Picture books are usually very simple stories. Can you draw parallels between their arcs and those of older stories in terms of where the beats fall and what they are? Inciting incident, rising action, etc.
Joni Nemeth
3 years ago
Since many of your “beats” are carried by the illustrations, how much direction to this effect did you provide in your art notes?
Can you offer tips for starting places in figuring out the beats of your picture book story? Is it best to start with the opening and close and then work your plot arc in between?
Picture books are frequently 32 pages. Can you give us an idea of where beats should fall relative to page count? Or is it better to do this by word count?
How important is it that a picture book hits all of the beats you’ve laid out? Can a story still be strong without covering them all?
Hannah Heath
3 years ago
Here’s the start of mine: YA Fantasy.
Opening image: Dying desert
Theme stated: Family trouble.
The set up: Hearing news that the war effort is in search of assassins
The catalyst: Brother is dying because of something that happened during the war, so MC decides to take his revenge
Do you think this is a particularly useful technique for those of us (me included!) who are natural pantsers, but have found that they need to structure a bit more? It seems to be a sort of looser way of thinking about structure than some plotting techniques, so maybe appeals most to people who don’t want to plan out every step of the way?
Do you usually “beat it out” during outlining? Or editing?
If writers want to look at other picture books to analyze their beat sheets, which books would you recommend?
Picture books are usually very simple stories. Can you draw parallels between their arcs and those of older stories in terms of where the beats fall and what they are? Inciting incident, rising action, etc.
Since many of your “beats” are carried by the illustrations, how much direction to this effect did you provide in your art notes?
Can you offer tips for starting places in figuring out the beats of your picture book story? Is it best to start with the opening and close and then work your plot arc in between?
Picture books are frequently 32 pages. Can you give us an idea of where beats should fall relative to page count? Or is it better to do this by word count?
How important is it that a picture book hits all of the beats you’ve laid out? Can a story still be strong without covering them all?
Here’s the start of mine: YA Fantasy.
Opening image: Dying desert
Theme stated: Family trouble.
The set up: Hearing news that the war effort is in search of assassins
The catalyst: Brother is dying because of something that happened during the war, so MC decides to take his revenge
*Dying desert as in: A war-torn land that happens to be a desert. 🙂
Do you think this is a particularly useful technique for those of us (me included!) who are natural pantsers, but have found that they need to structure a bit more? It seems to be a sort of looser way of thinking about structure than some plotting techniques, so maybe appeals most to people who don’t want to plan out every step of the way?
Fabulous presentation! Thank you!
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of the beat sheet before. Very interesting 🙂