How to Write a Children's Book - The Writer's Toolkit

1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to how to write a children's book, the Raiders toolkit. My name is Eve Heidi bind stuck. I'm an award winning author of more than 150 children's picture books. I'm excited to offer this course to share with you important writing techniques that will make your own book shine. There are plenty of courses on how to write a children's book. So y one more, because this course offers something the others don't take. A close look at word choice, word placement, sentence structure, sentence flow, and seen building. This is the course you need when you're editing your first draft. And later when you're fine tuning your story to make it the best it can be. In this course, you'll learn how to choose words to give your story meaning and cohesion. Cohesion is the glue that holds the story together. You'll learn how to change sentence structure to emphasize the inflammation that's important, and to ensure the sentences flow easily from one to another. And you'll learn how to begin a scene, how to end it, and how to create the beats of action, reaction that make up the scene. We'll study techniques used in the best children's picture storybooks. So you can apply them to your own writing. You've probably read these books before, but I'll asked you to read them again for this course so that they're fresh in your mind. Your class project draft of a children's picture book that you have already written and improve it by applying the techniques discussed in this class. You're not expected to complete this in one go. Instead, most lessons have an assignment to play one technique at a time to your story. When you are finished, you will have a story that is markedly better than the one you started with. You are encouraged to submit your story for feedback from me and from your fellow students. Have fun with this 2. Word Choice: When writing a children's story, we must choose our words as carefully as if we were writing a poem. In this lesson, you will learn how the choice of one word can change the entire meaning of a story. Before we continue, please read the story, corduroy by Dan Freeman. You'll find the link to a free online version of this book in the PDF of resources for this lesson. I'll be here when you get back. Now that you've read corduroy, we can continue. The story begins with the following paragraph. Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store. Day after day. He waited with all the other animals and doors for somebody to come along and take him home. What can we learn from this? Let's see. Your grammar teacher would tell you that for a stuffed animal, you should use the word that and not who. The word who is supposed to be reserved for people and is not to be used for inanimate objects. By using who the author is made quadrate the bear real, and has given him human characteristics, which is the intended effect. Now that the author has established that the bear is real and has human characteristics, the author can use to other carefully chosen words to emphasize this point. Lived and waited. A real bear lives in the toy department. He isn't on display there. And a real bear with feelings, weights. Let's look at another example of the importance of word choice. The author wrote. He waited for somebody to come along and take him home. Look what happens if we instead use the following. He waited for somebody to come along and by him. What effect is this word choice have? First of all, one would buy a stuffed bear and not by an individual who has human characteristics. So this word choice by him is not appropriate for real bear who can think and talk and wants to be loved. The author does want to convey the idea that corduroy is real and has human characteristics. So he chose well when he used to take him home instead of by him. In fact, the word bi is nowhere to be found in this book. Notice how artfully the author avoid using the word by. When the little girl returns to the department store The next day, she says to corduroy, you are going to be my very own bear. Last night I counted where I've saved in my piggy bank. And my mother said I could bring you home. See, no buy anywhere. This writing is pure genius. In this lesson, you have learned how the choice of one word can change the entire meaning of a story. Now, please complete the assignment associated with this lesson 3. Word Echo-Part 1: In this lesson, you will learn how using the same word at the beginning and the end of a story can create cohesion. The glue that holds a story together. We'll continue our look at the story corduroy, which you have already read. In corduroy, the author uses the word home at the beginning and the end of the story. At the beginning, the author writes, he waited for somebody to come along and take him home. And at the end of the story, the author writes, corduroy, looks around the room he will share with a little girl and says, This must be home. I know I've always wanted a home. The author has repeated the word home. He wrote, take him home at the beginning. And I've always wanted a home at the end. This word echo gives cohesion to the story. The word choice at the beginning of the story is important for setting up closure with the end. When the end echoes the beginning, it contributes to the stories cohesion, giving the reader of completion and the sense of satisfaction. The concept of cohesion is so important that we'll revisit it later in this course. In this lesson, you have learned how word echoes can create cohesion. This is a commonly used technique in the riders