How to write a picture book: the myth of 'formula' versus free creative flow
M.C. Escher “Relativity” 1953
I often hear from writers who are ‘against’ writing to formula, ‘against’ writing-by-numbers, ‘against’ writing to ‘recipe’.
The interesting thing is some of them are already writing to what they might call ‘formula’ or ‘recipe’ without realising they are doing it.
If they are, it’s because they are born storytellers.
They write from an unconscious part of themselves that intuitively understands the primeval patterns of lived experience, and how humans translate this into story.
They understand the science of storytelling without having to think about it.
They are the people whose stories are published with sometimes only the minimum of editorial input.
The rest of us have to battle with a tranche of preconceived ideas about what it ‘means’ to be creative.
We have to unlearn a stack of fondly held beliefs centred around the idea that, because we created it, it is therefore creative, and if it is creative, it is therefore good.
There are infinite ways to start writing a story
There are as many ways to start writing a story as there are people who set about writing one.
Some writers start writing because they have been inspired by a setting, some begin with a ‘what if’, some with a character, some with an overheard phrase, some with a philosophy, some with a moment, an object, a loss, a gain, a spark of insight, a protracted life-changing experience.
Some simply free-write until something sparks.
There are writers who embark on their story world by meandering like a river over a lush and uncharted plain. There are those who write biographies of a character until that character’s story emerges. Others explore a setting until characters turn up to populate it.
Some start with an emotion, wrap it in character, then put the character through a range of trials to see how they handle each, and what happens next. Some start with an answer and try to figure out what the question could have been. Some start with a question and try to figure out what the answer will be.
Most of us do all of the above at one stage or another.
Whichever way a story starts telling itself, the process of taking it for a walk is often a joyful and exhilarating one.
The truly creative process means letting go of all constraints, and of entering ‘flow’.
The flip side of ‘flow’ picture-book writing
Writing a story – conjuring a world out of thin air - is an enchanting and stimulating adventure. All of us who have been on this adventure, no matter how briefly, have tasted the thrill of creative exploration.
At its best, the creative process generates a state of ‘flow’, and we all crave ‘flow’.
There’s a reason for this.
‘Flow’ is a real thing.
It can be measured, and it can be deliberately generated.
Flow is the feeling we get from the release of a specific neurochemical cocktail during the act of unfettered creativity and that contains the feel-goods we associate with discovery, excitement and satisfaction.
The pitfall of creative flow is inadvertently associating our feeling of satisfaction with the creation itself, instead of understanding that our satisfaction is a response to the creative act.
We feel satisfied with creativity.
The creative value of our creation is another thing altogether.
This is where ‘craft’ comes in.
Creativity versus craft
Once we have free-flowed and felt fabulous, we need to switch our approach to our story.
We need to switch our thinking mode between the Default Mode Network and the Central Executive Network (more reading on the interplay between the two networks here).
In other words, we need to stop being creatively subjective and start being more objective about our creation.
We need to put on our story-crafting hats and make sure our flow-of-consciousness writing is turned into something that is of interest to someone other than ourselves.
Do we write for the sake of writing? Excellent. This is hugely enjoyable and satisfying.
Do we write to be published? We need to knuckle down to the craft.
I have had people tell me, “I don’t write to recipe. I trust you to do your editorial thing”.
What this means is they are interested in the feel-good, free-flow, shoot-from-the-hip stage of storytelling, but not in the stage that makes the work publishable: the crafting of the raw material.
What it also means is they don’t realise that the ‘insight’ of every editor is based squarely on the so-called exact ‘formula’ the writer is rejecting.
The craft of writing a story
There are many elements to the craft of writing.
These elements include the spelling level (super basic), the word level, the sentence level, the paragraph level and the structural level.
The most important level to look at once you’ve finished the creative phase is structural.
Get the structure, or plot right and the rest falls more easily into place.
The structure is where we find ‘form’, from which the dreaded ‘formula’ sprouts.
But form and formula are not the same.
Creative writers are quite right to reject the latter.
But we all need to embrace the former.
We need to embrace it, absorb it and assimilate it until it is not merely second nature, but nature itself.
‘Form’ is derived from nature.
The ‘form’ of a story resonates with the shape and form of our lived experience.
But that’s another story.
In the meantime, you might like to have a look at Seven Steps to Story, which I wrote as an introduction to the ‘form’ of storytelling.
There are many more steps to telling a story than just seven.
But Seven Steps to Story is a great first step. Or a perfect final step.
Your editors will thank you for taking it.