Words, Wisdom, Art & Heart: Making A Picture-Book Cookie

My name is Cheryl Klein
And I’m an editor at Arthur A. Levine Books
And this talk is called Words, Wisdom, Art & Heart: Making a Picture-Book Cookie

Now, making a story is never as straightforward as a recipe—put in these ingredients and out it pops.
Each story depends upon the personality of the cook, the quality of his or her materials, and the unique way the cook chooses to combine them.
But like recipes, all stories have
- Common ingredients
  - Characters you care about, doing things that make a difference in their lives
- An order to follow, from beginning to end
- And basic rules of procedure—techniques you can learn through apprenticeship, study, or stealing,
  - which help you along the way to the desired result
And that result is something that satisfies not just the palate
- The taste buds seeking sweet or savory, the mind seeking adventure
But the soul, in the emotional effect that arises from the experience.

And I want to draw your attention to that distinction, between the surface experience of a work of art and the larger emotional effect
If you're familiar with my website, you know I talk a lot about the two different kinds of plot—the action plot and the emotional plot
The action plot is what happens in the story: A little boy in a wolf suit sails to the land of the Wild Things, where he is king and there is a wild rumpus, until he decides to come home
The emotional plot is what the story means, how it makes you feel: A little boy who has been sent to his room, made to feel his own lack of power, travels to a place where he has nothing but power—and discovers that power isn’t the greatest good, that he wants to be where someone loves him “best of all”
All good stories—and this isn’t just picture books, but novels too—have both an action plot and an emotional plot.
And they are most satisfying when they work together, playing off each other, to create a story you can’t put down, a story that fills you up
Exactly like a good dinner or a great dessert

So I thought the best way to discuss picture book making would be to start with an actual picture book manuscript
Suppose I’m a writer, and I’ve decided I want to write a picture book about me and my best friend Katy
And I’m just going to tell the story of something we do together—a shopping trip, say
So I write a story called TWO FRIENDS TOGETHER
Click here to read TWO FRIENDS TOGETHER

So, problems with this story? None, right? It’s totally perfect and publishable?
Good heavens no!
There are many, many problems with this story. I’m going to break them down into six categories, which we’ll talk about one by one,
And we’ll look at a couple different versions of this manuscript as we try to fix those problems
and hopefully by the end of this analysis
- You’ll have a better sense of how picture books (and indeed all stories) are structured,
- What a perfect picture book can and should do,
- And how you can improve your own work to bring it up to those standards.

So, I was just talking about action plots versus emotional plots
What’s the action plot of this story?
- Two friends eat salads, get facials, buy jeans, and drink martinis.
And the emotional plot
- They have a nice day together.
Leaving aside the problems with the story structure for the moment
What’s the number-one problem with those answers?
(There’s not really anything there for a child to connect with)
Problem #1: No Child Interest
The picture book is an amazing art form
And it doesn’t have to be for children; many adult artists work in the book form
But as a financially viable, commercially publishable form, almost all picture books are for children
And this means it has to speak to a child, to give delight or meaning to a child, to be fully successful
It should do this in both its action plot and its emotional plot
Action plot
- Often has a child or child stand-in as a protagonist
- Deals with experiences kids have—friends, school, pets, brothers and sisters, going to sleep
  - Though I confess I’m a little wary of stories about pets, bullies, and monsters under the bed, as those topics have been so well covered they’re almost clichés
- Or it shows a childlike adult overcoming a problem children face
  - A bad mood, loneliness, failure

Emotional plot
- Growing up
- Dealing with fear
- Overcoming difficulties in life (fairy tales)
- Something to think about: A lot of children’s stories are actually about power, because it’s the number-one thing kids don’t have.
  - Where the Wild Things Are, all those fantasies about evil overlords and orphaned children chosen for great destinies
  - The book provides an imaginative space for the child to identify with the protagonist, act out his aggression without repercussions, overcome difficulties, and finally gain powr and use it wisely.