toolkit 4. Word Echo-Part 2: Let's continue our look at word at those because they are an important and effective technique for creating cohesion. In this lesson, we'll discuss word echoes in the following three box. Harry the dirty dog, come along Daisy, and Caps for Sale. Links to these books are available in the PDF of resources for this lesson. This book, harry the dirty dog, begins with Harry stealing the scrubbing brush from the tub, and ends with the following echo. The author writes, he slept soundly. He didn't even feel the scrubbing brush he'd hidden under his pillow. See how scrubbing brush is repeated? The book, come along. Daisy begins with mama duck telling her duckling Daisy to stay close. And ends with this echo the author writes. And even though Daisy played with the butterflies, she stayed very close to mama duck. Notice how the words stay close form an echo. In the book, Caps for Sale. The author repeats the peddlers call that we heard near the beginning of the story. That is, cabs, caps for sale, $0.50 a cab. The peddlers call also echoes the very title of this book. As you can see, the echo technique contributes cohesion to the story and gives the reader a sense of closure and so a sense of satisfaction. Now, please complete the assignment for this lesson. 5. Word Choice for Smooth Transitions: In this lesson, we'll look at the importance of word choice for creating smooth transitions. First, please read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. A link to this book is available in the PDF of resources associated with this lesson. Now, let's begin our discussion of where the wild things are. One night, max is wild and gets into all sorts of mischief. The story tells us Mac set out, eat you up. He was sent to bed without eating anything. Let's look at that word, eat. The author could have written. So he was sent to bed without his supper, but he didn't. Instead, the author wrote. So he was sent to bed without eating anything. Notice how repeating the word eat creates a smooth transition from one sentence, one scene, to the next. Later in the story, the author creates an echo by repeating the same idea in different words. The author writes, max and the wild things off to bed without their supper. The author than reuses the word suffer. When Max returned to his room and quote, found to suffer, waiting for him in this stepwise fashion. And with the careful use of eat supper, the author creates smooth transitions between sentences and between different parts of the story. Now, please complete the assignment for this lesson 6. Simple Sentences: After the word, the sentence is the next building block of a story. Sentences have a rhythm with some words receiving more stress. This is also called intOne nation. If you want to be in control of the message that the reader gets from a sentence. You must understand sentence rhythm and place the important information where the sentence naturally receives the most stress. In short, simple sentences, we tend to focus on the information at the end. Read each of these two sentences out loud to yourself. Wait a moment. In addition to the character name, you probably stressed walk, button, stone, and home. Like this. Frog and toad went for a walk. Corduroy searched for his button. Sylvester turned into a stone. Harry ran away from home. Children's picture storybooks are filled with this kind of sentence. As a writer, you can intentionally shift the stress of a sentence by using various tools and the writers toolkit. This will not only help you direct the readers attention to what is important, it will also add variety and interests to the rhythm of your story. Your goal should be to use these tools effectively, not necessarily frequently. In the following lessons, we will examine some of these tools 7. The Power of a Comma: The comma can be used to change the rhythm of a sentence. Let's see how this can be done by looking at an example from Leo the late bloomer by Robert Kraus. A link to this book is available in the PDF of resources for this lesson. After the narrator recites a litany of things that Leo cannot do, can't read, write, draw, and so on. The list ends with this sentence. And he never said a word. That comma adds stress, length and rising intonation to the word. And we can almost hear the drum roll as we wait to learn what else Leo cannot do. In fact, a comma always adds stress, length and rising intonation to the word before it. Try reading that sentence again about Leo, this time without that comma. I'll give you a moment. You stress never and word, didn't you? Like this? And he never said a word. The power of a comma. That comma in Leo, the late bloomer is important, not just for the drum roll effect, but because it clarifies the meaning of the sentence, we understand that Leo never spoke without that comma. We might interpret the sentence to mean that Leo never complained about all the things she couldn't do. In this lesson, you have seen how adding a comma can change the entire nation and even the meaning. A sentence 8. Changing Word Order in a Sentence: Let's look at another common technique in the writer's toolkit. You can move the emphasis of a sentence to the beginning by moving the placement of an adverb to the beginning. Why would you want to do this? To see why, let's look at some examples. In act two of corduroy during the bears nighttime adventure. We read and up, he went up, he crawled onto a large thick mattress. Off the button and off the mattress corduroy toppled over, it fell with a crash. In corduroy. This technique of beginning of sentence with an adverb, thereby shifting