Nancy I. Sanders's Blog, page 29

Faith Building Fridays: Strong and Steady

So, my dear fellow writers, be strong and steady in your commitment to write, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you write for the Lord is ever useless.

-paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 15:15, NLT

What a wonderful promise God gives us to know that nothing we write is useless. If our manuscript is just for our own personal growth, so be it. If it’s just for the eyes of the editor who rejects it, it has accomplished its purpose. If it is for our critique group’s hearts to draw them closer to God, then it has met its eternal purpose. Whatever God’s plans are, they are important, and He has important plans for every single manuscript we write. Alleluia!

Dear God, thank You for this precious promise. Everything I write is of value in Your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Scribes: Devotions for Christian Writers is available at Amazon.

Filed under: Faith-building Fridays, Inspiration, Uncategorized

Faith Building Fridays: Dreams

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but when dreams come true,

there is life and joy.

-Proverbs 13:12, NLT

Oh what joy there is when our writing dreams come true! Let’s dance a happy dance and praise God’s name. Let’s play a game of fetch with our favorite pooch and tell him what fun it is to be a writer. And while we’re waiting on God to make our dreams come true, let’s rejoice. Our day will come!

Dear God, please encourage me each step of the way that you’re leading me on as a writer. Thank You for the promise of life and joy as Your scribe. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Scribes: Devotions for Christian Writers is available at Amazon.

Filed under: Faith-building Fridays, Inspiration, Uncategorized

Faith Building Fridays: Encouraging

An encouraging word cheers a person up.

-Proverbs 12:25, NLT

There are so many rejections and words of criticism in a writer’s world. Let’s make it our goal to spread encouraging words everywhere we go so we can cheer each other up! When we’re at our critique group, let’s mark lots of positive feedback on each other’s manuscripts. When we e-mail our editors, let’s thank them for their careful guidance. When we blog or tweet or post on Facebook, let’s share encouraging Scriptures to build up our fellow writers.

Dear God, help me be an encourager! Show me ways to encourage my writer friends. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Scribes: Devotions for Christian Writers is available at Amazon.

Filed under: Faith-building Fridays, Inspiration, Uncategorized

NF PB Journey: Change 1

Once again, we’re talking structure. Plot structure. (Do you like how the structure of this baby quilt I made makes it so pretty and pleasing?)

In our last post, we discussed how to structure the beginning of our nonfiction picture book manuscript based on our mentor text, DIRTY RATS? 

Today we’re talking about CHANGE 1. This is the change that occurs in our plot structure to move us out of our BEGINNING and into the first half of our MIDDLE.

In DIRTY RATS? this change occurs with a cliffhanger.

On pages 8-9, it ends with:

But wait…

Then the next page starts a section where we learn that not all rats are dirty.

So in our own manuscripts, let’s follow this example. Let’s end our pages 8-9 with a cliffhanger. It can be But wait… or you can use something else.

Go ahead and add that to incorporate CHANGE 1 into your own manuscript.

Filed under: Uncategorized

NF PB Journey: Structure Your MS…The Beginning

For several upcoming posts we’re going to discuss the structure of the nonfiction picture books we’re writing with the goal of submitting specifically to Charlesbridge (and other publishers who accept unsolicited nonfiction picture book manuscripts).

Structure. When I sew baby quilts I follow a very specific pattern and structure to put each piece together. This summer, I’ll be getting 2 new baby nieces and 1 new grand baby. (Yes, I’m smiling!) So I’m working on more baby quilts right now. We’re talking structure!

Without structure, the quilt would be, quite frankly, a jumbled mess. So it is with picture book manuscripts.

Using our mentor text, DIRTY RATS?, let’s talk structure for our manuscripts as well. Plot structure.

We already talked about our beginning and our end.

DIRTY RATS? starts with a question. On the very last page of the main text, it repeats that question and then gives an answer based on what the readers learned from reading the book.

Let’s do the same.

Let’s start our manuscript with a question. Let’s end our manuscript by repeating the question and give the answer based on what we plan to write about.

Next let’s take a look again at the plot chart for DIRTY RATS? Notice that this chart is divided into a BEGINNING, a MIDDLE, and an END. (The middle is divided into two halves.)

For the BEGINNING of DIRTY RATS? the author repeats the question on the first 4 spreads (as a statement) with general (and very engaging!) facts to support these statements.

So here’s our assignment for today:

Write the first four spreads of our manuscript.

We’ll repeat our question about our topic (in some form) FOUR TIMES and provide engaging and general facts FOUR TIMES about our topic.

This will give us our BEGINNING from pages 2-9 of our manuscript.

Here’s a tip:

Since we’re following the structure of DIRTY RATS? so closely, type your manuscript in picture book format.

In other words, type it like this:

2-3

Text.

4-5

Text.

6-7

Text.

8-9

Text.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Uncategorized

Faith Building Fridays: Commit

Commit your works to the Lord,

and your thoughts will be established.

-Proverbs 16:3, NKJV

God’s mercies are new every morning. He has a brand new supply of ideas waiting to fall upon us each day as fresh as the morning dew. Let’s commit ourselves to meet with God each and every day as we prepare for our day’s work and writing. He will establish our thoughts and we will break through writer’s block like never before.

