Prudence Wants a Pet is ADORABLE!!!
If you haven’t read it yet, run out and grab a copy at your local library or buy it online and read it!
But not only is it a fun read, but it’s a super duper launchpad for a funtastic writing exericse. Here’s what to do to get your picture book writing juices in gear as you learn from PRUDENCE WANTS A PET:
1. Write a picture book about a universal theme such as wanting a pet, getting a new tooth, having a birthday party etc.
2. Make the slant be that the main character (MC) WANTS this thing, but as in PRUDENCE, she can’t get it.
3. So the MC gets a bunch of inanimate objects and personifies them or makes them have the qualities she wants. (This is the exercise that is great to focus on.) For example, if the MC wants a birthday party, she gets all her stuffed animals together to celebrate and pretends they are real (like Prudence pretended Branch and Twig were real) and makes them try to eat a mud pie cake, etc.
4. Then she gets what she wants at the end with a unique twist.
5. An extra bonus would be to have the twist be poignant such as when Prudence cried when she was happy but didn’t know about those kinds of tears.
Have fun doing this exercise! I did it and was amazed at the results.
hello! I ordered the book on amazon and I’m looking forward to read it!
I also bought “Hugless Douglas” by David Lemming.
Now, I need patience !
By: nicole snitselaar on August 22, 2012
at 6:11 am
Thanks, Nicole! And wow…Lemming’s book sounds so great, too!
By: nancyisanders on August 22, 2012
at 6:26 am
I received Prudence this day…. what a great book ! too funny for words!!!!!
And Hugless Douglass is just as precious !
By: nicole on September 5, 2012
at 3:26 am