How to Write a Rhyming Picture Book
If you're wondering how to write a rhyming picture book, you're not alone. Many writers are drawn to this format. Rhyming is, after all, a nostalgic and famed feature of picture books. Maybe you grew up with nursery rhymes, or maybe rhyming simply feels ideal. When done well, rhyming picture books are snappy, quotable, and fun to read. Children retain the words more easily and begin to identify patterns and sounds: a real treat. The problem? Writing a good rhyming picture book is much trickier than it looks.
How to write a rhyming picture book: It’s double the toil and double the trouble / Rhyming a line so I can end with bubble
If you’re looking to get your work traditionally published, Writing Irresistible Picture Books is the resource for you. Dive in and learn the best strategies to get your picture book noticed by literary agents and publishers, and to leap into the hearts—and onto the shelves—of amazing young readers everywhere.
Disclaimer
Picture books do not have to rhyme.
They often don’t! In fact, some agents and publishers specifically do not want a rhyming manuscript. Why? Because it’s tough to do well. And the market has moved on, for the most part. That nostalgic element is there because rhyming picture books were more common in the past. If you choose to write one, you’re taking on extra competition with other writers while simultaneously vying for limited space with agents and publishers.
Well, no one ever said getting published was easy. So you want to go for it? Great! Let’s hit the books.
How to Write a Rhyming Picture Book
Read in your category
The first step in learning how to write a rhyming picture book is to find out what’s happening in the market now. Sure, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson (illustrated by Axel Scheffler) is a rollicking, rhyming, Halloween-themed title, but it was published in 2003. What was happening in the market then doesn’t necessarily reflect what will work for your picture book that will be published some time from now. Read more here on children’s book writing trends.
For seasonally appropriate rhyming tales, check out The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry (illustrated by the Fan brothers), in which rhyme and rhythm are handled beautifully. Cookie Boo by Ruth Paul has tight, short rhymes and a fun “BOO!” refrain. The Ghosts Went Floating by Kim Norman (illustrated by Jay Fleck) is based on the song “The Ants Go Marching.”
Count your syllables
How to rhyme in picture books isn’t just about rhyming. Rhythm is essential, too.
You may vaguely remember laboring over scansion in English classes, marking the stressed and unstressed syllables of trochaic heptameter and iambic tetrameter. It isn’t really necessary to do this for your picture book. It may even kill the joy for you. Instead, try marking your syllabic counts per line.
Traipsing through the woods at night (7)
The witches have come to cause a fright! (9)
This rhymes, right? Well, yeah, but the rhythm is all off.
Read aloud
In a category which is mostly intended to be read aloud to children, this is important. How does it sound? Do you trip between sentences because there’s something strange going on with the rhythm? In the previous couplet, we roll into the second line having to squash syllables to maintain established meter: “Thewitcheshavecome to cause a fright.”
Rhyme and meter is tightest and works best when the lines have the closest possible amount of syllables. The most impressive rhyme is subtle, and a reader may not even register it until they’re well into the story. This deftness is accomplished with strong attention to rhythm, which should be consistent.
Hm. Let’s try this again:
Creeping through the woods at night (7)
Witches stir to cause a fright (7)
Better! Now we have both the same amount of syllables per line, and the rhythm has been adjusted so that one line flows into the next. We’ve also invoked a different tone by selecting more specific verbs.
Use clean syntax
On Halloween, shine a light (7)
As on their brooms, they’ll take flight (7)
Okay, that just sounds ghastly. Beware of using filler words that mean the same thing just to achieve a certain meter, as with “shine a light.” This is saying the same thing two different ways, which is unnecessary, especially in a picture book with a limited word count of 600 words or less. Also, rhyme should never be bent to the point of becoming nonsensical. Syntax does not need to be sacrificed for the sake of rhyming.
Rhyme simply
This Halloween, they’ll take flight (7)
Bring a light or run and hide (7)
No need for that. Use near rhyme (also called slant rhyme) sparingly, if at all. In this case, there are plenty of true rhymes to choose from. There’s a balance and an art to keeping it simple. The easiest of one-syllable rhymes like ‘bat’ and ‘rat’ can be overdone. At the same time, you aren’t writing poetry or rap music. The more complicated it gets, the less likely your young reader will identify with it.
When full moon’s bright, they’ll take flight (7)
Hide inside with a flashlight! (7)
Tightening and tuning up your stanzas will help polish your story, improve its marketability, and make it even more fun to read!
Exercise creativity
Chances are, whatever you’re writing about has been thought of before. That’s unavoidable and it’s okay. You have so many opportunities for originality in your characterization, your characters’ motivations, voice, humor, and your own twists along the way.
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