Where Does an Aspiring Writer Begin?
Q: “Is there anything you offer for aspiring writers that don’t know where to begin? It’s always been a dream of mine to write a children’s book. I have sat down to start writing and I feel like I don’t know what I am doing. I’d be grateful for any help.”
A: Getting started is so overwhelming! There is so much writing craft to learn and then more to learn about the publishing industry, but I actually think the best place to start is to cultivate, examine, and study what YOU like before you do anything else.
Maybe you already read a lot of picture books (if that's what you want to write), but having some system to keep track of what you read, what you like/dislike, themes, styles, publishers, and some other information will help you figure out what kind of books you want to write yourself. (If you write MG or YA, the same principle applies!)
This is the best advice I've found from an agent, Jennifer Laughran. She outlines exactly the steps to take:
And the key is books published in the last 5 years. So for 2022, read books with pub dates of no later than 2017.
Now you can do this in a notebook or in an excel sheet. I've attached the excel sheet, which you can upload to your Google Drive and use as a Google sheet. (I do this myself. I'm a writer-illustrator so I keep track of illustration facts too, but if you use the sheet, you can delete those columns if you don't illustrate.)
But if you want to use a notebook, here are the questions to ask yourself and data to keep track of from each book:
Title
Imprint
Parent Publisher
Pub Date
Trim Size
# of pages
Writer
Illustrator
Editor
Art Director
Type of Art
Theme (some examples are: belonging, self-acceptance, family, love, siblings, courage, friendship, loss/grief, growing up, anger/emotions, jealousy, sharing, grit/dedication/hard work, compassion for others, working together, honesty, trust, exploring new ideas/nonfiction, historical figures made relatable/nonfiction, etc.)
Writing style (some examples are: poetic, humorous, spare, lyrical, narrative nonfiction, meta/speaking directly to the reader, formal, conversational, mainly dialog, etc.)
logline/summary
What appeals to you about the way the story is told or the book unfolds?
What appeals to you about the style of writing or illustration?
What is the setting?
What is the overall mood or atmosphere of the book?
Can you feel the book’s rhythm?
What contributes to that rhythm?
How are shapes in the illustrations (or the words from the story) repeated and how are they varied to give you a sense of pace?
Is there any theme or design element in the book that stands out to you?
Word count? And how much text is one each page or spread?
If you need help finding 100 books, look at ALA notables list or Caldecott Honors books. Or ask your librarian! They love making book recommendations. Once you find one book you love, ask them for more books like it.
So once you read through lots and lots of books, you are going to have a much better idea of what YOU like.
And write it out so you can go back to your conclusion often when writing. It could be a post-it note or a journal entry, but writing down the insights you gather from reading will help you later as you receive critiques and make revisions to your manuscripts.
For instance, my favorite picture books are the ones with the least words! I'm a writer-illustrator--I can start a thought with words and finish it with a picture, and so that's what I focus on writing. I know that my stories will be very spare and so I only tackle subject matter and themes that can be conveyed in a low-word count story.
But you may find just the opposite. You may find that your favorite books are 1,500-word picture book biographies. Or maybe all your favorite books are friendship stories or stories that focus on nature.
After you have a clear idea of what kind of story you love, then you can brainstorm ideas for that type of story. January is "Storystorm" where picture book writers are challenged to come up with one picture book story idea per day. https://taralazar.com/2021/12/27/storystorm-2022-registration/
And after you've brainstormed some ideas, you can either pick your favorite idea and write a logline or a full manuscript draft to bring to the monthly critique session to get feedback from other writers in the group. You can also sign up for the critique as an observer. Just register and then when you get the confirmation email, open the Google Form and choose the "lurker/bleacher creature option." You can register here: https://easternny.scbwi.org/events/january-29th-2022-peer-critique-meeting-register-before-jan-22nd-3/
Our other monthly critiques and events are listed on our region’s blog: https://www.scbwieasternny.org/
I hope that helps! Once you know what kind of books you'd like to write, your writer buddies and other Eastern Up! members can point you to other more specific craft resources.
Happy Reading!
Download the excel file to your computer or to your own Google Drive.
