Photo by L. M. Quraishi, © Words Like Rain, 2015
Thanks to author Carter Higgins, PiBoIdMo guest blogger, for her brilliant suggestion about picture book ideas. She urges us to ask ourselves, What is this book about?
Not a synopsis, but an about about.
Authors, agents and editors all focus on this question as they create pitches to sell completed manuscripts, but Higgins suggests wrestling with “the about about” much earlier in the process, at the genesis of an idea. Author Kathryn Otoshi described this as identifying the heart of a story at the May 2015 SCBWI North and East Bay Picture Book Intensive.
After three Novembers of participating in Tara Lazar‘s Picture Book Idea Month challenge, I’ve added Higgins’ idea to my Picture Book Idea Notecards, completing the system I use for logging and developing my picture book ideas.
