The secret to *actually finishing* your picture book ❤️

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration – "The Secret to Actually Finishing Your Picture Book ❤️"

Release Date: February 14, 2025

In this insightful episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Lou delve deep into the intricacies of creating and completing a picture book, especially focusing on the challenges faced by illustrators aiming to craft adult-oriented picture books. Through engaging discussions and real-life experiences, they provide invaluable advice for illustrators navigating the complex landscape of the publishing world.

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1. Navigating the Challenges of Adult Picture Books

The episode kicks off with Lou posing a compelling question:

[00:33] Lou: "I've got a picture book for adults. It's about the journey that most big changes in life take. Told as if we're on a journey to outer space. Is it a bad idea to make a picture book for adults? Should I pivot? To kids."

Helen responds thoughtfully, addressing the practical concerns of positioning an adult picture book within bookstores:

[00:47] Helen: "This is going to sound like a really sensible... because it's not for children, is it? So it's not going to be there. So it's for adults... it takes so long to make your picture book... and to disappear into a bookshop or not even be ordered because they don't know what shelf to put it on would be a shame."

She emphasizes the importance of passion and understanding the limitations:

[02:00] Helen: "I think you have to think how much, how much you love this story, how brilliant it would be, how inspired you are, and it must be an adult book. And be aware that that might limit the number of bookshops who stock it."

Lou seeks clarification on Helen's perspective:

[01:46] Lou: "When you're thinking about it from a practical publisher, bookseller, commercial point of view. Aren't you?"

Helen shares a personal anecdote about her experience with a graphic novel:

[01:51] Helen: "...we went into Foyles on the south bank and we looked around and we didn't know where the bookseller would stock it... is it worth it? Would it be better to publish it as, you know, like a paperback fiction... then it would fit in the teenage section of the teenage novels."

Katie adds to the conversation by highlighting the scarcity of adult illustrated fiction:

[03:25] Katie: "I'm trying to think of fiction for illustrated fiction for adults, and I'm kind of struggling. There's lots of non-fiction for adults."

They discuss the placement of illustrated adult books in stores, using Charlie Mackesy’s The Horse, the Boy, the Mole, Other Animals as an example:

[04:59] Helen: "... it's not really a children's book. It's a philosophy book really, isn't it?"

Lou suggests an alternative approach for illustrators with a dedicated audience:

[05:58] Lou: "... if you've got a big audience, you know, self publish a few and then get it out of your system so you can move on to another idea that is publishable or more. More publish friendly."

This leads to the idea of adapting adult stories for children to increase marketability:

[06:55] Katie: "That is your best bet though, isn't it? I think that's a genius idea. Just re pitch it to children."

2. Anchoring Your Story to Prevent the Pinball Effect

Transitioning to their second major topic, Lou introduces a question from Jo about managing numerous ideas:

[07:05] Lou: "Jo asks, so you have a story, you have some basic character sketches and a mind that's pinballing out of control with ideas. What is one of the very first things that you can do?"

Helen underscores the importance of grounding the story in real-life experiences:

[07:21] Helen: "I think that to help you anchor a book so that it feels real to you and it makes you want to keep going, you need to sort of anchor it in real stuff in your life."

She elaborates on character development, using their own characters as examples:

[08:23] Helen: "...we have characters like Kitty... Salty... Bernard... we thought about people we know, we thought about hobbies that we have."

Katie reinforces this by suggesting a structured approach to character creation:

[10:29] Katie: "I think that question that Walker asked you, the extra questions they asked... it would be amazing to get a list of questions that you can apply to all characters as a starting point."

Helen adds practical methods they employed:

[09:37] Lou: "Baddies Get Caught."

[12:29] Lou: "Because then the story writes itself, doesn't it? Because you're just g them a situation. And because you've sturdied up the characters, you know who they are, you're like, oh, well, obviously they would do that."

Their collaborative discussion highlights how detailed character profiles can naturally guide storytelling, ensuring consistency and preventing the derailment of ideas.

