Organizing Your Children's Book Story
Literary agents and editors complain most of the stories they review get “lost in the middle”.
The abyss of the second act is typically where the true north of a story gets fuzzy and it begins to forfeit momentum, identity and clarity.
Instead of rising conflict and pleasurable revelations being served to the audience, plot holes materialize, narrative contradictions arise and the “how” and “why” of key narrative beats can unfold predictably.
I confess, as a fellow creative, that knowing where we want the story to go is a far fall from having figured out ways to get there that are engaging and structurally-sound.
Today, we’ll explore three simple strategies for organizing and fleshing out our story concepts to help them become well-developed finished products.
Ways to Outline.
Your “outline” can take many shapes. For some, it may be a storyboard, for others flashcards broken down by each chapter/scene and others still a spreadsheet jotting the ingredients that will go into each scene.
When sitting to gel the fragments of your story into a coherent whole it helps to have a clear window into how each action/decision will lead into another to push the narrative forward and bring your vision to fruition.
The First Method We’ll Examine is:
The storyboard method is a staple within print and visual mediums.
If you think in pictures this could be your best bet.
Storyboard illustrations don’t need to be Kadir Nelson paintings. In fact, try your best not to get trapped in focusing on aesthetic design elements such as the types of shoes your characters are wearing, building sizes, shirt colors, etc. (unless these details are central to your A-story).
The goal for this phase is to organize the flow of action, conflict and revelation/achievement throughout the tale. And, this can be task enough.
If you are an author intending to hire someone to illustrate your story, refining narrative details using a storyboard can be an incredibly helpful resource for your illustrator to better understand the story’s arc and brainstorm ways to create fitting visuals for each scene.
Important: You want to fine-tune your storyboard, making it as clear and succinct as possible, before handing it to your illustrator. Why? Because any unnecessary double-work the illustrator has to do may cost you more money. See: How Much Will Your Children’s Book Illustrator Cost?
As a former project manager, the spreadsheet method felt very familiar to the tools I used in my workflow. While flashcard method (up next) is my favorite way to organize longer narratives (novels, short stories, etc.) Spreadsheet Method has been the most effective way for me to organize stories within the picture book genre.
Since the charge of creating PBs is marrying illustration and text, developing a detailed look into what’s happening within each scene can be tremendously beneficial.
Spreadsheet method helps us identify which ingredients will make up each scene and better recognize if that scene is truly essential.
Useful categories to include for your spreadsheet are, but not limited to:
Scene Number
Scene Setting
Characters in Scene
Action Happening in the Scene
Text in Scene (Dialogue, Narration, etc.)
Mood of Scene
Any Additional Notes Related to the Scene For You or Your Illustrator
Here’s a live example of a working spreadsheet from our picture book, Sunny Days:
Much like the storyboard method, a refined spreadsheet (that has been distilled for clarity and word efficiency) can be a very handy guide for the illustrator building out your picture book.
If you’re seeking traditional publishing, this structure will help you get a clear vision of each beat in your story and how they may play out on page.
Added Benefit: Once your spreadsheet is polished, you can copy and paste the text you’ve written for each scene into a document and have the bulk (if not all) of your script ready for editing, formatting and submission to agents/traditional publishers (if you so choose)!
What to Be Cautious of When Using Spreadsheet Method: being too verbose or confusing in your text/descriptions. The idea is to boil each element of a scene down to a simplistic expression so that it’s easy for the illustrator to understand what they’re trying to accomplish in that scene AND so you clearly understand the same.
This method is GREAT for getting a 30,000 foot view of your story, especially if it’s longer narrative than a picture book (like a chapter book, short story or novel).
The strategy for using Flashcard Method is to label each flashcard with a chapter number and explain in 1-2 brief sentences the critical action that happens in each scene which propels the story forward.
If it isn’t clear how a certain chapter pushes the narrative along, consider combining that chapter with another or exploring other places in the story to share the necessary details of this chapter with the audience.
The Benefits of the Flashcard Method are That You Can:
Easily reorganize your chapter sequence and plot points
Develop additional chapter concepts as substitutes or alternatives
Quickly identify the essential purpose of each scene
What to Be Cautious About When Using Flashcard Method: getting away from your primary story arc. Remember, each chapter needs to drive the action towards the climax. If the B-story has become so prominent that it’s competing with or overshadowing the A-story…then your B-story may actually be your A-story. In this case, it could be worthwhile to consider upgrading the B-story your primary narrative arc.
It has been my experience that there is tremendous creative freedom in story structure and discipline. Once you’ve taken the time to outline and create individual sandboxes for your scenes or chapters, you can have SO much fun playing within those sandboxes, coloring in the details of HOW you want to accomplish each scene’s driving action(s).
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