Kelly Starling Lyons is a founding member of The Brown Bookshelf, teaching artist, and award-winning children’s book author. She has written more than 20 books for young readers that span from easy readers to picture books and chapter books. Among her acclaimed titles are My Hands Tell a Story, Caldecott Honor winner, Going Down Home with Daddy, Christopher Award winner, Tiara’s Hat Parade, and Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice & Sing Inspired Generations. She’s also the author of popular series including Jada Jones, Miles Lewis and Ty’s Travels which won a Geisel Honor Award for Zip, Zoom. Kelly lives in Raleigh and was named to Good Morning America’s 2021 Inspiration List: Who’s Making Black History. Learn more about her at www.kellystarlinglyons.com.
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| Kelly Starling Lyons presents her session on Picture Books |
The full title of Kelly's breakout session is "Feeling Stories: Creating Picture Books That Pack an Emotional Punch."
Kelly opens with some tips on writing picture books, including:
- There are no absolute rules
- Child main character should solve problem on their own (but elders can be important - they are in Kelly's work)
- Leave room for the art to tell the story, too
- Craft each page turn like a mini-cliffhanger
- It needs to stand up for repeated readings
With mentor text examples and exercises, Kelly walks us through ways to create emotion. Mining our memories and experiences. Keeping a journal or file of ideas. Looking at our life with a "writer's eye."
She suggests that #1, we make a list of:
Best and worst school or family memories (from when you were 4-8 years old)
and/or
Experiences or relationships that inspired you or changed you
An example Kelly gives is girls at school making fun of her outfits.
Next, #2, she asks us to write down, for each item on our memory list, our emotions -- how did we grow or change?
As an example, Kelly tells us about those mean girls at school - and how she experienced embarrassment at first for being picked on, then fear because some of the girls were tough, then anger at being picked on, then relief when she figured out how to deal with them, then finally empowerment in being able to stand proud in the outfits she chose to wear.
Kelly quotes Jacqueline Woodson's inspiring words:
"...when I write, I go back and I remember who I was, and I start crafting my characters from that place. My writing starts with something that I know deeply, and then put it onto and into my characters." –Jacqueline Woodson
Show emotion with Touch, Dialog, Smells, Sounds, Taste - think about how you can bring emotions to life. "It's really important to use sensory detail..." Keep in mind the illustrator will be focusing on what the character sees, and you can focus on the other senses!
#3, Kelly has a write a scene,
and then #4 asks us to create a character who is dealing with the emotional truth of our memory.
Consider: What does our character want? And what is standing in our character's way? "We have to feel that longing." And raise the stakes. Why does it matter so much? How do you make the reader feel how much it means? What's at stake if the character doesn't get it?
There's lots more, with Kelly answering audience questions, talking about self-publishing and how there are no shortcuts, her own publishing journey and being published by multiple publishing houses, and many more examples, from Kelly's own books and other mentor texts, too.
Final gem of advice:
Write from your heart
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