3. Practical Tools and Techniques for Story Completion

To aid illustrators in their creative process, Helen recommends utilizing personal memories and experiences:

[10:21] Lou: "Childhood Illustrated. It's like digging into what makes you you and what your memories are."

Katie praises the strength of well-developed characters in maintaining narrative cohesion:

[12:16] Katie: "They just... you can't wait for the next one because, you know that..."

The hosts emphasize the significance of small, meaningful details in characters that make them memorable:

[13:49] Lou: "It's not just reading a book, it's a book about France. Just adds these little silly... they make it memorable."

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Conclusion

In this episode, The Good Ship Illustration provides a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and strategies involved in creating and completing picture books, particularly those aimed at adult audiences. By addressing practical issues like bookstore placement and offering actionable advice on story and character development, Helen, Katie, and Lou equip illustrators with the tools needed to navigate their creative journeys successfully. The emphasis on anchoring stories in personal experience and developing robust characters serves as a cornerstone for ensuring that illustrators not only complete their projects but also create meaningful and impactful works.

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Note: This summary focuses solely on the content discussed in the podcast episode, excluding any advertisements, introductions, or promotional segments.

Transcript

[Lou]

Lou asks, I've got a picture book for adults. It's about the journey that most big changes in life take. Told as if we're on a journey to outer space. Is it a bad idea to make a picture book for adults? Should I pivot? To kids.

[Helen]

This is going to sound like a really sensible. Too sensible, boring answer. Because I'm just thinking about where it would be in the bookshop. If it's a picture book, you would, as a customer, you'd head straight to the picture book section. But it's not for children, is it? So it's not going to be there. So it's for adults. And then we're looking at novels and then we're looking at all the other sections. Cookery, gardening, whatever. Maybe the bookseller would put it in graphic novels, but some shops don't have a graphic novel section. This is like a very boring answer to what could be a really interesting books. And there are plenty of books like that. But it takes so long to make your picture book. It's such a long process. And for it to disappear into a bookshop or not even be ordered because they don't know what shelf to put it on would be a shame. So I think you have to think how much, how much you love this story, how brilliant it would be, how inspired you are, and it must be an adult book. And be aware that that might limit the number of bookshops who stock it.

[Lou]

When you're thinking about it from a practical publisher, bookseller, commercial point of view. Aren't you?

[Helen]

You are. Because I had an idea for a graphic novel I'd like. I'd still really like to do this graphic novel. And I met up with my publisher and we met up at the Festival hall this time and we had this great chat and I showed them the pictures for this graphic novel idea. And it's aimed at teenagers, probably. And we spoke about it and they said, right, Helen, let's go to the bookshop. Come on, let's see where it would be stocked in the bookshop. And so we went into Foyles on the south bank and we looked around and we didn't know where the bookseller would stock it. And. And she said, all the work it takes to make this book. Is it worth it? Would it be better to publish it as, you know, like a paperback fiction, only using the black ink, so you've got your text in black and your drawings in black. Then it would fit in the teenage section of the teenage novels. If you put it in color, it won't go in picture books because that's too young. Might go in graphic novels, but there was only a tiny graphic novel section. And my editor was telling me the average customer doesn't really understand the graphic novel section and might be quite scary. Like if you're going to buy a graphic novel for your child, it seems like a kind of dangerous area. Area to go because there are some really explicit adult graphic novels in there as well. So she was just being really practical with me and saying, where would it go in the bookshop? Let's think about this. If you want to invest all this time in this book, let's make sure that it will definitely go in every mainstream bookshop so we can maximize who will see it. So I think you just have to think about that.

[Katie]

I'm trying to think of fiction for illustrated fiction for adults, and I'm kind of struggling. There's lots of non fiction for adults. Yeah. I wonder if the story is. If it has to be a story or whether it can somehow be metaphorical and used in nonfiction in some way. Because that's a big area now, isn't it? If you think of Chris Horton's recent History of Information, which is a beautifully illustrated book with the illustration that kind of nods to children's picture book, obviously, where he comes from, that kind of background. But the content is very clearly adult content, and there's a big market for that. And also for gift books.

[Helen]

Do they call. Yeah. I wonder where that book is placed in the bookshop. It'd be interesting to know, wouldn't it.

