PICTURE BOOK FOCUS Add Oomph to Your Picture Book Climax with a PAUSE
In this feature, Natascha Biebow shares tips on how to strengthen
the climactic turning point in your picture book
Are you
good at telling jokes? If you are, or know someone who is, you’ll also know
that what makes a good joke teller is the PAUSE. Like this:
What do you call a pig that knows karate?
. . .
Here, the joke-teller pauses looks around the audience for effect and
then waits for them to envision the outcome.
Then, only then, do they deliver the punch line.
A pork chop!
An effective picture book climax works in much the same way:
The story builds up to a moment of PAUSE . . .
The looking-round-the-audience, envisioning-the-outcome-moment is the
page turn, and the punch line corresponds to the last few spreads of plot
resolution that follow the climactic turning point.
This pause can be achieved in a number of ways:
SHHH! I'm Reading! by John Kelly & Elina Ellis |
Mrs Armitage On Wheels by Quentin Blake |
Neon Leon by Jane Clarke and Britta Teckentrup |
I Really Want To Eat a Child! by Sylviane Donnio and Dorothee de Monfreid |
Tiz and Ott's Big Draw by Bridget Marzo |
Adding a pause to your pacing will help to give your climactic turning point more oomph and keep readers turning the pages to read the punch line ending.
Natascha Biebow is
an experienced editor, mentor and coach, who loves working with authors
and illustrators at all levels to help them to shape their stories. www.blueelephantstoryshaping.com
She is the author of THE CRAYON MAN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF CRAYOLA CRAYONS
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