Tips for Writing in Verse

Writing is hard, no matter what age group you write for, and writing in verse is even harder.

Here’s why: the rhyme and meter has to be perfect; the story still needs a narrative arc with increasing tension, the main character needs to solve the problem and the story needs a satisfying ending; and many times, the writer focuses on the rhyme and meter that the story elements are left behind.

You may say what about books that are lists, there is no narrative arc, no main problem for the character to solve, it is simply a list. A list it is, but those books are written by award-winning authors whose books are bestsellers.

For example, Duck & Goose How Are You Feeling? by author illustrator Tad Hills, as the title suggests, several emotions are illustrated – selfish, proud, frustrated, and others. His books are sweet and charming with name and character recognition.

I read some authors that write picture books in verse, write out the story in prose first. Once they are satisfied that the story has all the story elements then they work on the rhyme and meter.

In addition to studying stories in verse, and reading books on craft, I suggest reading book reviews from reputable sources. These reviews are a teaching moment. They tell us what they liked about the story, and/or what was lacking and what was excellent. Whether you write in verse or prose, it’s all about the story.

Betsy Bird’s blog https://afuse8production.slj.com/category/reviews/

Board Books, reviews by Betsy Bird

https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/06/21/2022-board-books-some-delights-so-far/

Breaking Down a Query Pitch

Writing a query pitch requires one to pare down their story to seven sentences or less. Whether your story is a picture book or an adult novel, writing an effective query pitch is challenging. Use the following questions to help you state the key points in your query.

Who is the main character (MC)?

What is the MC’s problem?

What is the MC’s goal?

What are the obstacles preventing the MC from obtaining their goal?

What’s at stake? Make it personal.

What happens if the goal is not reached?

For picture books, how does the MC solve the problem?

For middle grade and older, read the back jacket copy of published works. You’ll notice it doesn’t state how the character solves the problem, it is more of a tease or left unanswered.  

I sent my 4-sentence picture book query below to Jennie Dunham Literary, Inc. and she requested the manuscript.

When Charles visits his grandma in the country, he misses the excitement and noise of the big city and wants to go home. Charles tries to adapt to his new environment by making his own noise. After several attempts of making smaller noises, his imagination kicks in and soon enough the whole farm is in an uproar. Charles is enjoying his time with his grandma and can’t wait for his next visit!

Breaking it down:

When Charles (MAIN CHARACTER) visits his grandma in the country, (OBSTACLE, NATURE OF COUNTRY IS QUIET), he misses the excitement and noise of the big city (MC’S PROBLEM) and wants to go home. (WHAT’S AT STAKE, NOT VISITNG GRANDMA) Charles tries to adapt to his new environment by making his own noise. (GOAL) After several attempts of making smaller noises, his imagination kicks in and soon enough the whole farm is in an uproar. (MC SOLVES PROBLEM) Charles is enjoying his time with his grandma and can’t wait for his next visit! (IF GOAL NOT REACHED, CHARLES WILL NOT COME BACK)

Excluding how the problem is solved, my query would have looked like this:

When Charles visits his grandma in the country, he misses the excitement and noise of the big city and wants to go home. Charles tries to adapt to his new environment by making his own noise. Charles solves his problem and is enjoying his time with his grandma and can’t wait for his next visit!

Adding how the character solves the problem makes the query stronger.

If the seven sentences or less doesn’t work for you, use the number that you need to answer the above questions, but keep the pitch to two or three short paragraphs.

  

The Important First Chapter

You may hear writers groan when they have to rewrite their first chapter again and again. Sometimes, it is because the story you started writing has changed and the first chapter doesn’t lead the reader to the final chapter. Being aware of your first chapter’s tasks may shorten your revision time. Some of my examples are personal favorites or well-known titles. The goals of your first chapter are listed below:

1. Grab the editor’s, agent’s or reader’s attention by your compelling first few lines, sentences and paragraphs

In THE BOOK THIEF by MARKUS ZUSAK, his sixth line reads “You are going to die.” What? Why?! You are immediately intrigued, curious, maybe even frightened, but you keep reading.

2. Introduce the main characters

In THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by PAULA HAWKINS, Rachel is a heavy drinker, divorced, and unhappy. She lives in Cathy’s flat, a former school friend, and frequently leaves drunken messes that Cathy cleans up. We learn about Rachel’s former life with Tom, her ex-husband, who she still loves. Rachel doesn’t respect boundaries and drunk calls and texts him which causes problems between him and his new wife, Anna. Rachel is obsessed with a couple that she watches through the train window at a signal stop. She calls them Jess and Jason and has invented a perfect, happy life for them.

3. Hints at theme

In THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS, a Newbery Honor, by KATHERINE PATERSON, we learn in the first chapter Miss Ellis, the social worker, has placed Gilly with multiple foster families desperately trying to find a home for her. The theme is about love and belonging.

4. Sets the tone

Is your story humorous with silly plotlines line the CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS books by DAV PILKEY or is it a serious subject like gangs and police violence in THE HATE U GIVE by ANGIE THOMAS?

5. Lays down the foundation for conflicts or problems that will arise later

In THE HATE U GIVE by ANGIE THOMAS, Starr and her friend, Khalil, suspected of being a drug dealer, run out of a party after shots are fired by a gang member. They drive away, but see the flashing lights of a siren behind them. We have a shooting in a black neighborhood and a cop pulling over the main character and her friend, what could go wrong?

Once you’ve completed your novel, you may have to revise your first chapter to include or strengthen one or more of the elements listed above.

You can do it!

Visions by Cheryl Rainfield

Kate, a teenager, has debilitating asthma which threatens her life, but also makes her an observer of life. She can’t participate in sports, can’t enjoy the outside world when the pollen count is too high, but that’s not all, cigarette smoke, perfumes and different scents also trigger an asthma attack. But severe asthma attacks also elicit second sight.

