How are you doing with the challenge? NaPiBoWriWee is well underway and it’s Day 3 in our 7 day challenge to write 7 picture books in 7 days during National Picture Book Writer’s Week! Visit Paula Yoo’s blog to find out the details.
Are you working hard on your third picture book? I’m tossing around ideas. For the first 2 days, I wrote stories with predictable plots. That made it so much easier to write than trying to have to create my very own plot for a story. I wrote a story based on the Familiar Sequence predictable plot pattern for Day 1. Yesterday I wrote a story based on the Question and Answer predictable plot pattern for Day 2. (To learn more about Predictable Plot patterns, see my earlier post here on my blog.)
I decided to use predictable plot patterns because over the weekend I spoke at a conference. I didn’t have a lot of time to sit down and really get creative. Today I have 2 short story deadlines. If I get them done with time to spare, I’m going to start working on a picture book manuscript where I create story arc for the plot so it has a strong beginning, middle, and end.
But just in case I run out of time working on these deadlines today, I know I can look over my list of predictable plot patterns and create a story that repeats itself over and over again in a predictable way. If you’re swamped for time, you can use a predictable plot pattern, too. And besides, predictable plot patterns are fun to use, too!
To help jumpstart your creativity if you can’t think of anything to write about today, consider the Circular Story, a predictable plot pattern that was used in the picture book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Start your picture book with this question and go from here using the Circular Story plot:
If you give a penguin a fish…