Pubspeaks
Writing and Illustrating Children’s Books—Unique Perspectives from Award Winner Rosalyn Schanzer
By Gaea L. Honeycutt, WIW Member
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Schanzer began her career as an illustrator—first with greeting cards and, later, books—but her intellectual curiosity and natural writing ability led her to both write and illustrate historical children’s books. “I’ve always loved to write. It’s just fun for me,” said Schanzer.
Still, developing a book idea in such a competitive market can be difficult. “The very hardest part when I was getting started was to come up with a terrific, unique idea for a book. Often that’s still hard.” Among the most common mistakes writers make Schanzer noted, “Their stories are corny. They feel that their books have to have a moral (huge mistake).” She encourages authors not to believe they must adhere to some standard of political correctness.
While Schanzer said authors shouldn’t take themselves too seriously, they should create high quality work. “They think that anybody can write for children, and since the work isn’t for adults, they don’t have to try very hard to perfect their writing style or to do an absolutely first-rate job.”
Schanzer begins with primary sources, exhaustively researching the real words of her subjects to find unique facts that will bring history alive. For example, while researching How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark, she found that Clark spelled “mosquito” 14 different ways in his journals. However, the many versions of “mosquito” didn’t make it to print. “The publisher thought it would be too confusing for the children,” explained Schanzer.
She also discovered a common misconception about the Lewis and Clark expedition—Sacagawea wasn’t a guide. The 14-year-old girl was a slave who served as a translator during the journey. In her Native American culture, young women who were slaves became emancipated and married their masters when they reached the age of maturity.
Translating material into children’s book prose is much like writing haikus. With only 32 pages (including front and back matter), each word must carry meaning. “The thing about writing for kids is that every word counts. You must make them as pithy as possible. Good picture book authors always aim to get across a fascinating idea and a boatload of information by using as few words as possible.” At the same time Schanzer provided advice from which every writer can benefit, “Work to have a voice that’s unique to you.”
The author gives equally-detailed attention to her illustrations, with some paintings taking as long as 12 days to complete. Readers can find anything from action scenes to intricate two-page maps in Schanzer’s books. “It’s good to have [the story] take place in a lot of different locations, so you can have pictures of a lot of different things.” She demonstrated this throughout the presentation with excerpts, anecdotes and slides of her vivid artwork. For one book, she painted the illustrations on wood to incorporate the unique texture from each piece’s pattern.
However, Schanzer cautions writers about submitting illustrated manuscripts, “Unless you’re a professional illustrator, only send a paginated manuscript.” She continued, “If you’re working with an illustrator, submit one finished spread (two pages) and sketches for about three more pages. For computer graphics, send two finished illustrations.” Publishers have their own in-house illustrators and the standard in the industry is quite high, so self-illustrating is likely to weaken a submission rather than enhance it. If there’s a specific type of picture you’d like featured on a page and it’s important to the story, note this on the page in parentheses.
When asked what surprised her most about the children’s book industry, Schanzer replied, “I am amazed that despite the finest quality of a certain book, if a terrific author is not a rock star, movie star, politician’s wife, or well-known athlete, they almost always have to be their own publicists in order to sell books because publishers tend to give all their publicity money to the rich and famous. I hate that!”
Her next book presents a timely, politically-charged challenge—Charles Darwin. Unlike the historical figures she usually writes about, Darwin’s famous achievement is the topic of hot debate in contemporary political and social circles. Schanzer is searching for a way to meet the publisher’s requirement that both sides of the evolution-intelligent design debate be presented. However, it seems that the author may have already found a solution—the captain of Darwin’s ship. And, she’s very excited about the topic, “You have to have a hook, and science has never been done using original source material!”