NF PB Journey: Turning Point

As you can see in this photograph, my two helpers love to get involved while I’m working on my quilts!

Think of this next step in your manuscript as a BIG HELPER. It’s called the TURNING POINT. It happens in the exact middle of a manuscript. It’s the bridge that takes us from the first half of the story and crosses us over to head toward the finish line, the ending.

The TURNING POINT points the reader in the direction of the conclusion of the manuscript, and there’s no turning back.

In our mentor text, DIRTY RATS? for our nonfiction picture book that we’re writing, the turning point comes on pages 18-19.

We discover that not only are there rats that aren’t dirty, but some rats can even do good things!

So for our own manuscripts, let’s add in a turning point that is still focused on answering our question from the very beginning, but turns the tables to provide information that will head us toward the answer to that question.

When you write the turning point, you should have the ending of your manuscript clearly in mind. As you can see in the photo below, here’s how this baby quilt turned out in the end.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Plots, Uncategorized