Bringing the picture book retreat experience back home by Juliet Clare Bell

I’m just back from a wonderful week away writing in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire. 

(The only downside, I had a Kate Bush ear-worm all week...)

It was fantastic for recharging my batteries and writing, but possibly the best part of it was time and head space to think about writing and how I can change what I do at home in order to write better.

Here are some things I’ve learned…

[1] Computers

Until now, when I’ve written, I’ve always used a computer. It’s my default. If I’m going to work, I open up my computer. I type faster than I write and I’ve got really used to writing straight onto computer. But for a picture book, with very few words, how much does that actually matter? After spending way less time even within sight of a computer on retreat, my default when working on picture books from now will be with my laptop out of sight. I’ll use it when I need it.

[2] Facebook

I had over a week without looking at Facebook. Did I miss the thing that I feel compelled to check many times a day whilst writing at home? Not one bit. Because the vast majority of my Facebook friends are children’s writers and all of the groups I’m in are children’s writing based, I’ve tried to trick myself in the past that there’s more of an element of work about it than there is. So, I have now banned myself from Facebook during the day, during the week. I’ve given myself permission to check it in the evening for a maximum of half an hour if I really want to. But since I’m way more drawn to it when I’m struggling with some writing and want a quick distraction, I think I may be about to have a much more casual relationship with Facebook.

[3] Writing big –and messy

I love using lining paper to get ideas down onto but I can go months without doing it sometimes. Not any more. I bought rolls of wallpaper lining paper to the retreat –and I used it. Lots of it. It feels like such a happy, creative way to work.  

One of the best uses I found for it was for ten-minute brainstorms, where you take an idea for a picture book and then just brainstorm –big- for ten minutes, setting a timer, and then stopping and moving onto the next one. It’s like speed-dating for ideas. You realise very quickly if you might be onto something. I’ve done it before with hour-long brainstorming sessions for each idea, but what I found on retreat was that I probably got almost as much out of a ten-minute session as an hour-long one, and certainly, it’s an easy, fun and -now even quicker!- way to work through all those hundreds of ideas (think of all those PiBoIdMo ideas generated every year!) that in my case at least, rarely go beyond the initial idea.

[4] Type 2 fun…

My daughter has recently started referring to Type 2 fun to describe something that you’re really satisfied with after the event, but you don’t necessarily enjoy it wholeheartedly at the time. She was talking about an adventure course in a forest, high up. She really wanted to do it with her friends but doesn’t actually like heights –definitely Type 2 fun.

Whilst I was away, I decided to take apart the process of how I create a picture book and divide the stages into Type 1 and Type 2, with a view to seeing if I could make the process as fun as possible. It was really useful -and quite challenging…

                Type 1 fun: the bits I enjoy when creating a picture book (at the moment):

Brainstorming  -it provides instant visual gratification (since I don’t do the pictures, I have to get my visual gratification where I can!); it feels really creative; there's no censoring; it's empowering; messy; stress-free, and slightly magic (at the end of a short session, you’ve come up with loads of ideas that didn’t even exist just ten minutes before)

Research - (often only a small amount is needed in a fictional picture book, but I’ve needed to do loads more recently as I’ve done more non-fiction) it's fascinating; I learn loads; and there's the exciting challenge of getting it across in a really lyrical and accessible way

Structuring – turning the free and easy brainstorming into something that works within the many constraints of the picture book form

Questioning my characters –discovering their motivations; getting to know why they’d do certain things and how they feel about what’s happening. I am inherently nosy (I used to be a psychologist and I’m fascinated by people, including characters). Until now, this has often happened after the event, where I go back over drafts and ask those questions and discover new things about my story’s characters. Although I will still do that at a later time, I’m now incorporating it more into the structuring of the book)

Critiquing –I do a lot of critiquing of other people’s manuscripts, both professionally and as part of critique groups. It turns out I really enjoy critiquing my own manuscripts as if they were someone else’s. It’s very freeing. What I’ve also discovered works well for me is taking other people’s critiques of my manuscript, reading them carefully and then doing a full critique of my own manuscript. The points that fellow writers made which I really agreed with are all incorporated into my own critique, but in my own words

Making rhymes work well

                

                  Type 2 fun –the bits I’ve discovered I’m not enjoying so much at the moment

Starting the actual writing – for whatever reason, I’m finding this bit stressful at the moment.

Writing –although this challenges my notion of myself as a writer, when I thought about it carefully, I think that I’m not massively enjoying the writing part at the moment. When it all flows and it feels Zen-like, I love it, but too often at the moment, there isn’t that flow and it doesn’t feel so good. A fellow picture book writer and good friend of mine said last year that she doesn’t actually enjoy writing her picture books. I was shocked –she’s completely dedicated to it, and I thought that we were really different in that respect. But I think she was just being more self-aware than me, and just saying what it’s taken me an extra year or so to realise of myself.

Actually making the edits once I’ve done the self-critiquing

So what can I do to make the writing process a more enjoyable one based on those realisations?

I need to re-remember that writing is way more than the actual act of writing the words. I enjoy so many of the other parts of writing, and I want to maximise the Type 1 fun bits and minimise the Type 2 bits. So I can fully justify spending plenty of time brainstorming and structuring before I write a single word of the actual manuscript –and that’s still writing. And since I don’t like starting, I need to make the writing part of the first draft really quick. Where I can, I need to get a first really, really rough first draft done in a single sitting. That way, I only have to start once for each project. This doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be completing a picture book more quickly, but it does mean that the bits I struggle to motivate myself to do are a much smaller part of the whole process.

And I haven’t written a rhyming manuscript for eighteen months, which I definitely need to rectify.

My decision to use a computer less means that I’m going to print out manuscripts more. In the last couple of years, I’ve written whole manuscripts through to final edits without once printing the story out. Now, I can do a lot of the final editing straight onto paper, which it turns out, is a nicer process (who knew?).

And actually, just getting on with it and doing it quickly means that I’ll get into better habits and some of those Type 2 activities may well move back over to Type 1 ones.

A writer friend of mine said recently “Writing doesn’t always look like writing”. It’s very true, but without having the option of Facebook during the day, more of the things I'm doing now that aren't physically writing are genuinely part of the "writing doesn't always look like writing" writing.

Use positive distractions. I know that I need to distract myself sometimes and Facebook has often been my distraction of choice, in the way that chocolate is my snack of choice if it’s in the house. But I know that I’m much better off having healthier snacks easily accessible and not having an unhealthy alternative available. My post-retreat healthy option distraction is a (non-story) book. I’m keeping it near me when I write, and if I really need a quick procrastinating dip into something, that’ll be it.