the stress to the beginning is used only in act two and nowhere else. What is happening in act two that requires a Technique, corduroys searching for us button, exploring unknown territory and getting into all kinds of mischief. We see that he is inquisitive, adventurous monkey and yes, lively. A special technique, moving the adverb to the beginning creates a special sentence rhythm that emphasizes corduroy special character. It also adds variety and interests to the rhythm of the story. Now, complete the assignment for this lesson 9. Changing the Stress & Rhythm of a Sentence: Some words just naturally command attention. And when you use them, they shift the focus and rhythm of a sentence. Let's look at some examples of these power words from popular children's picture storybooks. That very night in Max's room of forest grew. A tricky, certainly had never done before. They even took trips downtown. Leo is just a late bloomer. Try reading the sentences again, leaving out the power words. What a difference you'll see. I'll give you a moment to read out loud by yourself. Did you notice the difference? Words that express time, frequency, and duration tend to be stressed? Consider these examples. Day after day. He waited with all the other animals and Dolls. Lyle could spend hours watching building construction. And they always refuse to do their lessons. He still couldn't find the king. In these examples, we naturally stress day after day, hours, always and still. These are words of time, frequency, and duration. Superlatives or adjectives that express the extreme degree of comparison, such as best and brightest. Have a look at these examples. They were the worst behave class and the whole school. Harry's bath was the copious one he'd ever had. The smallest one was Madeline. In these examples, we stressed worst. So pianist and smallest. These are all superlatives. Using them changes the stress and rhythm of a sentence. Closely related to the superlatives are words loaded with emotional power. Here are some examples. During vacation he found a quite extraordinary one. What a fantastic pebble he explained. Lie wanted desperately to win the red over. We naturally stressed extraordinary, fantastic, and desperately all words loaded with emotion. In this lesson, you have learned how different types of words can change the stress and rhythm of a sentence. Using such words will add variety and interest to your story. Now, complete the assignment for this lesson 10. Parallelism: Let's look at another technique in the riders toolkit that adds cohesion to your story. That technique is parallelism, is just the repetition of words, phrases, or rhythms which have a similar structure. Here are some examples of parallelism within a single sentence. Being helpless. He felt hopeless. Night follows day and day follows night. Over and over again. Here are more examples. In fact, he changed from a white dog with black spots to a black dog with white spots. He flip-flopped and he flopped flipped. These four examples are absolutely charming. Now let's look at some examples of parallelism between sentences and scenes. Here are sentences that corduroys speaks which are parallel. I think I've always wanted to climb a mountain. I guess I've always wanted to live in a palace. I know I've always wanted a home in millions of cats. The following parallel lines are repeated throughout the book and become a refrain. Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats. One common use of parallelism is to show progression. Just look at these sentences taken from succeeding pages of Harry, the dirty dog. Got very dirty, got even dirtier, became dirtier, still got the dirtiest of all. Here's another example of using parallelism to show progression. This one is from Miss Nelson is missing. But that didn't seem likely. But that didn't seem likely either. But that was the least likely of all. Now, complete the assignment for this lesson. 11. Readers’ Expectations: The Known-New Pattern: Readers have expectations when they read a story, they read the first sentence and then expect the second sentence to relate to what came before. They also expect that second sentence to provide new information. They expect subsequent sentences to follow this same pattern. These expectations are so strong that they have their own name, the known new pattern. As writers, we must meet the expectations of the known new pattern. Let's see how we can do this. We'll take a look at the story titled a lost button from Frog and Toad, our friends. The first sentence is towed and frog, when for a long walk. The next sentences, they walked across a large meadow. The characters toad and frog, and their action went for a long walk, is the information in the first sentence. In the second sentence, the pronoun they refers to toad, frog. So that is known information. The verb walked is also known information. The second set gives us new information when it tells us where they walked across a meadow. In this way, we employ the known new pattern without even thinking about it. Let's look at another example of the known new pattern from the book corduroy, which you have already read. The first page of the story tells us that corduroy is a bare. The second page repeats the word bear, the known information and adds new information. A small bear in green overalls. The book, Harold and the Purple Crayon is an excellent example of the use of the known new pattern. In fact, the story actually emphasizes the new pattern. The first page of the book has only one sentence, and it ends with Harold decided to go for a walk in the moonlight. The second page