Dear God, thank You for Your promises. Help me be faithful to meet with You before I write each day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Scribes: Devotions for Christian Writers is available at Amazon.

Filed under: Faith-building Fridays, Inspiration, Uncategorized

NF PB Journey: Plot Structure

Today you’re going to see one of the biggest reasons I chose DIRTY RATS? as my mentor text to guide us on our journey as we write a nonfiction picture book to submit to Charlesbridge.

I charted the plot structure of DIRTY RATS? on my Basic Plot Worksheet A. To download your own copy of this plot sheet so that you can fill it out in your own handwriting, CLICK HERE and scroll halfway down to click on the pdf file to print out.

Here’s how the plot unfolds:

BEGINNING

The story starts with 3 spreads where it discusses the question, Dirty Rats? Yes, rats are dirty.

CHANGE 1

But wait! Not all rats are dirty.

MIDDLE

1ST HALF

In the first half of the middle, we read four specific examples of rats that are not dirty.

CHAGE 2: TURNING POINT

In fact, we find out at the exact middle of the book, rats can even do good things.

2ND HALF OF THE MIDDLE

Here we are given 3 examples with general information about rats on the good and helpful things rats do.

CHANGE 3

To sum it all up, rats struggle to survive.

ENDING

The last page of the main text repeats the opening question: Dirty rats?

Then it answers the question based on what the reader just learned: Maybe. Maybe not.

Can you see how simple this plot structure is?

In an upcoming post, we’ll look at how we can build our own manuscript’s plot to be strong and simple like our mentor text’s.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Uncategorized

NF PB Journey: Beginning and Ending

 

 

Let’s take a close look at our mentor text, Dirty Rats? We’ll start by looking at the beginning…and the ending.

In a picture book, the title and the cover often start the true beginning of the story, and in our mentor text, this is the case. On the cover of the book, in the title, a question is asked. The question is:

Dirty rats?

This question is repeated on the first 3 spreads of the book, but it’s repeated as a statement.

Now let’s look at the very last page of the main text of the picture book.

Pages 26-27 say:

Dirty rats?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In other words, the ending of the book answers the question that was posed in the title and repeated on the first 3 spreads of text. The question is answered with the answer children learned from reading the book.

If you want to follow along with my journey I’m taking to target Charlesbridge and write a nonfiction picture book using Dirty Rats? as our mentor text, then I recommend coming up with a question you want to ask kids about the animal you have chosen as your main topic. (CLICK HERE to read about brainstorming for a topic if you haven’t yet chosen one.)

Plan to use this question as the title of your book.

Plan to repeat this question on the first three spreads of your book.

Plan to repeat this question at the end of your book.

And then plan to answer this question at the end of your book, based on the information you’ll be presenting to children and teaching your readers about your topic.

This technique of tying your ending into your beginning is a great technique to use to bring your story full circle. As you can see in the worksheet example at the top of this post, a question isn’t the only technique you can use to wrap up your ending to tie into your beginning. (CLICK HERE to get this free sheet as a printable pdf file you can download and use for other manuscripts you’re working on to make your beginning and ending stronger. Just scroll down toward the bottom to get it.)

A question is the technique our mentor text uses, so for this exercise, let’s choose to ask a question and answer it in our own manuscript we’re working on. Determining the question and answer right at the start of our writing process will really help us keep the focus nice and tight as we move forward with our picture book manuscript.

 

 

 

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Faith Building Fridays: Work

I brought glory to you here on earth

by completing the work

you gave me to do.

-John 17:4, NLT

God has work for you to do. It’s different work from mine. Each one of us has our own tasks to accomplish no matter how big or small they might be. The important thing for us to remember is that nobody else can quite do the job He has assigned to you exactly like you can.

Dear God, please help me bring glory to Your name. Calm my troubled heart that frets that I’m not as good as another writer. Help me remember that I just need to do what you’ve called me to do, warts and all. That is enough. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Scribes: Devotions for Christian Writers is available at Amazon.

Filed under: Faith-building Fridays, Inspiration, Uncategorized

NF PB Journey: Brainstorming

Let’s take a quick look at our mentor text, Dirty Rats?

The topic is straightforward. It starts with rats in general and then presents different kinds of rats with their specific, unique characteristics.

So let’s brainstorm ideas for a topic to write about. Now you can choose any topic you’d like, but if you want to follow closely along the same steps I’m doing, I recommend we choose a group of animals that has lots of different kinds.

For example, elephants won’t work as well because there are only 2 different kinds.

But animals such as bears, monkeys, horses, cows, butterflies, or even worms would work. Each of these animal groups has a lot of different kinds!

To help you brainstorm, I designed an “Idea Bubbles Brainstorming” sheet. CLICK HERE to visit my site, Writing According to Humphrey and Friends, to download it as a pdf file. Just scroll half-way down and click on the link for “Idea Bubbles Brainstorming.”

Print it out. As you brainstorm ideas for a topic, write the name of a group of animals in the large bubbles. In the smaller bubbles nearest each, write down different kinds of that animal.

Think about which animal you might like to write about for the topic of your new nonfiction picture book using Dirty Rats? as our mentor text. Have fun exploring different ideas!

 

Filed under: Nonfiction, Picture Books