[5] More writing outside (Whoops, that last point was so long I forgot I was doing a list!)- I really enjoyed the opportunities I had to work outside –researching, brainstorming, structuring and actual physical writing by hand. 

It wasn’t often warm enough to be stationery outside for long but when it was, I was out, even when I had to be in several jumpers, a coat, hat and scarf and woolly fingerless gloves… 

I need to do that more. And now with less emphasis on my computer, I can –and will- do that.

[6] Make the most of the stillness. I loved it in the morning when I wrote before having spoken to anyone or listened to anything on the radio etc. I used to do this at home by getting up at 6am and getting an hour in before anyone woke up. And I’m determined to go back to that again, having reaped the benefits of the stillness of it on retreat.

[7] Recognise that this all happens in real life. I was able to go on retreat for a week but in real life, I have three amazing and highly distracting children who need to be loved, fed, played with and taken to, and collected from, school every day. I need to make all these changes within my real life and be more efficient whilst I’m working so that once they’re home, I’m theirs alone until they go to bed. More efficient includes using a separate (A4 hardback unlined) notebook for every project I do from now on, so I don’t lose any of my thoughts because they’re in one of twenty or thirty notebooks that are on the go at the same time.

I’m starting a reflection journal so I can work out what’s working well and what could work better. This is so useful for best practice, particularly with school visits, but I think it’ll be good for writing, too. And I think that keeping my computer out of view means that I can be much more present in work and life (and I hope it’ll help my children to grow up not thinking that on-line life is more interesting than real life).

And finally, I’ve found a way to recreate the retreat experience as closely as possible one day a week, when the children are not here. I will have a computer-free day where I don’t actually speak to anyone at all, in person, or on the phone or online from when I wake up until I pick the children up from school. No radio, no internet, no opening up a computer, no voices at all apart from my characters’. 

I made a plan whilst I was away and it still looks completely doable now I’m back. I’m going to stick to it. I’m going to take more risks and make more mistakes, and though I’ll make myself do some Type 2 fun every day, I reckon there’s going to be an increasing amount of Type 1 fun on its way.

A story, brainstormed, structured and written as a really rough first draft, mostly outside, and not going near a computer until I'd handwritten THE END, and all in one day...

Thanks to fellow writers, Ali and Annie, for a fab week.

What about you and your writing? Which parts of the book creating process are currently Type 2 fun for you?

www.julietclarebell.com

Quentin Blake, Picture Book Ideas Month (PiBoIdMo) and interesting facial hair. That’s right: it’s the inspiring month of November, by Juliet Clare Bell

It’s that time of year again: for some, it’s an opportunity to grow interesting facial hair

Nice

for several hundred of us, it’s the annual British Isles SCBWI Conference, with Malorie Blackman and Catherine Rayner for starters...

and for many hundred of us picture book writers throughout the world, it’s
PiBoIdMo 13! Yay!

November has turned into a month I get childishly excited about. And Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo (where you have to come up with 30 ideas for picture books in 30 days) has a whole lot to do with it. Since it’s all about inspiration and good habits for being creative, I’m going to talk about inspiration here. And where better to start than with my favourite illustrator (author and illustrator of my favourite adult book –Words and Pictures, and illustrator of one of my very favourite picture books, How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen), whom I met/saw for the first time last night (a long held ambition of mine)? It's the one and only...

QUENTIN BLAKE

Photos taken by fellow groupie, Dave Gray.

In the presence of great greatness...

The lecture was brilliant. He talked about the illustrations he’s been doing ‘beyond the page’ in the last ten years or so, on buildings, art gallery and many different hospital walls and on buses for education projects (his book Beyond the Page, is beautiful and is always on my desk for inspiration...).

An illustrated book bus in Ghana.

So how does this fit with PiBoIdMo?

Well this year, I want to try specific ways of coming up with my picture book ideas as well as just writing down ideas that come to me in the course of a day.

So where do you go looking for ideas?

...from pictures

Not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking about pictures today. In bed this morning, one of my children, apropo of nothing, started talking about how the Paul Klee picture on the wall made her think about a story, which she proceeded to tell me.

This prompted my youngest to imagine a story coming from the other picture in our room...

Picture from the cover of One Hundred Years of Solitude

So one place I’m looking for ideas this month is in pictures –wherever I can find them. On walls, waiting to be hung in our new office, from notecards, in Quentin Blake and Shaun Tan books, the children’s (as always)....

...from books

This year, I’m going to practise what I preach. I teach writing picture books and it’s been too long since I’ve gone through my favourite picture books and tried to capture the essence of what it is I really love about them. Often, there's really interesting use of metaphor, as in Not Now, Bernard, by David McKee. I'd really like to play around with this more for this year's PiBoIdMo ideas... Quentin Blake talked about this in the lecture, using the example of The Story of the Dancing Frog, and how he was using a metaphor for bereavement but that he could just have easily had the main character learning to play the cello instead.

I love the idea that as an illustrator you can choose the metaphors you use in picture books partly based on your desire to draw that particular thing (he didn’t say that specifically in this example but he’s talked about it in other books before). As an author who doesn’t illustrate or know who the illustrator for my stories are going to be until after I've written them, it’s a slightly different game but I’m going to look at themes I’d like to explore and come up with visually different metaphors and see whether that leads to fresh story ideas.

... exercises I do in school visits with children

I’m going to...
make up silly stories on the hoof the same way I get children to do collectively in school assemblies and see if any germs of ideas for something more substantial come (I’m the character in their story. Someone in the audience chooses what I am –it can be anything at all; someone else chooses a name; then what I most want to do in the world –or beyond- that day; what’s getting in my way, etc.. Because it’s all done quickly by different people, no one thinks about it much or feels self-conscious);

...play the name game that inspired Don’t Panic, Annika! where you come up with characteristics of a character based on their name, using rhyme or alliteration. And when you’ve got those characteristics you work out what needs to change by the end of the story in order to make it satisfying/funny etc.;

...play the What If? game I play in the classroom where we look around at the room, or the playground and turn ordinary objects or scenes into something quite extraordinary by saying: this may look like an ordinary whiteboard/wall display/teacher, but what if... (and similarly with objects taken from a bag).

And I’ll be reading Tara Lazar’s blog daily and follow the exercises that the guest bloggers suggest.

Basically, I’m going to allow myself to play for a month.

