The Best Curated Content for Authors & Writers

Plotting the Picture Book, Part I: 5 Basic Structures

Picture books are quick reads, fun, and often gems of characterization, mood, sensual detail, and dialogue. They are also perfect for learning the basics of storytelling—regardless of the writer’s age, or genre. One thing well-written picture books do is to organize what’s happening in a coherent way—and they do this quickly. Usually within 32 pages and less than 1,000 words.

There are a variety of story-mapping, or outlining, techniques that can be used in pre-writing. All of these are helpful. But I’ve found that seeing the internal structure of a story is especially helpful for visual learners. In fact, when I teach writing I often ask students to draw the plot of their stories. If a writer can envision how it fits together it’s much easier to catch gaps, and to discover where in the story events should happen.

While I was spending 24+ years as a librarian, primarily in youth services, I took the time to analyze a number of the picture books and came up with 10 basic types of plot structures. Below are five of them—the simplest ones.  I’ll post the next five more interesting ones in Part II of “Plotting the Picture Book.” Note: you may occasionally come across a slight variation on one of the types shown below.

More and less of things

Less to More:  An example is “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”  In that case it’s from smaller to bigger items that she swallows.

More to Less: An example would be the classic story of “Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.”

Overlapping More & Less: In the book The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins as more children arrive, the number of cookies for each dwindles.

In step with time

Linear Time:  And example of this is Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Circular Time: Laura Numeroff’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie uses this structure.

More to come! Keep on the look-out for next month’s posting in which I’ll introduce an additional five plot structures. Or go to www.shutta.com/resources to find a handout with more information about plotting the picture book.

Resources
READ ALSO:   7 Tips to Writing Character Biographies

Snag a FREE Book Promotion ➜ BestBookMonkey.com

Share This Article

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Pocket

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Weekly News Digest Image

Author News Weekly Digest

Never miss the best articles designed to help authors succeed!

We hate SPAM too! Unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Policy

Affiliate Disclosure Logo

Affiliate Disclosure

Links on this website may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking on a link, Author News Daily or the article’s original author may receive a commission that will not impact the price you pay.

Latest Articles

Recommended Audiobook for Authors

Recommended Book for Authors

Related Posts

Telegraphed My Ending to You*

Telegraphed My Ending to You*

In a well-written whodunit, the author provides information, clues, and so on, so that the protagonist (and the reader) can work out who the killer is.

How to Treat Your Inner Writer

Don’t make the expensive mistake of not understanding what your writer’s values are. Dive into this article discover more and become a better writer.

Recommended Audiobook for Authors