THE QUESTION

And a Look at the ’07 SCBWI Conference

Have you run into her yet? If you haven’t, you will. The woman (or man) who thinks writing for children is a little like a cook learning how to boil water. Apparently, with very little time and effort, anyone can do it.

It was a woman this time. She came to my part of the California Author’s Booth at the State Fair and said—as she (or he) always does—that someday when a few minutes came free, she was going to write a picture book.

Then she administered the coup de grace, adding, “How hard can it be, right?”

She faced me square on, challenge in her expression, my picture book open on the counter between us, and waited for an answer. I couldn’t help wondering if she expected me to agree or to blow up.

So many answers sprang to mind. But minutes earlier, my daughter had accidentally offended a nearby postal worker by referring to “junk mail”. Talk about pushing the wrong button! That woman’s reaction is going to be one of our family stories for a long time to come.

Fair’s fair. I bit back my own tart reply and took the picture book question at face value, choosing to discuss some of the problems not in writing for children, but in finding a publisher. Maybe I bored the woman. She left.

But I was left, too, with questions. What is it about children’s books that prompts such an attitude in the first place?

For an answer, I turned to truly inspiring comments by the wonderful authors and editors who gave their time to speak to nearly one thousand attendees representing forty-five U.S. states and eleven countries at the last SCBWI conference in Los Angeles.

First a market overview:

Editors said that picture books are still a tough market. Long picture book manuscripts are especially hard to sell because they are expensive to produce. The editors present said they would rather see a half-page picture book manuscript than one that runs ten pages.

The field of edgy Young Adult books has become crowded.

Middle grade and chapter books are needed. There was talk about books for ‘tweens, readers too old for chapter books, but too young for YA.

As usual, we heard that editors are looking for the next trend. They no longer want to see vampires, pirates or Harry Potter.

We were reminded that books just being published sold two or more years ago. For a picture book, it may be even longer since the artist will have worked with the manuscript for a year.

Author Peter Brown said the mark of a good picture book is that you get something out of it over multiple readings. For my own books, I try to keep in mind that a picture book should continue to entertain the adult reading it as well as the child who insists on multiple readings.

Editors said they look for terrific language, heaps of heart and that a book should be funny. Another mentioned humor combined with heart.

Interestingly, a comment was made that the picture book age reader adapts faster to technology because they don’t know anything else.

Editors emphasized that we must write the story that matters most, the story that sings to the reader, that makes the reader want to relate to the characters. “Write what you know, feel and care about.”

Another speaker phrased it this way: To write successfully for children, delight, inform, amuse. Get them reading. Engage them any way we can.

Of picture books, editor Emma Dryden said the fewer words we use, the better. Words are a sound track for the pictures and must be as specific as possible.

Avoid carrying the picture book story over long time spans. One page for one scene was suggested. “Remember,” Emma warned, “your audience of four-year-olds is easily bored. Compel the reader forward.”

Has the story unfolded in a satisfactory way? The unfolding process is as important as the story itself.

Keep the child wondering, using suspense, the “uh-oh” factor. Move the reader from uncertainty to certainty. A good ending doesn’t leave loose threads.

Children love the sound of words for their own sake. Keep prose simple, lucid, with poetic cadence. Set mood. Use rhythm without rhyme.

We may think children are always the same. In many ways, they are. Yet our world and the children’s book market constantly evolve. I heard the same comment this year that I heard from an editorial panel twenty years ago, that books sold a few years earlier wouldn’t sell in the current market. That earlier panel doubted the market then would publish Winnie the Pooh. This year, the editors questioned whether the text for Make Way for Ducklings “would fly” now.

Remember, your personal library must remain fluid. Keep up with the publishing world. Haunt the children’s department in book stores. Ask librarians which new books are especially popular.

Sometimes, we are tempted to reject revision, saying, “But this is the way it really happened.” YA author John Green, who spoke with moving eloquence, made the point that in taking a story idea from life, we need to free ourselves from “the shackles of the facts”.

Authors must give themselves permission to let the real people who inspired the story become characters, to convey honest feeling. He said he was forced to realize he was holding back emotion by protecting the people in his story. “When characters are protected by the author, they come across as flat.”

It’s a commentary on today’s often broken family that editors see child readers who connect with a story family that feels safer than their own. The ways the story character finds happiness suggest ways the reader can find happiness.

As writers, especially for middle-grade and YA, we sometimes are questioned on the value of writing fantasy, rather than portraying life as contemporary children live it. Answers can be found in these insights from conference editors and speakers:

 In fantasy, readers can look at the real world without being preached at.

 Fantasy tells kids they are not alone.

These stories often begin with a child’s screw-up. Something goes wrong and gets worse. Fantasy tells the reader this is normal. The story character goes on to magic things.

Fantasy is often a story told on a grand scale. These stories may end with death to illustrate that no great victories can be won without a great price. Victory must be paid for. Honor must be served.

In these stories, the main character may be defending those who cannot fight back.

Fantasy asks big questions. It tells us that choices form the basis of all life. What we decide matters. Choice begets choice. Characters choose and desire independence.

Fantasy writers show facets of life, both beauty and evil. Young readers learn they are not alone. These books arm readers for their own reality.

“How hard can it be to write for children?” When someone asks you that, don’t hesitate to answer, “If you do it well, it will be hardest writing you will ever do.”

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. And I hope you will visit and enjoy my child- and inner-child-friendly web site at www.shirleyparenteau.com.