Do more creative pursuits that aren’t writing

This month, I’m trying out a local close-part harmony group. I joined a choir for one concert about twenty years ago but before that I’d not sung collectively since being in school, and although I love singing with the children, and in the shower, I’ve not done anything since. Again, inspired by Quentin Blake, as a non-drawer, I’m going to do five minutes of drawing each day throughout November just for the fun of it. And I’m attending the first in a series of traditional arts storytelling workshops, run by local storyteller, Graham Langley . And, since the death of my mother earlier this year, who was a prolific reader, and whose inscription is in many of the books that I have, I’ve started reading novels again in a way that I haven’t for almost twenty years. I do actually feel as if something has reawakened in me (so thanks, Mum, for that).


Different writing environments. Writing alongside others...
If you’re a member of SCBWI and PiBoIdMo etc., writing really isn’t the lonely occupation many think of it as. There’s such a huge, welcoming community out there. But a lot of it is online and this year, I’m arranging to do more writing alongside others. It started with a writing retreat last year where a fellow picture book author, Rebecca Colby, and I booked a cottage for a week and just wrote, usually in our own beds during the day, and then in the evenings, sitting together at the dining room table. We were joined for a couple of days by another children’s author (Addy Farmer), and it was an incredible week.

Whilst it’s extremely hard to get away for a week, I was really keen to try and replicate something of that communal environment, so from this month, once a month, our local SCBWI is going to host a free day-long write-in in the fantastic new Library of Birmingham...

where anyone can come along and write/sketch for the day together on their separate projects.

The children's section of the library, where all artwork, including the prints on the beanbags, is by Laura-Kate Chapman, who illustrated our last picture book, The Kite Princess!

I’ve also recently moved into an office over the road from our house, with another children’s author and fellow SCBWI-er, Leila Rasheed, which is brilliant. It’s freed up loads of space in our respective houses and has provided us with a fantastic working space. And from January, we’ll be running fortnightly day-long write-ins in one of the large meeting rooms there where writers and illustrators can come and write/illustrate for the day.

As always, November is going to be a busy month (especially in the run-up to the conference where I organise the mass Friday night critique with seventy-plus critiquers) and this year I’m also writing a commissioned book for which I’m doing loads of really interesting research/interviews at the moment, but that’s the joy of PiBoIdMo. It doesn’t actually have to take much time at all. You just need to do it every day and get yourself into good habits (and this year, I've actually bought index cards and a box to put them in, which is an exciting if unusually organised step to have taken). To finish with the wonderful Quentin Blake again...

“I don’t wait for inspiration. I’m not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I’m sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival,” (Words and Pictures, p100).

Inspiration enough.

Happy November.

Do you have any PiBoIdMo tips or hints? Please leave them in the comments section below -and have a fruitful month.

Juliet Clare Bell is currently researching for a picture book based around the Cadbury chocolate factory and Bournville in Birmingham, which so far has been extremely interesting and very tasty...

Writing can wait. On the death of my mum and her influence on me, creative and otherwise by Juliet Clare Bell

My mum, taken by my sister, Stella Bell.

Shortly after posting my last blog (and two days after we’d been chatting about it), my mum, Margaret Bell/Storr died very suddenly and completely unexpectedly. She was well and happy, but she’d broken her ankle five weeks before, and, unbeknownst to us all, she’d developed a blood clot which went very quickly to her lungs. She’d spent part of the morning with my dad and brother and part writing more of her work in progress, a middle grade novel about a girl in the Second World War –a version of which she’d emailed to me less than 24 hours before she died. She had been on a creative roll.

She’d always been creative. She drew, painted and wrote –stories for her students, to fit their level of English but also their level of interest and understanding; beautiful, often rhyming, notes to us when we were children; stories for her grandchildren, and for the past five years or so, she had been a fellow member of the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). She was also writing short stories for adults and lots of poetry, both of which had had recent success.

As someone who relied on her sharp mind for writing, painting, reading and conversing, getting dementia (like her own mother) was her greatest fear. It is a real comfort that this never happened. As for breaking her ankle? Well, she couldn’t do the thing she hated –housework, but she could absolutely do the things she loved, whilst being looked after by family and friends: write, read, paint and spend time with people she loved. She sounded happier in the last five weeks than I can remember –ever.

It’s not a huge surprise I’ve ended up writing. My parents’ sharing of their love of stories started before birth for me. The Juliet in my name is straight from Shakespeare. After watching Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet whilst heavily pregnant with me, they decided that if I were a girl, they’d call me Juliet rather than Clare as they had previously chosen. The fact that I came out looking more like a long, scrawny orang-utan than the beautiful Olivia Hussey led to the current confusion with my name (always called Clare but with a different first name...hmmmn ...

More a Clare than a Juliet?

and only my brilliantly bonkers Shakespearean-loving parents could have made the decision to name my eldest brother Andrew Michael Bell even though they were always going to use Michael because ‘if his initials had been MAB [rather than AMB], people would have teased him’ (because of the tiny midwife fairy, Queen Mab, spoken of by Mercutio, also in Romeo and Juliet...?!). Stories were central to their lives and ours.

They read and sang to us every night, were genuinely enthusiastic about our own writings and could quote reams of poetry and Shakespeare willy nilly. (As a teenager this could be excruciatingly embarrassing -my biggest teenage rebellion was to hate classical music and choose not to do English A Level. There wasn’t much else to rebel against. Either side of being a teenager, it was great.)

My mum never shied away from telling us sad stories. I particularly remember Orpheus and Eurydice, which I agonised over as a child, and also the story of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, which I turned into a slightly odd, superstitious game on my way to school. And the songs they sung to us at night! ‘I heard the curlew crying far, but I never heard my baby-o...,’ or ‘Ah my Geordie will be hanged in the golden chains, 'tis not the chains of many...’ (and many other Joan Baez songs). The songs and the stories and the storytelling were beautiful. The language of sad is often extremely beautiful. And they instilled a love of language in us. For the Christmas before I turned six, they gave me The Green Children, written by Kevin Crossley-Holland and illustrated by Margaret Gordon, a really old East Anglian story.

It’s sad. Very sad:

“One dark day, when the ground was like iron underfoot and the shifting skies were grey, the green boy threw up his hands and died.”

But they didn’t just give me the book. My mum sewed me Green Boy and Green Girl, which I still have now. And the dolls’ faces reflect the sad story. I cuddled them pretty much every night throughout my childhood as if I could somehow change the story and save Green Boy–which I did, for the doll at least. Green Girl and Green Boy are still alive and well thirty six years later (even if Green Boy’s tunic has recently been removed by a small child...).

(You won’t see the pearl tears that she also sewed on to their faces, because I unpicked them when my own children were old enough to start asking questions about it...)