She has a contentious relationship with Jenna, her older sister, who feels ignored, unloved and jealous of her mother’s chronic attention to Kate and her asthma.

Besides being chronically ill, Kate is queer and bullied at school, but she has a joyfriend, Desi. Kate experiences the thrill and excitement of her first kiss and first relationship.

Kate’s visions warn her of people in danger. She sees her sister, Jenna, being beaten to death by her husband, Mason, and Desi’s sister, Inez, considering suicide by overdose after being assaulted and shamed on social media.

But she can’t change the outcome of her visions; she tries warning people, but they don’t believe her.

Kate must find a way to control her visions without jeopardizing her life, save Jenna from her abusive husband and save Inez from herself. If that wasn’t hard enough, she has to save herself from Mason, who wants to eliminate her.

VISIONS by Cheryl Rainfield is a vivid, emotional, suspenseful story and also one of family, love, compassion and forgiveness.

Getting to Know Your Character

We can all agree that building characters your readers will care about is essential for good story telling. If the reader doesn’t care about the characters or what happens to them, they’ll stop reading. Been there, done that. I admit, I felt guilty for not finishing the novel from a well-known author; I was more than two-thirds of the way through. The only reason I read as much as I did was because I was told “it gets better.” But it didn’t.

We’ve all seen lists on character building. My list has some examples, and I hope, thought provoking questions.

1. What is your character’s perspective? Are they a Pollyanna or a Debbie Downer?

2. What assumptions do they make about people? Do they give them the benefit of the doubt or assume they are trying to rip them off, get more money from them or use them?

3. What do they value? Money/material things, family/friends, education, service or caring for animals?

4. What’s their moral code? The end justifies the means or it’s okay to cheat or steal as long as they don’t get caught?

5. What’s their impossible dream? If your character’s dream was to be the first woman on Mars, it’s not impossible, but the odds are against it, hence my term the impossible dream. But it says a lot about their character.

6. What’s their belief system? Are they someone who feels they don’t deserve to be happy, but find themselves deliriously happy in a new relationship? How will they react when their belief system collides with their new reality?

7. What’s their biggest secret?

8. What line won’t your character cross?

9. What keeps them up at night?

10. What’s the worst thing they’ve ever done?

CWHV June 2024 Conference

Our June 8, 2024 CWHV Conference was a wonderful success. Our keynote speaker was Susanna Leonard Hill, who delivered an inspiring speech on persistence. She also enlightened us on where she gets her ideas, how to find new ideas, how to dig into your own past and discovering feelings and fears for emotional truth.

Alexandra Penfold, an agent at Upstart Crow Literary, explained in detail the picture book editing process and what questions one should ask when editing, and how to develop an emotional connection between the reader and the character. She also shared mentor texts with their illustrations. Attendees worked on their pitch as their hands-on exercise.

Mekisha Telfer, an editor at Roaring Brook Press, discussed the voice of your characters and how voice can set the mood, used multiply published works to demonstrate how voice can define your characters and setting, and reviewed the different stylistic tools of writing. The hands-on writing exercises focused on the voice of your characters in your novel.

Alison Weiss, an independent consultant, talked about the lows and highs of publishing, the disappointments and the joys. She discussed marketing ideas and strategy, how publishers get their sales numbers, explained the profit and loss process and what to do if your publisher closes or your editor leaves.

Everyone enjoyed a delicious Panera lunch while chatting with fellow writers or the faculty.

Many thanks to our hard working attendees, without you our conference wouldn’t exist. Also, a big thank you to our faculty Susanna Leonard Hill, Alexandra Penfold, Mekisha Telfer and Alison Weiss.

A final thank you goes to our dedicated staff Catherine Ciocchi, Della Ferreri, Tania Guarino, Valerie Marchini and Karen Orloff.

Pictures from our June 2024 conference

Did you Write a Picture Book or a Short Story?

After rough drafting your picture book manuscript and revising it several times, you anxiously share it with your critique group. You hear suggestions and comments, some of which you agree with, some not, but the devastating opinion is when you hear, it’s more of a short story and you should consider magazines. AAAAH!

As writers, we need to accept criticism of our work. Okay, we can do that. But when is a story more suited for a magazine than a picture book (ages 5 to 9)?

Both traditional picture books (not mood books) and short stories have main characters who should solve their own problem and both picture books and short stories should have a take-away from the story. The basic differences between short stories and picture books are explained below.

Short stories have more descriptions of your characters and setting because there are only a few art spots, word counts will vary for each magazine (400 to 800 for Highlights for Children), the read-a-loud quality and multiple readings are not as important and you don’t have to worry about scene changes or page turns.

In a picture book, there is little description of the characters and the setting because we leave room for the illustrator, the word count is short, usually 500 or less (different publishers have different guidelines), the take- away should not be pedantic or preachy, the language should be amusing with a read-a-loud quality to encourage multiple readings, enough different scenes to support a 32-page format and a text to encourage page turns.

The differences are few, but important. 

A personal favorite of mine is Go Sleep in Your Own Bed by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Lori Nichols. When the pig goes to bed and finds a cow in his sty, it sets off a chain reaction of all the animals moving to their own bed.

The language is entertaining with onomatopoeia, fun verbs like “straggled, peckety-droop” and pleasing expressions like “Oh, fluff and feathers.”

Page turns are encouraged by each animal going to bed and finding a partially hidden animal already bedded down. “Who do you think he found?” The reader must turn the page to expose the animal. The repeating refrain of “Get up! . . .Go sleep in your own bed!” is read by the reader.

This book is an outstanding example of a lively, read-a-loud language and a text that encourages page turns.