continues with the idea of walk and Moonlight, the known information and extends it by introducing new information. There wasn't any moon. And how needed a moon for a walk in the moonlight? The third page continues with the known walk information and adds new information. And he needed something to walk on, and so on. As we progress through the story, we can't wait to see what the new information will be. What's the new twist will be? The continuous use of the known new pattern is one of the main reasons we find this book so charming. Another example of a story that relies on the known new pattern is if you give a mouse a cookie, you can find links to this book as well as to Harold and the Purple Crayon in the PDF of resources. It's worthwhile studying these books. In this lesson, you have seen how writers meet the reader's expectations of the known new pattern. Now, complete the assignment 12. Readers’ Expectations & Sentence Focus: Take a look at these two sentences. Mommy mouse gave a little mouse or gift. Mommy mouse gave a gift to little mouse. These sentences mean the same thing, but the focus is different. In sentence a, the focus is on the gift, while in sentence b, the focus is on little mouse. If these were two versions of the first sentence of a story, what would you expect the follow-up sentence to look like in each case? Here are two possible follow-up sentences. He asked, today my birthday. It was a pair of mittens that she had knitted herself. Can you match the most likely follow up sentence with a and B? Let's see. Sentence a, mommy mouse gave little mouse or gift should be followed up by, it was a pair of mittens that she had needed herself. And sentence B, mommy mouse gave a gift to little mouse, should be followed up by, he asked, is today my birthday. Your own knowledge of the language tells you that the reader expects the follow-up sentence to pick up with the focus of the previous sentence. Let's look at another example. This one from corduroy, which you have read. The story begins with this. Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store. Day after day. He waited with all the other animals and dolls for somebody to come along and take him home. The focus here is that cord or brain weights for somebody to take him home. The very next sentence of the story follows up on this idea. The store was always filled with shoppers buying all sorts of things. But no one ever seem to want a small bear in green overalls. Now what happens if we make a small change in the structure of one of the sentences at the beginning of the story. And alternate version of the beginning might be this. Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store, waiting day after day for somebody to come along and take him home. He stood with all the other animals and dogs. Here, the focus is on corduroy standing with all the other animals and Dolls. This leads us to believe that the stories about corduroy and the other animals and dogs, we might expect the next sentence to be something like this. At night when the store was quiet, corduroy lead them up and down the escalators. This is now a very different story. You can see from these examples that the structure of a sentence is critical in setting up the reader's expectations about what is important and what will come next. If what comes next relates to what the reader thinks is important, the story will have cohesion 13. Sentence Order: Children's picture books often begin with two sentences that set up the story. The order of the sentences is important. Just as the reader expects the end of a single sentence to be the focus. The reader expects the second sentence in a pair to be the focus. Let's look at an example from the story. The letter from the book, frog and toad, our friends, Fogg says, why does the manager told you are looking sad? By putting the sad part at the end of the second sentence, the author has focused on it. Note that frog does not say, you are looking sad Toad, what is the matter? This alternate version focuses on the problem that is making toad sad. While the author's version focuses on toads sadness. Let's go back to the author's version. This version sets up our expectation that the sentence which follows, we'll relate in some way to toads sadness, which it does. Why does the matter? Toad. You are looking sad. Yes. Said toad. This is my sad time of day. It is the time when I wait for the male to come. It always makes me very unhappy. If the author had written the alternate version instead, the reader would expect the sentence which follows to relate to what is the matter. In this case, the sequence might look something like this. You are looking sad Toad, what is the matter? I never get any mail. This alternate version may be short and to the point, but we miss the whole mention of waiting, which is so important to the story, which in fact sets up the punchline or pay off at the end. When Frog and Toad wait for four days until the snail delivers frogs letter. You can see from these examples that sentence order is critical in setting up the reader's expectations about what is important and what will come next. If what comes next meets the reader's expectations, the story will have cohesion 14. Actions & Reactions: This lesson is different from the others. Instead of your viewing slides. While you listen to me speak, I have a chapter for you to read. You will learn techniques for writing actions and reactions for your scenes. This chapter is available as a downloadable PDF in the resources for this lesson. 