And of course it wasn’t just sad stories and songs–there were also a lot of funny and silly ones –and run-of-the-mill every day ones. But it’s the sad and the funny/silly ones that I’ve remembered the best over time.

So I grew up with stories and poems (and music and pictures) all around me. Some of my siblings were more taken by the music and the pictures, and I guess I’ve gravitated more towards the stories and writing. And I keep finding her inscriptions in the various books that I’ve naturally turned to for comfort in the last few weeks –including poetry, which we both loved. She may have died, but she’s certainly still around. And we’ll each find her in slightly different things and places...

But there’s something much bigger that my mum and dad gave me, the most important thing that any parent can give a child: unconditional love.

My mum and dad and me

Unconditional love from parents remains with you no matter where you go and what you do and its strength is immense. In my mid-twenties, I was attacked on my way home one night, and I was lucky to come out of it alive, and largely physically ok. Even when it was terrible, I still knew that I would get through it and that things would be great again –and that was from an unshakeable knowledge that I am completely loved by my parents. And it’s the same now –even when things feel almost unbearably sad as they sometimes do (or I’m just gutted that I can’t tell her something- like, that there’s a picture book of Pride and Prejudice out-with photos of knitted characters –which she’d have loved...

or that I’ve just received a Korean version of The Kite Princess in the post even though I didn’t know it had been translated...

or that the forthcoming Taiwanese version of Don’t Panic Annika! that she periodically asked me about actually came out almost a year ago but the copies never arrived from Taiwan... or most of all, that my five-year-old, the youngest of all her grandchildren, has lost her first tooth, -I know that things will be great again and I will always have the most precious thing that my mum ever/always gave me: love. My mum doesn’t have to be here in person for this to affect everything that I do and the way I experience things. That bit doesn’t die. And it’ll pass down through the generations –through her six children and fifteen grandchildren, as we sing our own children to sleep with the songs she sang (the happier ones at least!), read to them, love them...

Our mum will help us get over her own death...

If you haven’t read Debi Gliori’s wonderful picture book, No Matter What, then you’re in for a treat when you do.

It’s about exactly that: the unconditional love of a parent for his or her child –even after death (you need to read the UK version rather than the US version which has all references to death removed). My mum really liked it, as did many of her children and grandchildren, and it felt completely appropriate to put a copy of the book in the grave with her. Our new copy has been read countless times by my children and me since she died. It’s a beautiful, comforting read. And the love that pours out of every word and brushstroke of that book is a lesson for all picture book authors and illustrators. It feels like she's captured the words of the Joan Baez song, East Virginia, (or The Aching Pains song to my family) which my parents loved, where Joan Baez sings:

"Just the thought of you, my darling,
sends aching pains all through my breast"

This is how my mum and dad described the feeling of overwhelming love for your children when you creep into the bedroom at night and watch them sleeping. It's so true.

I’ve not written or edited a single word of a story since March 12th. I have no appetite for it at all. It seems to belong to another time entirely. But I know that I’ll probably feel like it again at some stage. In the same way that I couldn’t read more than a couple of sentences for a whole year after I was attacked (I simply couldn’t remember the start of the sentence, let alone, the paragraph), and then I went back and finished the PhD I was writing, I am likely to find head space to write stories at some stage. Even writing this blog post has made it seem closer.

And when I do, I know there’ll be a little bit of my mum in it...

I want to end with Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy, with my favourite phrase in a song:

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return...”

I’ll be up in Orkney when this post comes up –with my dad and in the place my mum loved so much. We’ll sort out some paper work, work on setting up a project in my mum’s name, talk, cry, laugh, walk around some of her favourite places, and most of all, love –and be loved. The writing? As Abie showed in her recent blog post, that can wait.

Us, freezing, but happy, on an Orkney beach in August (2004)

There’s a small PS. Since writing this blogpost (a couple of days in advance because I'm off to Orkney), I’ve actually written something for a story. Not much, and completely related to the events of the last two months, but the outline of a story, and some phrases –in one of my mum’s notebooks, alongside some of her own writing and notes from a conversation we had about doing writing workshops with children. There'll certainly be some aching pains in the writing of it, but I think it will be comforting, too -whether it stays as something just for me, or not. Cheers, Mum. x

My mum's recently started notebook, which I'm now using as my own.

Juliet Clare Bell www.julietclarebell.com

The Clue is in the Name. Editing your PICTURE book manuscript: making every word count by Juliet Clare Bell

It is a truth universally acknowledged -by picture book editors- that a picture book manuscript landing on an editor's desk is highly likely to be in want of a serious word-slashing.

There was a notorious world-slasher in my old picture book critique group. By day, he was a computer wizard...

By night, he would sharpen his sword/pen/tracking changes buttons and let rip...

He was brilliant. We’d put up a 600-word manuscript to be critiqued and with a swish and a slash (or a rattle of keyboard keys), it would come back at 400 words, just like that. And it was almost always the better for it (even if, temporarily, we weren't).

Of course not everyone is lucky enough to have an external word-slasher, so it is extremely useful to hone your own word-slashing skills.

Reducing the word count of your picture book manuscript for its own sake would be a very crude way of editing. But most picture book manuscripts are too long (ask any picture book editor). So, in conjunction with a really good understanding of the picture book form, losing (the RIGHT, or should that be WRONG?) words can help shape your manuscript into something really special. It’s often easier to slash someone else’s words, so I’ve put a chunk of my not-quite-final version of Don’t Panic, Annika! at the end of this post in case anyone wants to practise on mine, first. You can let rip on it and see how your edits compare with the final picture book.

The very first notes for Don't Panic, Annika! (NB I didn't write them at a funny angle but blogger and I argued a lot this morning. And blogger won...)


Editing picture book manuscripts is different from editing other manuscripts. Being manuscripts, they do not have pictures in, and yet the form of the picture book means that the story is told through both the pictures and the text. This can make it trickier to edit, and, until you’re confident of what a great picture book manuscript (as opposed to the book itself) looks like, possibly less satisfying, too. A manuscript for a great novel will read as brilliantly as the novel itself. A manuscript for a great picture book will not. But that’s the point. It’s not MEANT to. It’s a picture book. It’s all about the book as a whole.

Here are a few tips for tightening up, reducing word count and producing the best picture book manuscript you can. If you have any other tips, please do share them in the comments section, below...

[1] Type out the text of a picture book you really like. Better still, type out the text of several picture books you like. (Make sure these are non-rhyming ones as rhyming picture books/really lyrical stories (such as Malachy Doyle’s When A Zeeder Met a Xyder) often use pictures in a slightly different way -more to enhance the feel of the story rather than telling parts of the story themselves). If possible, use recent books that have been published in the last ten years as the kind of picture book now being published has changed.)

