Wow! The Things I Learned!

This week I plan to devote my blogs to what I learned at the SCBWI conference.

First of all, I have to mention that we had the most beautiful snowfall on the day of the conference. Tulsa doesn't usually get snow in March, much less 6 inches! We beat the record by ten days and five inches. Wow! So, of course, since it IS Oklahoma it is now melted with only a few traces of snow remaining.
--Drat! the ground is too soft to do any of the gardening I have planned!

I really liked the way this SCBWI program was set up. We had six speakers who spoke for 45 minutes then we had a 15 minute break to get up, walk around, get coffee or use the restrooms. Throughout the day, they had a box for questions that would be used during the panel session at the end of the day. The moderator spent the second to the last session reading and organizing the questions. She was able to group similar questions together forming a question that composed all the questions. Very well organized!

Since this is a SCBWI conference, the I stands for illustrators. There was a separate room for illustrators to show their portfolio, their product. and there was a first and second place winner. In addition, the illustrators were able to hold a 'pitch' type session with the Simon & Schuster art director. I don't know if this was an extra charge for the illustrators, but talk about an opportunity!
--Just like the editor critique that I paid $30. Best money ever spent! I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Just like any genre, children's books have sub-genres, BUT within each sub-genre comes another set of sub-sub-genre. Yeah, it is very complicated because there are no real delineations between them. So how does a writer figure out where her work resides?

I had my epiphany during Kristin Daly's talk. An editor with Harper Collins, she talked about the role of Easy readers and chapter books. Many ER's and CB's feature a series character: Henry and Mudge, Amelia Bedelia, Junie B and Judy Moody. Some of these are CB's, but they are also Easy Readers. Same thing goes for picture books and easy readers. How do you tell the difference? Other than PB's being cut on larger sized paper?

Now, I think the editor will have the final say in this decision, but you have to know roughly where your work resides. Take my Peter books. I always thought they were picture books, but came to the conclusion they were really Easy Readers. It's a combination of many things: sentence structure, vocabulary, and identifying with character--read that as building a series. When I wrote them I envisioned children reading the story, BUT an adult can also read to the child. The words are simple, but there might be one or two the child would have to decipher within the context of the text or pictures.

Hopping around here: Half of the picture book story MUST be told within the illustrations. While the illustrations in Easy readers tend to confirm the written text.

And while we're at it, throw word count to the dogs. There is no place for it in these books. Some chapter books are as short as 500 words or as long as 15000 words, depending where they fall in the child's reading development. Children's books have to fall in a very structured book format, except the longer chapter books. Even the Magic Treehouse books fall into this category and they are beginning chapter books.
PB's, ER, and early CB's have to be 32 pages. Period. Which means you have to make each page count. If you thought adult readers were unforgiving, children are worse. Do NOT bore a child.

So this week I've taken five different books off my daughter's shelf and will be typing them into the computer. I plan to use single space, but will double space between the 'pages'. I want to visualize the rhythm, pattern, and pace of these published books before I edit my Peter stories. I think the Peter stories will do well, but I need to figure out the formatting and pacing before I send them to the editors and agent.

I now have the tools to improve my stories, and I intend to use them. We all know how stubborn I am about my writing, but to ignore this chance to improve my story would be stupid.

Write on!