The workshop last Wednesday was all about writing children’s fiction. There was a rather modest turnout so we all pulled our chairs closer as Maggie Bolton gave an enthusiastic audience lots of good information on writing children’s picture books.
We were told that picture books have a set format with a minimum of twenty four pages and a usual length of thirty two. Some of these pages are used up for the cover, the title page and such, so these books have twelve double page spreads to fill.
Because of the cost of producing a colour picture book, it is necessary for the publishers to sell these books abroad so we were warned no rhyme ( it does not translate well), don’t make it specifically for Britain and although humour is great it can’t be a purely UK type of humour. If it’s about animals make it about an unusual animal as dogs and cats and rabbits and teddies have been done to death. It must be visually interesting and cliff-hangers in the story line should be resolved over the page – not by an adjoining one. Oh! And don’t describe the colours as there will be the illustration doing that for you! And you thought writing kids books was a breeze!
We had been asked to bring a story of up to 750 words and Maggie got us to break ours down into the twelve double pages for illustration. Definitely not easy! Then we got to hear some of the stories that members had written and there were some really great ideas. There was the Scared Scarecrow, The Winter Fairy, The Sketcher with his magic pen, and a Gecko that walloped some ants and lost his tail
Then we heard Maggie’s new story – not telling you what it was just in case it’s in the Children’s Writing competition – and it was really good. We all learnt such a lot that, hopefully we will give Maggie a run for her money in the Splitting Images Trophy. Thanks Maggie!
Ann Trevorrow