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen (by Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, this edition, Random House, Little Greats, 1983) is a fab book, but it won't work for the purposes of this exercise. You need something more recent...

The Baby That Roared by Simon Puttock and Nadia Shireen (Nosy Crow, 2012) is an excellent example of a recent picture book written by an author as opposed to an illustrator-author where the pictures and text combine beautifully.

Then look at that manuscript alongside the book and ask yourself: what would you have to put as an illustration note in order for an editor to understand the story? Add those necessary notes to the manuscript.

How does the manuscript look without the pictures? When a picture book is really good, since you read it as a whole (pictures and text together) you often don’t realise at first how much of it is told through the pictures. It can be very enlightening to see what can look like a disjointed manuscript for a great picture book. Remember, you’re not aiming for something that will flow beautifully without the aid of pictures (as it will look as a manuscript in your hands); you are looking for something that will flow beautifully as a picture book. This may mean, compared to a novel -told entirely through the text, your manuscript will look less impressive to your friends or even writers who usually only see picture books in their finished forms. Indeed, a more polished version of your picture book manuscript, where you are letting the pictures take on the job that some of your text was doing previously, will often appear less appealing to someone not used to a picture book manuscript than an earlier version where the -imagined- pictures aren't pulling their weight. However, picture book editors know how to imagine the pictures. It's their job.

Now look at your own manuscript. How does it compare, visually? Could your text be less dense? Could you let your pictures (even if they’re currently only in your head) do more of the work? Could you use interesting page turns (which, incidentally, can often tighten up your manuscript by letting the pictures work harder)?

[2] Capture your story in a single sentence and write it down. Keep referring back to this sentence when you read through your story. Is every line/word adding something important to your story (as summarised in your sentence)? If not, could you cut it? And is there anything else that could be shown through the pictures and not the text?

[3] Do the slasher challenge. Tell yourself this is an exercise and not an edit –and make sure you save a copy of the original...

If it helps to do this with an old manuscript of yours first before moving onto your current one, that’s fine. Write your word count on top of your story. Go through your manuscript (it often helps to do this on a hard copy) and be ruthless, cutting out everything that’s not necessary –even if it’s your favourite phrase/word. If you’re cutting out text so that the pictures can take on more of the story, then jot down as many illustrator notes as you want to –at this stage. See how many words you can remove without losing sight of the story. This doesn’t have to be your final copy, so don’t worry about over-slashing.

Try and leave at least a day before going back to this new (exercise) version –and preferably longer. Re-read it. Does it still make sense? You may be pleasantly surprised. Could you get used to it in this shorter form? I usually find that I prefer the shorter version, even when some of my previously favourite phrases have gone. Could you use your slashed version (even if you choose to add in a few extra words)? And can you now remove any of the illustration notes?

Even if you don’t choose to use your exercise version, when you re-read your original version, it may well seem overly long and it may be easier to tighten it up a little less drastically.

[4] Create the picture book experience (or as close as you can without the pictures). Print your manuscript and cut out the text and stick it on to an existing picture book in the place where you think it works (I use blue tack). Then video yourself reading it at the right pace and with the right page turns. Although it can be embarrassing to watch initially (it was with Don’t Panic, Annika! ), you needn’t show anyone else (I won’t), and it can be extremely useful for creating the experience of a picture book reading so you can do a final edit before sending it off.

[5] Show your manuscript to other writers, and preferably picture book writers. Those who aren’t used to picture book manuscripts will probably think you need to tell more in the text of the story (so it’s easier to read as a manuscript) and have fewer illustration notes. Those who are used to picture book manuscripts will often think you can leave more to the illustrations –and often without having to add in extra illustration notes. Remember, it is the job of the editor to imagine the story visually.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that some of the very best and truest picture books are written by illustrator-authors –two of my all-time favourites are Not Now, Bernard by David McKee and Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins (which, incidentally, started out as a normal-length text. Her editor read it and showed her a single line that he really liked -about the fox following her. That then became the whole story whilst never actually being mentioned in the text).

I was going to put a picture of Not Now Bernard and Rosie's Walk up but I look at those books so frequently that I've mislaid them. So here's a random cute-picture-of-a-child-in-a-wig, instead.


But I don’t love these books most for their illustrations. In fact, there are many books whose illustrations I prefer. I love them for their storytelling, which is so perfect a combination of words and pictures. Authors-who-don’t-illustrate can, of course, achieve this (see Pippa Goodheart's post on Arthur's Tractor), but I think it’s something that comes less naturally to some of us than to illustrator-authors. What we need is practise, practise, practise… and to know a good-looking picture book manuscript when we see one.

***

...And here’s your chance to practise on my text for Don’t Panic, Annika! first. The first few scenes are interspersed with comments as to why I edited it the way I did. The final two are set out in one block for anyone who wishes to try slashing mine before moving on to their own…

EXAMPLE 1
Scene from Spreads 1 and 2. ORIGINAL VERSION AND COMMENTS ON THE FINAL EDIT.

Annika was a panicker.
When things went wrong, she always panicked.

[I DON’T NEED ‘WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG’. AND BY ITALICISING ALWAYS, THE EMPHASIS IS CLEAR ENOUGH WITH FEWER WORDS.]

She panicked at the seaside when she dropped Moose in the rock pool.
“He’s fallen in! I can’t get him! He’s going to sink! I’ll never see him again!” she shouted.

[THE PICTURES CAN SHOW WHERE SHE IS SO I DON’T NEED AT THE SEASIDE (AND THE LOCATION FOR THAT SCENE ACTUALLY CHANGED). AND I’VE USED MORE THAN I NEED TO SHOW SHE’S A PANICKER. THE LAST TWO SENTENCES SHE UTTERS CAN GO]

“Try fishing him out with your net,” said her dad.
“I can’t! I can’t!” shouted Annika.

[BY PUTTING ‘I CAN’T!’ IN CAPITALS, I CAN LOSE THE SECOND ONE AND IT STILL FEELS LIKE SHE’S PANICKY]

“Don’t panic, Annika,” said her dad. “Just breathe in and out, in and out, really slowly, and you’ll feel better. Then you’ll be able to do it.”

[‘SAID DAD’, ‘SAID MUM’ (RATHER THAN ‘SAID HER DAD’… THROUGHOUT THE BOOK REDUCES WORD COUNT, AND THE READER FEELS MORE DRAWN INTO THE FAMILY. AND I CAN LOSE ‘THEN YOU’LL BE ABLE TO DO IT’.]