So how can a writer create a story with child interest?
Study child psychology
- I am actually not kidding about this. Kids go through certain stages in life where they respond to certain phenomena in terms of action plot
  - Why there are so many books for three-year-olds about fire trucks
- And they need certain forms of reassurance, or they can handle certain levels of fear or challenge, in the emotional plot.
- A good child psychology book can cue you into which ages are ready for what types of stories.
But that speaks to the general, the mass of kids.
Once you have those principles, you, as a writer, have to ground them in the specific
- A real character or conflict
And often that starts with what you know of the world and what you remember of your childhood.
Reach back into yourself—beyond the easy memories and clichés—and think about:
- What is your first memory? Your favorite memory?
- What was your favorite thing to do by yourself, or place to be?
- Who were your friends? What did you do together?
- What scared you most?
- What made you happiest?
- What were your dreams or fantasies? What did you want to be when you grew up?
And build a story around those emotions or events
I’m not saying that you should solely write what you know
But that your truest story begins with your own experience—"a writer's way of being in the world," as Zadie Smith says—transposed into an imaginary context and characters.

Now, obviously, I have not chosen an imaginary context and characters for TWO FRIENDS TOGETHER
But the one thing that is true and meaningful about the story that kids might connect with: the characters’ friendship.
When I was a child, I was passionately devoted to my friends.
- I can still name most of my best friends throughout elementary school
- I shared best-friend necklaces, I wrote stories about adventures we had together
- And the years I was unhappiest were the years when I was without a best friend
And this dedication to my friends continues today.
- Katy has been my best friend for ten and a half years, since we were suitemates our freshman year of college. We studied abroad in England together. We’ve wept over boyfriends together. I edited her dissertation and was a bridesmaid in her wedding.
So the fact that it’s about best friends is a plus.
But what are the friends doing? They’re eating adult foods, getting adult spa services, buying adult clothes.
This has nothing to do with children’s lives or psychology, so these activities will seem entirely foreign to them.
So I’d like to write a story about friendship, but I need to find some plot for it that has child appeal.
Is there something else Katy and I could do together?
Well, as you might tell from our very first activity in the story—we like to eat.
So I decide I’m going to revise this story so she and I are still the main characters
- But instead of being about shoe shopping, it’s about making cookies.
(Note: I would LIKE to revise this so it has child main characters, but I’m going to show some illustrations of it at the end, and for that I needed to use us as grown-ups. But you can imagine it with children if you like.)
Click here to read MAKING COOKIES WITH KATY.

So, as a piece of writing for children, is this better or worse?
- Marginally better, because it does at least deal with things children are interested in, like cookies
But we still have numerous problems going on
The number one being—there’s not much going on!
It is what editors often identify as a “slice of life” story: It neatly captures the activities of these two friends, but nothing happens.
- Either action-wise: They make cookies. Big deal.
- Or emotionally: They’re friends. Big deal.
So the two issues we’re looking at right now with MAKING COOKIES WITH KATY:
Problems 2. & 3.: No emotional journey, and no narrative shape

Actually, I need to pause here for a moment and talk about the two different types of picture books,
Because many picture books do not have plots at all.
These books fall in a category I call “Now” books
- Meaning they exist in the present moment
- To celebrate or describe something: Everywhere Babies, Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop, Goodnight Moon, Richard Scarry
- To teach: ABC books, concept books
- Many nonfiction picture books
At the other end of the spectrum are story books, in which something changes over time
- Owl Moon, The Gardener, Julius, the Baby of the World, Kitten’s First Full Moon
- The solution to a problem
- The capturing of an experience
- Basically any book that involves a character who we follow and care about.
There are excellent books of both kinds
- Charlie Parker is probably my favorite picture book ever, and Everywhere Babies close behind
Though I must say that there’s a dangerous trap for illustrators here, in that they have a cool idea for a character or illustration, and they write a now book, not realizing it ought to be a story book.
- They can get away with it because the illustrations are so clever, but it’s not necessarily the best or most interesting book it could be.
- Because you’re looking at the character and their behavior rather than getting involved with them.
- Olivia, by Ian Falconer.
Anyway, there is so much variation and possibility in the picture-book genre
That I’m going to ignore most of the Now books, and concentrate here on the story book end of things

So going back to the problem I identified with this:
No emotional journey, and no narrative shape.
In a picture book, these two things are identical.

