This comes from her blog: Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of some illustrations), as it appears in My Friend, Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann, winner of the 2003 Caldecott Award for... Continue Reading →
3 keys to a successful school visit
Veteran school visitor Darcy Pattison has good advice today on her blog: communicate, prepare the school, and prepare yourself. To get all the details, visit her blog.
Being positive about rejection
Darcy Pattison's blog has a bit today from an ebook called Nail Your Novel (just in time for NaNoWriMo). It's about how to read the rejections you get from editors.I loved this line: Persistence. The publishing world is full of tales of how our biggest literary stars just plugged away until they got their break.... Continue Reading →
Darcy Pattison’s retreat wrapup
Darcy Pattision writes: "At the AR-SCBWI fall retreat this weekend, Alexandra Penfold, Associate Editor of S&S took us through a discussion of first pages of our novel mss. She commented on the pages, then opened the discussion for other comments or questions. Here are some observations on the discussions (Note: these should in no way... Continue Reading →
What makes a great book trailer?
Darcy Pattison's blog had a post awhile back about the makings of an effective book trailer, featuring the thoughts of Lisa Gottlieb. She boiled a good trailer down into six words: Economic Focused Editing; Authentic Emotional Entertainment.To learn more, visit Darcy's site.
Word-of-mouth marketing
Darcy Pattison had such a great post on word-of-mouth marketing that I'm reprinting a good chunk of it below. Do check out her blog, FictionNotes, for the whole thing (and a lot more excellent stuff about writing and revising).But first, a bit of my own soapbox. Word-of-mouth marketing is something we can--and should--do for each... Continue Reading →
Cutting 10 to 20 percent
Darcy Pattison offers four ways to slim down your novel: study the beats, cut scenes, combine scenes and use brisk prose. For the whole scoop, visit her blog.
Shakespeare: a picture book author’s best friend?
Here's a classic Darcy Pattison post that can be really useful for picture book structuring: Sonnets and Picture BooksI think you can compare picture book structure to the structure of poetry. For example, sonnets have 14 lines, picture books can have 14 double-page spreads. So, taking a sonnet as an example of structure, you can... Continue Reading →
Character paradoxes by Darcy Pattison
Darcy's blog has this interesting post: Charlotte was Blood-Thirsty: Character ParadoxesCharlotte, from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, is remembered as a character of great warmth for her friendship with the unlikely pig, Wilbur. Poor Wilbur, once the runt of the litter and saved only by the whim of a girl, is fattened up and ready for... Continue Reading →