So Annika breathed in and out, in and out, really slowly, and sure enough, she did feel a bit better.

[I DON’T NEED ‘JUST’ AND SOMEONE SUGGESTED THAT ‘BREATHE IN AND OUT…’ SOUNDED TOO EDUCATIONAL/MEDICAL SO I CHANGED IT TO ‘TAKE A NICE DEEP BREATH’. AND IT’S CLEAR ENOUGH THAT SHE’S FEELING BETTER AS SHE’S ABLE TO DO WHAT SHE COULDN’T PREVIOUSLY DO]

And she fished Moose out of the rock pool.
“Brilliant!” said her dad.
***
The scene became tighter, with word count reduced by 40% (118 down to 72 words), leaving a much less cluttered page:

Don't Panic, Annika! (by Juliet Clare Bell and Jennifer E. Morris, 2011, Piccadilly Press) Spread 1

Spread 2 (copyright Juliet Clare Bell and Jennifer E. Morris, Piccadilly Press, 2011)

EXAMPLE 2: Spread 4 lost 33 words (from 111 down to 78) when I cut out the unnecessary words:

And she panicked when she couldn’t find Moose at bedtime.

[INCIDENTALLY, SOMETHING HERE THAT DIDN’T REDUCE WORD COUNT BUT IMPROVED HOW THE STORY READ WAS TO CHANGE ‘SHE PANICKED WHEN…’ WITH EACH PANICKY EXAMPLE IN SPREADS 1, 3 AND 4, TO ‘WHEN SHE X/Y/Z, … SHE PANICKED’ (SEE SPREADS FROM THE PUBLISHED BOOK, BELOW). PUTTING THE REPEATED WORDS AT THE END (SINCE IT’S REPEATED TWICE AFTER ITS FIRST USE) GIVES THE CHILD SOMETHING TO PREDICT SO HE OR SHE CAN JOIN IN.]

“He’s gone! He’s not there! He should be in the bed! I’ll never see him again!”

[I CAN LOSE TWO OF THESE AND STILL HAVE HER SEEMING PANICKY.]

“Try thinking where you might have left him,” said her mother.
“I can’t! I can’t!” shouted Annika. “He’s gone!”
“Don’t panic, Annika,” said her mum. “Just close your eyes and think about how nice it will be when you’ve found him.”

[DON’T NEED ‘ABOUT’]

So Annika closed her eyes and thought about how nice it would be falling asleep all snuggled up with Moose, and sure enough, she did feel a bit better. And then she remembered.

[‘THOUGHT ABOUT HOW NICE IT WOULD BE FALLING ASLEEP ALL SNUGGLED…’ COULD SIMPLY BE ‘THOUGHT ABOUT FALLING ASLEEP SNUGGLED…’

“He’s in the bathroom, brushing his teeth.”

[THE LOCATION WILL BE CLEAR FROM THE PICTURE, SO I CAN LEAVE OUT ‘HE’S IN THE BATHROOM’]

Spread 4 (copyright Juliet Clare Bell and Jennifer E. Morris, Piccadilly Press, 2011)


EXAMPLE 3: THE SCENE IN SPREADS 8 AND 9 WERE EDITED FROM 87 TO 68 WORDS. PERHAPS YOU CAN DO BETTER…
counted up to ten, nice and slowly. And she felt a bit better. And then she remembered. There were spare keys hanging up in the kitchen!
But the spare keys were too high as well.
Annika almost started to panic again,
but instead, she...
closed her eyes and thought about how nice it would be, flying kites, all together again.
And she felt a bit better.
She got her fishing net and stretched it up to the keys and hooked them into the net.

[MY CHANGES: DON’T NEED ‘UP’ IN ‘COUNTED TO TEN’/ WE’LL SEE SHE’S FEELING BETTER SO AGAIN, REMOVE. DON’T NEED ‘THEN’ IN ‘AND SHE REMEMBERED’/ DON’T NEED ‘HANGING UP’ IN THE KITCHEN –WE’LL SEE THAT IN THE PICTURE/ CHANGED TO ‘ANNIKA NEARLY PANICKED’ AS IT’S LESS CLUNKY/ CHANGED TO: ‘CLOSED HER EYES AND THOUGHT ABOUT FLYING KITES WITH HER MUM AND BROTHER’. WE KNOW IT WOULD BE NICE AND THE PICTURE WILL SHOW THIS, AND THAT THEY’RE ALL TOGETHER AGAIN. IT’S ALSO LESS CLUNKY. AND WE KNOW SHE’S FEELING BETTER SO WE CAN REMOVE THAT, TOO./ CHANGED LAST LINE TO: ‘THEN SHE STRETCHED UP AND HOOKED THE KEYS INTO HER FISHING NET’. THE PICTURES WILL SHOW THAT HER FISHING NET IS THERE.]

EXAMPLE 4: THE SCENE FROM Spread 10. HERE, THE WORD COUNT IS HALVED, FROM 74 TO 38.

Outside, a crowd was gathering. “What shall we do?” shouted the milkman.
“We can’t get in! The windows are all shut,” shouted Annika’s mother.
“We’ll have to phone for help!” shouted the neighbour.
“STOP!” called a voice from inside the house. It was Annika.
“Don’t panic, Annika!” shouted everyone.
“I’m not panicking,” said Annika, calmly.
“But you’re inside and we’re outside, and you can’t get out and we can’t get in!” shouted her mum.

AND HERE’S THE FINAL EDIT:

Back in the hall, Annika heard a terrible racket coming from outside.
“DON’T PANIC, ANNIKA!” shouted everyone.
“I’m not panicking,” said Annika.
“BUT YOU CAN’T GET OUT AND WE CAN’T GET IN!” shouted her mum.
“STOP!” shouted Annika.

[THE OUTSIDE CROWD SCENE IN THE ORIGINAL WAS NOT TOLD FROM ANNIKA’S POINT OF VIEW AND IT’S HER STORY. SECOND, THE PICTURES CAN SHOW THE CHAOTIC SCENE FROM OUTSIDE. AND WE DON’T NEED THE ADVERB, CALMLY. WE WILL SEE THE CONTRAST BETWEEN ANNIKA AND THE OTHERS IN THE PICTURES. INCIDENTALLY, I DID NOT PUT ANNIKA SHOUTING ‘STOP!’ IN THE FINAL VERSION AT FIRST. MY CHOICE WAS TO HAVE HER SAY IT (TO MAKE IT COMPLETELY CLEAR THAT SHE WAS NOT PANICKING). THE PUBLISHER WANTED IT BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT WOULD WORK WITH A SPECIFIC PICTURE.]