All stories, whether in picture books or novels, need to have a beginning, middle, and end
Or as I prefer to think of it: “Problem, Process, Solution”
- Starts with a problem
- Then it shows the process by which that problem is worked out
- Then it arrives at a solution and its consequences
Example: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus has two spreads of beginning—in fact, it’s the endpapers and title page; then twenty-odd pages of middle; then three spreads of end.
- It works because the middle grows in emotion, as the pigeon gets madder and madder and madder and you just say no no no
- And it climaxes when the bus driver comes back and drives away.
- The pigeon is disappointed, but then he’s on to the next dream—a rig!
- Incredibly efficient and clever in both its art and text
Note that this should be ONE problem
- There is no room for subplots in the text of a picture book.
  - They might happen in the art, as in Good Night Gorilla, where the mouse trails along after the gorilla and the security guard;
  - but that is for the artist to determine, not the writer.
And most crucially: A change happens, in the character or his circumstances, as the problem gets resolved.

You remember when I was talking about action plots and emotional plots?
The distinguishing feature of a plot, as opposed to a story,
Is that a change happens from beginning to end
- It might be a change in the protagonist’s circumstances
- It might be a change in the protagonist himself
- Often it’s a change in both, as the character has learned something, or gained something, or gone somewhere new
And this change—in a picture book—is always for the better: The character is better equipped to live his or her life happily because of the experience we’ve seen.
- In Where the Wild Things Are, Max has gotten his wildness out and come to appreciate “where someone loved him best of all”
- In Pigeon, the pigeon has moved on to a new dream.

So coming back to MAKING COOKIES WITH KATY: Hrmm. We seem to be missing a story here—a problem to solve—and any sort of change.
So we have to invent a problem.
It could be something simple, like Katy forgot to bring the egg and has to go back out and buy one.
- But that would be sort of boring, and add length to the story without involving any sort of change.
The most interesting problems for stories are not external conflicts,
But internal or interpersonal situations to be explored, for instance
- We could create a Conflict: Cheryl fights with Katy.
- A Mystery: Cheryl doesn’t know where Katy is
- Or a Lack: Katy misses Cheryl.
From those premises, the story could go in multiple directions.
For instance, if my plot were a Lack: Katy misses Cheryl
- Then the action of the book—the process—would be about the two of us reconnecting in some way
- And the solution would be our satisfaction once that happened.
  - Arthur A. Levine Books published a lovely book on this theme this spring, called Half A World Away.
If my plot were a Mystery: Cheryl doesn’t know where Katy is
- Then the process would be the search for Katy, and I could walk around yelling “Katy! Katy! Hot cookies here!”
- And the solution would be us sharing cookies together.
  - The real Katy read an early draft of this talk, and she said that if this mystery actually involved me yelling “Katy! Katy! Hot cookies here!”, it would be a very short book, because she would come running for the cookies and we’d have our solution.
But just for the heck of it, I’m going to go with the problem of Conflict: Cheryl and Katy fight.
- Process: They figure out a way to apologize and make up.
- Solution: They’re friends again, better than ever, because they’ve both learned something about themselves and the nature of friendship.
Why would Katy and I fight?
o Again, many possibilities for direction here.

o But conflict plots always come down to one thing: what one character wants vs. what another character wants

And this problem of our fight, the reason behind it, is going to be the emotional problem of the story
- the real, deeper conflict that needs to be resolved as we’re tussling over cookies or whatever
So I could say that she borrowed something from me and never returned it
- which is true, but which is an external conflict like forgetting the egg; she returns it and the story is over.
We could fight over a man
- Which we have never done, and which would not be appropriate really for a children’s book, being a grown-up conflict rather than a childhood one
We could each want to take charge of the baking
- Which happens a lot when Katy and I work on things together
Or afterward, we could each want the last cookie.
- Which also happens a lot when Katy and I eat dessert together.

