Plot Line of a Picture Book

I'm revitalizing an old post I did for a group blog a few years back, partially for my reference. A bit of useful information for any of you out there wanting to write a picture book.

If you are an illustrator like me, one of your ultimate goals is to write your own story to illustrate. Being trained in illustration and not children's writing, I love getting any helpful hints I can get. Here is a great one I learned from a writer.

Get a blank piece of paper and fold it in half.Fold it in half again.And again.And one more time.Now unfold your piece of paper. You now have 16 squares.Number each square 1-16.


As you probably may know, most trade picture books have 32 pages, or 16 spreads- so each square will represent a spread of your book. As you have probably guessed, each square represents a spread (two pages). The following guidelines are what many good children's books go by. Remember they are just guidelines- this formula is not always used and it can be very flexible, but it's a good starting ground. Write these things in the boxes as follows:

In box #1 write: character and setting. This is where the characters and setting are introduced to us. This is also developed in box 2 and 3.

In box #4 write: Problem shows up. This is where we start to see our conflict.

In box #5 write: Action- characters make 2 attempts to solve problem and fail. This part of the story is developed from spread 5-11.

In box #12 write: Crisis happens and everything falls apart.

In box #13 write: Feelings and reaction to crisis.

In box #14-15 write: Third attempt to solve problem and final resolution.

And then finally in box #16 write: character's reaction to success. (Sometimes here you can also add a small surprise or often times you can have the conflict starting all over again in a humorous way.)

Also remember that in almost all children's picture books, there is a happy ending, or at least a hope for things to go better. So keep that in mind.

Hopefully this is a good help to you visual learners out there who would like to write your own stories.