New arrival on the way by Tracy Darnton

 

I’ve gone to the dark side and become a picture book author!

I usually write psychological YA thrillers where – spoiler alert – bad things may happen, everyone’s hiding a dark secret and I love cooking up a twisty ending.

But, dear reader, I have recently gone to the dark side and my first picture book for little ones is out next month with Simon & Schuster. My Brother is an Avocado is a fresh twist on the stages of pregnancy from ‘poppy seed’ to ginormous ‘watermelon’ being taken literally by a sibling as they deal with the excitement and anxieties of a new baby on the way.

The day my picture book publishes, I’m chairing a panel on keeping secrets and telling lies with very grown-up crime writers at CrimeFest in Bristol, and then I’m shortly off to the Chills and Thrills panel at Comic Con at Excel. Not nervous at all - I’m used to chatting about all the elements of a thriller. I’m even used after so many YALCs of doing this in a room with people dressed up as stormtroopers and Thor/Wonder Woman.

I’ve always had lovely, engaged audiences who, generally speaking, do not heckle, throw things or cry. How will I adjust to events for *shock horror* babies and small children and talking about picture books?

But these two ends of a spectrum of books for kids have more in common than you might think. Bear with me as I look at the similarities between penning a 60-70,000 word YA thriller and a 400 word picture book.

Characters

Both need characters to care about – we have to care whether the mouse gets eaten by the Gruffalo, don’t we? Just as we have to care in my thrillers about what happened to Kat who disappears in a game of hide-and-seek at the beginning of Ready or Not, or want Amber to escape her prepper father and his bunker in The Rules. In my YA, I enjoy writing characters who can appear unlikeable at first but gradually reveal their vulnerabilities and why they’re like that. People we can empathise with and care about. The child character in My Brother is an Avocado is worried about how the new baby will fit in with the status quo, whether they can play together, whether they’ll be likeable or cuddly. All anxieties we can empathise with.

The hook

The longer I spend in the publishing world, the more I realise the hook matters. What’s going in the email to your agent, the pitch to a publisher, the acquisitions meeting? What’s the strapline? What’s going on the back of the book, the display in Bologna, the press release, the second paragraph in this blog? YA or picture book, you need something ‘hooky’. Something original, strong, exciting, something that works well with the title, and that everyone can buy into throughout the process.

Story arc

A three-year-old does not know, or care about, the hero’s journey, three act structure or the Save the Cat beat sheet, but, just like a teen, they know when a story disappoints them. They quickly pick up on the shape of a story, the arc of a character changing from the beginning to the end and a problem to be resolved with building complications along the way. YA or PB – you’re going to need a satisfying resolution – and possibly a twisty ending!

Every word counts

Keep it tight whatever you’re writing. Picture books are short – they must be quicker to publish, right? Wrong! When I wrote this book, one of my nieces was pregnant. Her son is now about to start school and she’s had another ‘avocado’. It’s been four years since signing the deal to publication – though the pandemic didn’t help. The avocado iced biscuit I bought myself in my signing excitement is long past its sell-by date. I’ve had to restock. The artwork, the printing, everything takes way longer than you think.

Are you sitting comfortably? 

A picture book definitely has to work read aloud as a bedtime story. But I always read my YAs aloud too as one of my edit stages. This picks up any clunky dialogue or words that the tongue will trip over. It helps to develop the voice of a piece. 

Which reminds me, off to practise reading aloud to my little avocado friend ready for my new scary audience….

 

Tracy Darnton is the author of YA thrillers Ready or Not, The Rules and The Truth About Lies AND the picture book My Brother is An Avocado.

You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TracyDarnton