And that would cover our problem
- And both of those last two things are interesting, kid-friendly problems, actually
- That could have equally interesting processes and solutions

But here I was working under the limitation that I wanted to write a story involving Katy and cookies
And she was in England, and hence not available to pose for illustrations.
So I made up a conflict where one of us is in a bad mood—namely me—and I am mean to Katy
I admit this isn’t as interesting as, for instance, us both trying to take charge of the baking, but:
- It is one singular problem, as a picture book needs;
- It can be resolved by the process of cookie-making;
- It has a change, as I go from bad mood to good.
- And I’m the main character, as is necessary for my illustrations.
Whether you write picture books or novels, an editor might sometimes ask you: “Whose story is this?”
- And the answer is: “Whichever character experiences the emotional change.”
  - So if you write a novel where a girl is struggling with her alcoholic father
  - And the father enters rehab and apologizes to his daughter for hurting her
  - But the girl doesn’t forgive him and stays angry
  - It is the father’s story, not the daughter’s, that’s interesting there, because the father is making a major change and the girl isn’t
  - And you’d need to revise the novel to address that.

So, our problem is, I am in a bad mood, and this makes me mean to Katy.
And let’s look at version number 3, WHEN CHERYL MAKES COOKIES
Click here to read WHEN CHERYL MAKES COOKIES
This is our story in terms of action plot:
- Problem: Cheryl fights with Katy
- Process: Cheryl makes cookies
- Solution: Cheryl sends Katy cookies; they are friends again.
And in terms of emotional plot:
- Problem: Cheryl is in a bad mood, and hurts Katy’s feelings.
- Process: Cheryl is distracted from bad mood by pleasure of making cookies and by remembering her good times with Katy, and she comes to feel sorry for what she did
- Solution: Cheryl sends Katy cookies; they are friends again.
And we see that all happen here.
Y’all know the book When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry?
- You can think of this as When Cheryl Makes Cookies—Many, Many Cookies

So now I’m feeling pretty good about my story structure: Everything’s in place.
But, you probably noticed, I introduced a number of other issues into this draft, all of which reflect issues I see a lot in picture book manuscripts.
The first one is still related to story structure: the ending
- Where does the action problem end? When Cheryl and Katy make up.
- Where does the emotional problem end? When Cheryl’s bad mood is gone.
- Are these the exact same point? No.
But the story stops being interesting once the emotional problem is resolved.
- This has been Cheryl’s story, not Katy’s
- Cheryl’s bad mood, not her best friend’s.
- We don’t actually need to see the two of them reconnect to feel the satisfaction of the change happening and the story being complete.
So the story more or less ends with “Cheryl decided she would send Katy a box of the cookies to say she was sorry.”
- And if I were the editor on this book, I would just cut those last seven lines.

The second new issue in this draft: Unnecessary dramatization.
In novels, I love to see emotionally significant conversations and actions played out in full.
- Novelists must construct the whole imaginative world in the reader’s mind, and they have as much space as they need to do it in.
Same for short stories: You have time and space to offer explanations, flashbacks and flash-forwards, insights into a character’s brain, full descriptions of dress and action
Picture books are different.
- They’re only 32 to 48 pages;
- Most of the page will be taken up by the illustration;
- There must be something to illustrate
  - Which means there has to be more outward action than inner action—it’s boring to see pictures of someone thinking or making a decision
- That action always drives FORWARD
  - You read the book from left to right, and that is the direction the action must always move as well.
  - That means no flashbacks to things in the past or future: You show only present action.
- All of the visual information and description will be shown in the illustration.
- And in general, you want to have as tight and short a text as possible.
  - Writers never like this, but it’s true: The shorter the better.
  - It’s not a trend, it’s a fact.
This manuscript as it stands at present is more like a short story
- I describe what Cheryl and Katy look like, and even what phones they use
- I have a flashback to the grocery store, explaining why Cheryl was in a bad mood
- I offer lots of irrelevant detail, like what Cheryl’s favorite cookie and soft drink is, and what CDs Cheryl is choosing among for her baking music.
- I spell out every single action, like setting the temperature on the oven and putting the CD in the CD player.
I also do something that would be equally awful if I were writing a novel or short story
- I say, “Cheryl was still very angry,” and “Cheryl felt very sorry she’d been so rude.”
- That is, I tell, as opposed to show.
- Right after the line, “Cheryl was still very angry,” she stomps across the apartment—that’s showing. And then I mail a box of cookies to Katy—that’s showing.
- So those lines describing my emotional state are redundant and I could cut them.

