Larissa Elliott Books

Did you know that lots and lots of elementary music teachers use picture books in their classroom? They go way beyond the typical read-aloud. There are all sorts of ways music teachers can link musical activities to books. Sound Effects When the characters in the book make noise, kids can use musical instruments to bring the sounds to life! Clicking sticks together, dinging a triangle, thumping a drum. You don't have to mention the sounds in your text for this to work, but vivid verbs can help: "Eliza stomped up the stairs" or "the dog swished through the tall grass" or "the thunder boomed." Character Themes If you've watched Star Wars , you know character themes. Princess Leia has a beautiful melody. Darth Vader has a menacing theme. Luke Skywalker's music is triumphant. If you have several distinct characters in your book, a music teacher could reinforce each one's appearance with a different instrument or a different tune. Dic...

Some resources will say to strive for perfect meter, but in reality, a lot of rhyming picture books will not have perfect lines with exactly the correct number of syllables. You can actually add or subtract syllables for "metrical variance." This will help you fit words you wouldn't have been able to fit, or to change up the feel a bit. HOWEVER, once you've established how many feet you have in each line, you should not vary the number of STRESSED syllables. You can add or subtract unstressed syllables with care. As a musician, I thought rhythm and meter would be easy to do in my writing. But I fell into one of the major pitfalls. Reading picture books is not the same as listening to a song (or even singing a song). In music, the beat and meter prescribes where the stresses go. You can sing words longer than a beat. You can have "rests" where you pause your singing and the beat will remain constant. But there isn't any sheet music to read or recordings...

Let me say that again. STOP COUNTING SYLLABLES!!! When you write a rhyming picture book, rhyme is only part of the challenge! First and foremost is story. Make sure your story is strong! And, yes, it should have decent rhyme. BUT! Rhythm and meter is a big part of making a good rhyming picture book. Many beginning rhymers start by counting syllables because it's relatively easy to do. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Shakespeare's famous sonnet has 10 syllables per line. But the reason it feels good when you read it is because of where the stressed syllables fall with weak syllables interspersed. It is in iambic pentameter, which means it has 5 "feet" of iambs (weak-strong pairs of syllables). Here are a few lines of my own that also have 10 syllables per line: Shall I envy thee on a spring evening? Thou ar...

As a musician, the rhythm part of rhyming picture books seemed easy to me. But in reality, picture book rhythm has it's unique intricacies that took me a while to learn (and I'm still learning!!). Some of what I've learned has been through trial and error, and through reading other's works. I also follow picture book writers on Twitter and they share tips and tricks. But some resources have been especially helpful, and I want to share those with you! Josh Funk Books Josh Funk is a fun author with an amazing website. If you are a beginning picture book writer, start with his site (I did)! He leads you through, step by step, of how to write any picture book. And he'll tell you not to rhyme!!! Seriously, though, writing a picture book in rhyme is not for the faint of heart. It is hard to do well. Many agents and editors will shy away from manuscripts in rhyme because they've seen so many that weren't ready yet. (I won't say they were bad. I think a lo...

I started writing picture books in 2018. It started with a tiny dose of inspiration and a desparate need for a break from revising the YA novel I was working on at the time. I worked on a few different picture book ideas, sent them off to a couple of agents, and then went back to my novel. A few rejections and many months later, amidst revising another YA novel (I'm a master procrastinator!), I came back to picture book writing and discovered I was really good at rhyming! I found a new passion for picture book writing and the rest is history! Growing up, I had a passion for poetry. Simple poems with a good story to them. I wasn't serious enough to write profound metaphors and pursue being a poet. But I thought maybe I could one day write some song lyrics or something. I had a love for music as well, so that seemed like a natural progression to link the two. Music won out as my career of choice (I'm a high school music teacher), and writing was mostly forgotten for m...