15. The Link: In this lesson, I have another chapter for you to read. This one discusses techniques for crafting a link, which is a transition between scenes 16. Signaling the Beginning of a Scene: No special fanfare or signal is needed. To begin the very first scene of a story. We can enter the action without any introductory phrase, such as once upon a time. Subsequent scenes, however, may need a signal to set the scene, often the preceding one, to indicate that we are about to start something new. This is especially true with a new scene occurs at a new time or place. E.g. Sylvester and the magic pebble is a story that consistently signals the beginning of a new scene by referring to a new time or place. On a rainy Saturday during vacation as she was crossing Strawberry Hill. Meanwhile, after a month, night follows day. Wait, there's more. Then it was winter. Then the snows melted. One day in May when they had to eventually come down. See how they all signal a new time or place. The book, bread and jam for Francis is another example of a story that consistently signals the beginning of a new scene by referring to a new time or place. While she waited for the bus that evening for dinner. The next morning at breakfast. When the bell rang for lunch. Then she went out to the playground. When Francis got home. Again, these examples all signal a new time or place. In addition to signaling the beginning of a new scene, by referring to a new time or place, the rider may need to indicate a change in action. This is most often done by using signal words and phrases such as suddenly, all of a sudden. Just then all at once. In corduroy. After the bear climbs down from his shelf and begin searching on the floor for his lost button. A new scene starts with the signal word that indicates new action. Suddenly, he felt the floor moving under him. Later, after corduroy has crawled onto a mattress, a signal phrase is used to indicate new action all at once he saw something small and round. The signals we have been discussing provide a smooth transition from one scene to the next. They're consistent, even repetitive use within the story also contributes to that story is rhythm and cohesion. As we shall see in the next lesson, signaling the beginning of a scene is relatively simple compared to the many techniques available for signaling the end 17. Signaling the End of a Scene: There are many techniques for signaling the ending of a scene, and you can read about them in the chapter I have prepared for you. This chapter is available as a downloadable PDF in the resources for this lesson 18. Signaling the End of a Story: The previous lesson dealt with techniques for signaling the end of a scene. Many of the same techniques for ending a scene are employed for ending a story. Since after all, the end of a story is the end of the last scene of the book. However, there are some techniques that are more or less unique to sue the end of a story. I refer to these techniques as bedtime, ellipsis and echo. Perhaps because children's picture storybooks are so often read to children before they go to sleep. Stories often and at the end of the day, when the characters go to sleep, the book, Harold and the Purple Crayon ends with this. The purple crayon dropped on the floor and Harold dropped off to sleep. The bulk make way for ducklings ends with this. And when night falls, they swim to the little island and go to sleep. There are many more examples available, but the technique is straightforward. So these two are enough for you to get the idea. The definition of ellipsis that I use here is a scene or action that can be thought of as continuing indefinitely into the untold future. So there were an ellipsis, dot-dot-dot at the end of the sentence. A particularly familiar ellipsis is, and they lived happily ever after. A good example of an ellipsis appears at the end of the story, spring from the book, frog and toad, our friends, the author wrote. Then he and frog ran outside to see how the world was looking in the spring. Another example of an ellipsis appears at the end of the story, dragons and giants from the book frog and toad together, the author wrote. They stayed there for a long time, just feeling very brave together. Many pictures, storybooks, and within echo, which we have seen is the repetition of a central idea that was introduced at or near the beginning of the book. Just to remind you, the story, come along. Daisy begins with mama duck. Tell them Daisy to stay close, and ends with the following echo. And even though Daisy played with the butterflies, she stayed very close to mama duck. The echo technique is effective because it gives the reader a sense of closure and satisfaction. These three techniques we have just seen are unique to signaling the ending of a story as opposed to ending justice scene. Now, complete the assignment for this lesson. 19. Conclusion: Thank you for joining me on this journey of learning techniques for writing stellar children's books. We have seen how word choice can impact the entire meaning of a story. We have looked at word echoes, word choice for smooth transitions, and how to change the stress and rhythm of a sentence. We've seen how to use parallelism, learned reader's expectations and the known new pattern. Studied sentence focus and sentence order. Learned how to craft the beats of action and reaction that make up a scene. Learned how to create links from one scene to another and had to signal the beginning and ending of a scene and the story as a whole. That's a lot. And you have applied what you learned to your own children's story. Congratulations on finishing. If you enjoyed this course, please leave a five-star review. Thank you.