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Tag Archives: picture books
Lyrical Language Lab…and Me!
As writers, we think a lot about words. Big words. Little words. Rhyming words. Vivid words. So many words! Everything we create depends on them. But sometimes the right words are elusive. They aren’t leading to the sound or rhythm … Continue reading
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Tagged lyrical language lab, picture books, poetry, writing classes
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How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 16: Circle Back
Step 16: Circle Back It’s no coincidence that these last three steps have “back” in them. Backmatter, feedback, and circling back are all important steps in this project. So, you’ve now gone through all the steps of writing a nonfiction … Continue reading
How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 15: Get Feedback
Step 15: Get Feedback At some point along the path of writing your nonfiction picture book, you will need to get feedback. Perhaps at many points. My writing group, the Wordsmiths, meets monthly, and as we pass out our manuscripts, … Continue reading
How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 14: Come On Back(matter)
Hi, writer friends. I made it to Round 3 of Madness Poetry, where I had to write a poem for kids including the word “parlance.” Yeah. Anyway, voting is live, and if you’d go here to read the poems by … Continue reading
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Tagged how to write a nonfiction picture book, Laura Purdie Salas, picture books
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How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 13: Storyboard It
Step 12: Storyboard It By this time, you hopefully have a draft that is a reasonable word count and feels like the right structure for your book. Now it’s time to storyboard. This is also called dummying out a story. … Continue reading
How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 12: Cut It! The Long and Winding Read
Here’s something kind of funny. Back in the early stages of this process, I was brainstorming possible angles for writing a picture book about trucks or truckers. Not to really do it, but in order to share examples of how … Continue reading
My New Picture Book!
I haven’t been sharing my blog tour here about Meet My Family, but today’s post is specifically about the genesis and writing process of it: “I was always ashamed as a kid because my family was so different from my … Continue reading
Posted in Laura's Writing Life
Tagged Laura Purdie Salas, picture books, promotion, writing process
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How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 11: Read-aloud-ability: Imagine Storytime
An important quality of picture books is that they are usually read aloud to kids. Some things that can give a book more read-aloud appeal are: its interactive potential: Are there questions the listener might answer? Is there a repeated … Continue reading
How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 10: Use Your Inside Voice
Another aspect of your manuscript to think about is voice. What is the tone of your manuscript? Nonfiction is not neutral. It is not voiceless. It is not boring. Look again at the effect you’re aiming for. For instance, if … Continue reading
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Tagged how to write a nonfiction picture book, picture books
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How to Write a Nonfiction Picture Book: Step 9: Find the Arc
From here on out, almost everything is about taking that draft and making it better. (Or at some point, perhaps it will be about throwing that approach out and doing a new first draft with a whole new structure, angle, … Continue reading
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