Spelling out every single action and feeling here also creates another problem: The pictures will be redundant with the text.
This is one of the most difficult and intangible parts of picture-book-making, and what makes the picture-book form so unique: The factual and emotional information in the book does not come solely from the words.
So all we writers, illustrators, and editors of picture books are on a quest we cannot accomplish alone: to marry the words and pictures perfectly, inextricably
- So nothing is redundant or wasted
- The emotional experience grows out of both parts equally
- And the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.
If I say in my text “Cheryl smiled,” and I show this: [click here]
- That’s a boring illustration, because it’s telling us something we already know from the text.
- Or it’s boring text, because it’s telling us something we already know from the illustration.
Whereas if I say, “Cheryl had an evil plan,” and I show this: [click here]
- The text is telling us what’s going on plotwise
- But the illustration is showing how I feel about it
  - And it’s also showing you something about my character—that I like being evil
  - And it provides the humor of the unexpected.

In his marvelous book Writing with Pictures, Uri Shulevitz says, “A picture book says in words only what pictures cannot show. In a picture book, the pictures extend, clarify, complement, or take the place of words.”
The way this breaks down:
Pictures provide
- Visual characterization
  - What the characters look like, what their expressions are
- Visual detail
  - I don’t need to say in my text that Cheryl had a shiny red cordless phone while Katy had a black cell phone, because the illustrations will show that.
  - There is a long debate about whether authors can include visual notes—things the illustrations should include that do not belong in the text.
    - Editors dislike it because, I must tell you, it often feels like if you give an author a visual inch, he will take a mile.
    - He will describe shot angles. He will write character descriptions. And obviously the only thing keeping him from illustrating this book is the fact that he can’t draw.
  - So if you can avoid having visual notes, do.
  - But if you can’t, and if the visual action is essential to the story, describe that action in your cover letter or at the appropriate point in the story, briefly. Then let the rest of the manuscript stand on its own.
- The key moments of the action
  - A good illustration shows the highest point of emotional interest and active tension in a scene.
  - Suppose a text reads, “Cheryl ran through the park, leaped across the ravine, somersaulted through the daffodils, stood up, and started running again. But the man was still behind her.”
    - In a graphic novel, the illustrator might use several frames to show all five of these actions on a single spread.
    - But in a picture book, the illustrator has to choose—and so he’d probably go with the point where Cheryl was leaping across the ravine, because that’s the moment with the most tension and excitement.
    - He or she would also need to add the man chasing Cheryl in clear focus, as that’s the source of all this suspense and action.
- Visual Perspective
  - The distance, the angle, the size of the action we are seeing
  - A spot has different meaning than a full-page single illo has different meaning than a spread, because they each give a different emphasis to the action shown.
- And what this all adds up to is the visual atmosphere of the book
  - Sunny, bleak, detailed, vague, scary, joyous.
Words provide
- Story and structure
  - We’ve already gone over that
- Verbal and behavioral characterization
  - Who a character is, as seen in her words and actions
- Sound and dialogue
  - What two characters are saying to each other
- Plot focus
  - What overall action is happening, as the moment is frozen in time by the illustration
  - What matters in an illustration action-wise
    - Suppose we go back to that line I cited above: “Cheryl ran through the park, leaped across the ravine, somersaulted through the daffodils, stood up, and started running again. But the man was still behind her.”
    - The placement of the line about the man at the end of that paragraph (and probably the last line on the page) indicate that he’s important, readers should remember him and focus on him, even if he’s not the biggest image in the illustration.
- Emotional focus
  - What matters in an illustration emotionally
- Sound, rhythm, and pleasure of language
  - A good picture book text does not simply report the action in a flat tone: “Katy had a deep pore purifying facial. Cheryl had a restorative facial peel.”
  - And in fact, that was failing #6 of that text: Extremely boring language.
  - But good picture book texts demonstrate a strength of personality equal to that of the illustrations
    - They have lyricism, rhythm, humor, attitude, a special form—something to make the language as interesting as the stories they tell.

The king of picture-book writing with attitude: William Steig. If you look at his books, a lot of his text is redundant with his pictures, but it’s such funny, piquant text that you don’t mind.

Rhythm
- This means both that the prose is easy and pleasing to read
- And that the book itself has a rhythm in the places where repeating elements in the text appear.