Happy slashing… (and please do leave your own top tips for editing your picture book manuscripts in the comments, below). Thank you.

Juliet Clare Bell writes (mainly) picture books. Don't Panic, Annika! (illustrated by Jennifer E. Morris, Piccadilly Press in the UK; other publishers overseas; 2011)was shortlisted for the Crystal Kite 2012 and will soon be a CBeebies Bedtime Story. The Kite Princess (illustrated by Laura-Kate Chapman and read by Imelda Staunton; Barefoot Books) is out in September, 2012. www.julietclarebell.com

Increasing the chances of your picture book story being published. A quick-ish guide to getting and interpreting feedback by Juliet Clare Bell

(Or: You think you’ve finished your manuscript? Now let the wild rumpus start –in memory of legendary wild thing, Maurice Sendak, who died yesterday.)

There’s this funny thing with writing. You’ve got to be pretty bonkers to think that you can write a book that will be picked up by a publisher. Just look at these made-up stats:

And even once you’re published, the odds are against any single picture book manuscript of yours being picked up –other picture book authors I’ve asked often say approximately 20% of their manuscripts end up being published.

So how does anyone ever get from that huge pool of green to that titchy pool of blue? Unfortunately, the very thing that gets you all the way from that green pool to that red pool –deciding you can do it and actually finishing a story- is the same thing that can easily stop you from working your finished (draft of a) story up to a point where it’s going to get published...

You’ve written your story with passion and conviction. Your confidence, tenacity, steely determination, sheer bloody mindedness has kept you going from first thinking you might be able to do this to having actually written a story that you feel is worthy of being read countless times by a parent and child together. You needed bloody mindedness to get to this point (see Malachy’s post on Persistence).

But now you’ve got to keep it in check. You may feel like you’ve done it on your own till now and you don’t need anyone’s help. But you probably aren’t the best judge of how good your story is at this point...

And this is where feedback comes in...

Feedback –what’s it for?
This post already assumes that you’ve read trillions of picture books, practised and practised and practised, joined organisations like SCBWI and are really, really serious about getting your latest manuscript published.

Here are three possible reasons for wanting to get feedback (prior to sending your work to an editor or agent) on your picture book story:

[1] You want someone to tell you how much they love your story.
This is understandable, especially if you’re not published and you feel like you’re fighting for ‘permission’ to be doing what you’re doing. And if it feels good to show your story to family and friends, primed to like what you’ve done because you’ve done it, then that’s fine. It might give you confidence to carry on down a path that’s really tricky. But it’s not feedback. Not really (and if you send it to an editor, never mention the reaction of friends or family to your work. Ever);

[2] To slow yourself down before sending it to the person that really matters.
It’s so easy to send stuff out these days, if you can do it by email and this makes it even more tempting to send things out too early. Ever emailed a manuscript to a publisher slightly sooner than you’d have sent it if you’d had to print it out and take it to the post office first? (Me too...) Sending your manuscript to someone else first really helps satisfy the feeling of ‘getting something out there’ without it actually mattering too much. It’s really good cooling off time –and you actually get feedback from it;

[3] Because you want it to be the very best story it can be.
Accepting that other people might be more objective about your recently finished manuscript than you and that they might see ways of improving it, is bound to improve your chances of writing the best picture book you possibly can and having it picked up by an editor.

If you’re serious about your story, after all that hard work put into your manuscript don’t have an editor’s feedback as your first feedback. It’ll almost certainly be a form rejection or worse still, the feedback of silence...

So...

Prepare yourself for feedback. Grow an extra skin and stop thinking of your story as your ‘baby’...

Writing your story can be an intense experience. Some people refer to their manuscript as their baby. For all sorts of reasons, I think this is an unhelpful thing to do and reduces your likelihood of benefiting from feedback.

In my previous life working in research at a university, I felt so sick at the thought of people reading drafts of papers I was writing that it often stopped me finishing them. I was so nervous of other people’s feedback and I could never stop feeling personal about what I’d written. It was a real waste –for the study I was working on and for me. I realised when I started out trying to write children’s books that I couldn’t do that again. Either I was going to learn to accept and make use of constructive criticism or I wasn’t going to get published, in which case, I wasn’t going to start writing.

It’s not easy to feel dispassionate about your work. But it certainly helps when getting feedback. Although we might like to think that everything we write is brilliant and already ready to go to an editor immediately, we are probably wrong. This makes it particularly hard to get feedback when you’re just starting out. Because what many new writers want is to be praised for what they’ve done –and they have achieved something important: finishing a story. If you’re not ready for real feedback, then put the manuscript away for a while until you can view it less personally. Then get it out again. Can you treat it as if it has been written by someone else? Do you want it to be the best it possibly can be and can you see that others might see things in it (or missing from it) that you may have overlooked? Will you manage not to be crushed by any suggestion of how it might be improved?

If you’re still too nervous to show anyone your work, don’t feel tempted to send it to an editor (at least, don’t act on that temptation).

Picture book feedback

Before deciding who to get feedback from, do consider the following:

[1] Ask any picture book editor: most picture book manuscripts that land on an editor’s desk are too long. Make sure the person you show your manuscript to is familiar with picture book length and knows that with a picture book manuscript every word has to earn its place. Picture book readers but not writers will probably not realise how few words there are in a well-crafted picture book. I still remember being shocked when I started out writing and typed up Julia Donaldson stories that seemed to have plenty of plot but were only 450 words... and then promptly started reducing my 1800 word-story down by three quarters...

[2] Many writers (as opposed to writer-illustrators) trying to write picture books don’t allow the pictures to do enough of the work in telling the story. Many readers of well-written picture books won’t realise that they’re reading half the story from the pictures. So a picture book critiquer needs to appreciate the importance of leaving enough room for the illustrations to do some of the work, and also the role of illustration notes –when to use them and when to leave them out.

The nature of picture books means that when you’re asking for feedback, you’re asking your critique to do two things: critique your story whilst at the same time imagining pictures that you’ve not provided for them.

So who should you get feedback from?

Family, friends and children?
Think carefully why you’re asking them. Their response is not likely to reflect how publishable your story is and they are very, very biased. They may want to please you, they may feel awkward about being critical or...

...they may just want a biscuit.

And unlike older fiction, they can’t read it as if it were published, as the pictures aren’t there yet. If you’re showing it to (your) children, remember, the ones for whom it’s actually written (pre-readers) won’t be able to read it for themselves, and older children who can read it might be more attracted to the stories that are actually too old for the intended age group. From my experience, they also prefer ones that don’t require any illustration notes...
Probably not ideal.

