I’m sitting on the fence today, not sure if I’m a picture book author or a novelist. I launched my new picture book, Orange Juice Peas, at the end of April and I’m already starting to think about the launch of Maze Running in June. So I’m going to spend the month of May being a wee bit confused about who I am. Do I write books about peas, bananas, babysitters and giggling, or do I write books about monsters, magic, danger and quests?
The answer of course is that I do both, often on the same day, and that I only occasionally get confused. But why do I do both? And is there any difference, for a writer, between them?
The main difference for me is that I spend so much time with the characters in a novel, often months, sometimes years, that I know them as well as my family and friends, and care about them almost as much too. I don’t spend nearly as long with the characters in a picture book, so however fond I am of them I don’t know them as well. In fact, I don’t really know them at all until I see their pictures. That feels like the moment I first meet them, which can be a year or so after I write the book!
Also, I don’t have to describe the characters in a picture book, or everything that they do, because the reader can see them on the page (I may have described the characters and the action in illustrator’s notes when I came up with the idea, but those notes aren’t part of the finished book.) In a novel I have to give the reader a lot more detail, because the reader has to make the pictures of the characters and the action in their mind (the very best kind of pictures, I think!)
And the words in a picture book are still a work in progress until they are married with the pictures, because the illustrations are just as much a part of the story as the text. The cover of a novel, however, is designed to draw you into the story, it’s not part of the story.
And why do I write both? Because I always want to find the best way to tell a story. When a “what if” pops into my head, I want to explore it in the best way for that question. If the question is about whose bottom this is, or who is going to eat what ice-cream, then it’s probably a picture book; if the question is about why someone has just kidnapped your brother and sisters to use in a magic spell, or why there’s a thieving jellyfish trying to strangle a camp full of scouts, it’s probably an adventure novel! Also if there is only one problem to solve it’s probably a picture book, if there are lots of problems it’s probably going to take a bit longer!
So it’s usually clear to me whether a story idea is a novel idea where I will build the pictures for the reader to see, or whether it’s a picture book idea where I build the structure for an artist to create the pictures.
So, picture books and novels look very different on the shelf, and they are quite different for the writer too. And right now I have a picture book idea AND a novel idea in my head. Which should I go and scribble down first?
picture books vs novels!
Here are all my picture books and all my novels so far. They do look quite different! Which pile looks more fun to write?
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