#Picture book manuscript examples how to#
How to Find Unique Rhymesįirst of all, most of the end rhymes I see in manuscripts are about as inspiring as “cat” and “hat,” and I’m pretty sure someone else has already cornered that market. Yet a lot of people who choose to write in rhyme don’t seem to make that connection. I’m not bragging, but I am here to ruin your day a little bit: Rhyme involves a whoooooooooooooole lot more than putting cute words at the ends of sentences. Why? Because I have creative writing training, know my poetics, and can identify rhyme issues a thousand miles away. Now that I’m a freelance editor, I actually love working with rhyme. ( Get some inspiration for picture book ideas here.) Whether it’s a misconception that you have to write rhyming children’s books in order to find a publisher, or an affinity for rhyme, or a misconception that young kids can only communicate in rhyme, I’d like to discuss this controversial topic with a little more clarity. Last week’s post on children’s book writing trends would apply a little more heavily here… To those writers, I would suggest a trip to the bookstore, so they can see what’s being actively published now. So some writers still have this idea in mind that PB = cutesy rhymes.
Part of the issue is that a lot more picture books used to be in rhyme than are being published now. The Problem With Writing Rhyming Picture Books That’s a pretty big disparity, right? There’s not a lot of demand for rhyming texts, so you need to be writing rhyming children’s books that stand out. I had one rhyming PB client out of maybe fifteen PB “generalists.” And yet 8 out of 10 picture book manuscripts that came into the slush were in rhyme. Rhyming children’s books were the bane of my existence as an agent, honestly, because not many people are that great at writing rhyming picture books.
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