Critique groups with other writers?
This is where many children’s writers get feedback from. The SCBWI is great for providing feedback opportunities from other writers –both in face-to-face groups/events and online. I am a huge fan of the SCBWI (without which I very much doubt I’d be published) and I’d heartily recommend it to any children’s writer. There are other online picture book critique groups or opportunities to get feedback from another writer (for example 12 by 12 in ’12). Joining a critique group or meeting can be very nerve-wracking at first but it does get easier. (For information on setting up and running a critique group, click here.)

I know that everything I’ve written (both before I was published and since) has been improved –and sometimes transformed- by feedback from my fantastic critique partners.

Things worth considering: do you want to exchange manuscripts with children’s writers in general or just other picture book writers? It’s important that non-picture book writers know the constraints of the picture book but it can be good getting feedback from (and giving feedback to) other children’s writers, too. What’s important is what feedback they give and how well they give it. My experience of critique groups (I’m currently in three) has mostly been extremely positive, although occasionally I’ve had poor feedback (see my Banana Peelin’ story). And with practise I’ve become much better at receiving feedback (as well as giving it).

With practise, you will become tough and able to embrace feedback.

Possible disadvantages:
It can be very time-consuming (I probably critique over ten manuscripts per month –but then I get a lot of people critiquing mine back in return);
It can take a while to find the right critique group for you and for your own group to settle into something really mutually beneficial;
The quality of critiquing can be variable (so you need to learn how to make the most of different kinds of feedback from different people; but over time you change things until you’re happy with the group/s you’re in)
If you’re all unpublished, it’s possible that you’re all perpetuating the same errors in each other’s work that’s preventing you all from getting published;
People may have their own agendas:

However, in my experience (and I've experienced different critique groups), this is rarely the case.

Paid for critiques?
Given how the book world has changed, many people who formerly worked in publishing houses or agencies now work as literary consultants, critiquing manuscripts (and some published authors and freelance writers do, too). If you’ve polished and polished your manuscript as much as you can -and had good feedback from fellow writers- and it’s still being rejected by publishers, then it may well be worthwhile paying for a critique.

Make sure you check out the freelancer first –do they know about picture books in particular? Do you like what they’ve written? Have they worked in a publishing house you know of? Do you know anyone else who’s used them and been happy with the service?

Possible disadvantages: it can be expensive;
Some freelancers will be better than others and it’s not always easy to know who to go with.
If you're in a good critique group, you may get a very similar critique free of charge.
But again, some freelance critiquers are excellent.

How to make the most of the feedback you’re given

[1] Try not to be defensive, and listen really, really carefully. For face-to-face critique groups, the Ursula LeGuin method means you can concentrate on listening to what others are saying rather than trying to defend yourself or your writing. It’s the same with a face-to-face editor meeting at a conference -don’t waste precious time defending your work when you’re there to hear how it might be improved.

The Ursula LeGuin method of running critique sessions (where the writer does not speak, but listens to everyone's feedback in turn) sounds scarier than it is. Honest.


[2] Ask. If you’re unsure about written feedback you’ve received, a fellow writer whose opinion you trust may be more objective in interpreting it (especially in the case of a personalised rejection from an editor). It’s often easier to see the negative side of feedback and overlook the positive. Recently, for example, I received some feedback from an editor. She said she really liked the title but then listed a number (quite a number) of things that didn’t work for her. I assumed that it was a straight rejection. Then she put a ‘however’... and proceeded to say how she really liked the character and that she’d be keen to see it again when I’d sorted out the things she didn’t think worked. It still felt negative but after showing it to a few people, I cut and pasted it and put all the positive things she said at the top and the negative things at the bottom and suddenly it seemed like much more positive feedback and something I could work through to provide her with a manuscript that she might really like.

[3] Is there consistency in your feedback from different people? You might want to dismiss parts of what people say but if a number of people are highlighting the same issues with your manuscript (or if different people pick up the same things on different manuscripts of yours), those issues probably need to be addressed.

[4] Learn to spot what’s important from the feedback
Some people will make suggestions as to how you can change your story. It may feel that they’re trying to rewrite it for you. This might be helpful to you or it might not, but it’s certainly very helpful to think about why they’re suggesting the change. Recently, an editor tentatively suggested I relocate my story to another part of the world. At first I thought I would and then realised why she was suggesting it –there was a problem with the story’s logic. Changing location would have sorted out that problem, but it would have changed other things in a way I wasn’t sure about. Now I’ve realised her thinking behind it, I can work out another way to sort out the story’s logic that fits with how I see my character.

[5] Take away different things from different people –after being in critique groups for years now, I know who’s really good at cutting my word count, or over-cutting, so I can compromise and take out half the words he’s suggesting (a word-slasher who isn’t personally attached to your favourite phrases that you’ve agonised over is invaluable to a picture book writer). I know who is good at spotting problems with structure; who is good at rhythm or tiny word changes (which can make such a difference in a picture book). You don’t have to act on all your feedback. Cherry pick the best and try and make the suggestions feel like your own.

[6] Don’t immediately start revising on the basis of feedback. Your initial reaction may be negative for a number of reasons –your pride might be slightly hurt; you might not like the way the feedback was presented; you might still be feeling quite defensive about your manuscript. Conversely, you might, like I often do, feel impatient to get going on a revision and initially agree with the suggestions made, especially if they come from someone you’re eager to please (like an editor or an agent). But unless you’ve given them a chance to settle, these changes may never feel like your own. Once you’ve read/had the feedback, sit on it for a while –days at least, possibly weeks, before making changes. If those suggested changes still don’t feel like your own, think carefully about whether that’s going to work. And never delete anything –you may change your mind.

It never did quite work for me, changing my little sister into a hamster (as I was asked to do by an editor). But I tried... (and didn't delete the original).

As with writing, with practise you will get better at receiving feedback. Probably better to practise with people who aren't editors or agents so when you're in a situation with an editor or agent (at a conference one-to-one, or when they're responding to your work) you can make the very best of it. You'll almost certainly have a better manuscript to discuss with them, too.

The End.

(Hmmn, “The ending was particularly satisfactory...” –a genuine quote from my first ever picture book rejection. Now what exactly did she mean by that...?)

Juliet Clare Bell writes children’s books (Don’t Panic, Annika! illustrated by Jennifer E. Morris, Piccadilly Press, UK –other publishers overseas; Pirate Picnic, an early reader with Franklin Watts, August, 2012; The Kite Princess, illustrated by Laura-Kate Chapman, Barefoot Books, September, 2012) and amongst other things, runs critique events and groups for the British Isles SCBWI Chapter. www.julietclarebell.com