Planning Picture Book Page Turns
How to keep children eagerly reading your book
Even the youngest readers need to be caught up in the story. Here are some tips for keeping suspense when writing a picture book.
Novel writers keep readers reading by ending a chapter in the middle of the scene. Readers won’t easily put the book down because they have to know what’s going to happen. But how do you create that tension when you’re writing a picture book, and your entire story is told in less than 1,000 words?
One way to write a more interesting picture book is the “page turn.” Within your story, create a question in your reader’s mind that makes him eager to turn the page.
Picture Book Suspense that Works
Eric Carle mastered this concept in Brown Bear, Brown Bear. The first page of each spread asks the question, “What do you see?” while second page answers, "I see an [animal] looking at me." The desire to see the illustration of the answer keeps children eager to read on. On the next page, the picture of the animal is waiting for him, along with another question of what Brown Bear sees.
In One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab, April Pulley Sayre uses the familiar sequence of counting, but leaves her readers wondering what creature she’ll use for “four,” and how she’ll ever make “seven” out of animal legs.
Laura Joffe Numeroff uses the page turn to create suspense in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (and all its sequels). She splits sentences onto two pages: “If you give a mouse a cookie,” /page turn/ “he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.” She also splits scenes into segments, and when readers are told what the mouse will probably want, they can’t wait to see what he’ll do or want after that.
Writing Exercises
Study current picture books to see how authors have planned their page turns. Do they keep you interested? What would you do differently? Are there methods that several different writers use?
If you’ve already written picture book manuscript, work on creating suspenseful page turns. Split a sentence in two. Have a scene that implies a question. Put part of a dialogue exchange onto another page.
If you’re not working on a particular story, take some time to develop this skill. Even if your quickly-created plot is mundane or your characters don’t sparkle, practice splitting ideas, sentences and scenes onto two pages. Then when you create a story that really works, you’ll be ready to include compelling page turns.
