TEACH & TRAIN

Image: Polly Dunbar, Ideas Everywhere © 2011

Ideas Everywhere by Polly Dunbar as featured on Bookstart is a great lesson in Story Telling 101: Where do ideas come from, how to create suspense, and more.

A good presentation is a good story. This is lovely stuff. (Which is why my teacher/editor me only very quietly mumbles: It should be whose, not who’s in the image above. How did this get past the editor? But then editing/correcting is a whole different story from writing.)

You may feel this particular story is not age appropriate for you. You are mature, grown up, a professional. Picture books are kids’ stuff.

Well, you’re in for a surprise. Age is a marketing thing. Great stories are beyond that.

You may want to read the author’s notes to find out more about what it takes to tell a story/give a presentation.

• Ideas
• Characters
• Emotion
• The BEGINNING
• Location
• Dilemma
• Conflict
• The MIDDLE
• Resolution
• The END

And let’s not forget about imagination. 

There is also a three-part interview with the author. Below is part three in which she talks us through illustrating tips, how to flesh out ideas and what to expect from the process of making a picture book.

Linklove: via Twitter/@storytellin