. Several times, I’ve judge adult contest entries of children’s books. I don’t remember ever finding a winner among those attempting rhyme, not through a prejudice on my part but because for a number of reasons, those stories simply didn’t work.

Picture books look simple. Successful picture books can fool you with their simplicity.  They are among the most difficult form of children’s books to write and certainly the most difficult to sell.

In judging contest entries, I found story after story that might as well have begun, “Dear little children.”  These authors approached the story as an adult bringing wisdom to readers just beginning to explore their world, completely forgetting that children have a fresh view. Their books should be written in just as fresh a manner.

In writing for this age group, do not talk TO the child readers. Talk WITH them.  Approach the story not as an adult with a lesson, but as a friend sharing an adventure.

Which brings us back to Bears on Chairs.  I had previously sold a counting book to Candlewick Press, my first children’s book in years. I thought Bears on Chairs would be a counting book and maybe about colors.  So I began: One red bear on one red chair likes it there on his one chair. The story evolved as stories sometimes do, seemingly choosing its own direction and changing into a story where there are not enough chairs for every bear.  The littlest bear is urged to share, but he doesn’t think it’s fair to make him share just because he’s the smallest.

Eventually, all the bears push four chairs together to make room for the five bears.  I was pleased with the ending: Now it’s fair. The bears all share.

I was even more pleased when my editor at Candlewick Press, called to say she liked the rhythm and the story’s appeal for very young readers. But she felt it covered too many concepts: counting, colors and the need to share. It should focus on just the need to share.

The story would take a fuller shape when the need to share became a clear refrain throughout.  My editor wondered what motivated Little Bear to change his mind and said the story could have a Goldilocks feel where the bears try this and try this and finally find a solution.

She finished with a warning: Don’t overcomplicate. I plan to print those words in large format and post them above my computer.

The next suggestions for revision came by email.  When printed out, they filled one page, single-spaced.  My simple story in rhyme had come some distance from watching a two-year-old put toys on chairs in a bookstore play area. And it still wasn’t ready.

What happens in the story needs to be perfectly apparent. This age reader needs to see the Problem and the Solution immediately. My editor suggested setting the stage with four empty chairs.  At once, I thought of the feeling of anticipation in a theatre when the curtain goes up.

There are the chairs. The bears enter one by one. Everyone is happy and then—here, I imagined music suddenly darkening—Big Bear comes along and there’s no chair for him. Right away, children know there’s a problem.  Then it was suggested that we cut my first idea that Little Bear would be reluctant to share and so must be motivated.

For this very young reader, the story should focus on one concept. That concept was not that there were more bears than chairs and that one bear was reluctant to share, it was simply that there were more bears than chairs. How would the bears solve the problem?

The solution, as in the first version, was for first one, then two, then three bears to push their chairs together with the fourth to make one long chair.  It would be satisfying for children to see the chair getting longer and longer, bit by bit, one bear at a time.

And my editor asked, could one or two of the bears be girls?  I have six grandchildren, all girls, and yet that thought had not occurred to me.  When I was small, dolls were girls, teddy bears were boys.  Time to change, I told myself.  Think like a child reader in today’s world. I’m sure my little granddaughters (four of them currently under four years of age) will be pleased to see that two of the story bears are now girls.

With the story submitted for the third time, my agent called with joyful news. Candlewick Press had made an offer!

My bears came a long way from that book store incident.  And I learned a lesson to remember, not only for this age reader but in a sense for all books: Don’t overcomplicate.

I would love to hear your feelings on this subject or on any other aspect of writing for children.  Questions? Thoughts you’d care to share?  Please email me at shirleyp@softcom.net. (My website is under construction and should be up by mid February.)