[Katie]

Where that you get those kind of other books. Well, illustrated books on how to understand economics, how to understand philosophy. And I think that must just be.

[Helen]

And then they'd go in the economic section or the philosophy section. Like those have all got a section, haven't they? History section. So there's. You could distribute them throughout the shop in that way. Or sometimes they have a brilliant gift table, a table full of kind of gift books, and it could make it onto there. But you do have to think about.

[Katie]

It, getting illustrated fiction to stand out. Adult illustrated fiction. Yeah, it does seem like. It doesn't seem an area that people are familiar with. And you know, the. The Charlie makes. What's it. Charlie make piece. The. The horse.

[Helen]

Yeah. Charlie Macassy. The. Yeah. I've forgotten the title of the book. The Horse, the Boy, the Mole, Other Animals. Let's just throw some random words out.

[Lou]

It's called Charlie and it's about a horse.

[Helen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Katie]

I mean, that's an Unusual. That's a breakthrough phenomena. There's not a lot of that about unless you have some incredible good fortune.

[Helen]

Yeah, but it's not really a children's book. It's a philosophy book really, isn't it? And I think it's made that kind of gift section beside the till section which is, I mean aiming your book to be beside the till is almost impossible. It just kind of luck that your book gets spotted. And I think that's one of those books.

[Katie]

Yeah, that position is only occupied by kind of dynamic good fortune books like that that become famous very quickly and they have to put them by the. By that section and like you say, the smaller books as well. But yeah, it's a. It's a tough sell, isn't it?

[Lou]

If this book idea is so big and you can't get rid of it and if you've got an audience, it might be the sort of thing that you could create anyway. Do pre orders so that you're not stocking up a load of self published books and then do a little self published. It might not be little if you've got a big audience, you know, self publish a few and then get it out of your system so you can move on to another idea that is publishable or more. More publish friendly.

[Helen]

I wonder what the subject is in the question. I seem to remember reading it earlier that she said. She said what the subject of it was.

[Katie]

A journey to space.

[Lou]

Yeah, it's about the journey that most big changes in life take. Told us if we're on a journey to outer space.

[Helen]

Yeah. Well I thought that could be adapted for children very easily. Lots of children's books can read on one level. To the parent reading it, purely an adventure. To the child reading it, I would say that might be one of those books.

[Lou]

Maybe Lou hates children.

[Helen]

That would be it.

[Lou]

Not for them. Adults only.

[Katie]

That is your best bet though, isn't it? I think that's a genius idea. Just re pitch it to children.

[Lou]

Yeah. A tiny tweak. Yeah. Should we put another question?

[Helen]

Yes, please. Okay.

[Lou]

Jo asks, so you have a story, you have some basic character sketches and a mind that's pinballing out of control with ideas. What is one of the very first things that you can do? Focus on that will anchor your book so it doesn't pinball off into the land of started but never finished book ideas.

[Helen]

Brilliant question because we've all been there, haven't you? You have an idea, you think this is brilliant and then the next day you look at it and go I don't know if it was so brilliant. I'll have another brilliant idea. And then you've got a few and you don't know which to start on or you get halfway through it and you lose confidence in it. I think that to help you anchor a book so that it feels real to you and it makes you want to keep going, you need to sort of anchor it in real stuff in your life. Like, Katie and I have been writing some books, haven't we? About Salty. Who? He's. He's what? He's the good shop ma, Good ship mascot, really, isn't he? He guides everybody through the picture book course. You'll see him on our website. We decided that we would turn, turn him into a picture book character and write some stories around him. And we had all these chats about, well, who is Salty? Where does he live? And we anchored him here where we live, didn't we? And there's some upside down boat huts along the coast from where we live. And we said, he must live in one of those. Okay, who are his friends and what, what are they into? Didn't we.

[Lou]

The publisher Walker gave us because we'd kind of fleshed out a little bit. And then Walker Books gave us even more brilliant questions. And because they asked us questions, it made making changes really fun. And it was like he actually wanted to do stuff rather than being like, oh, why don't you just like it? It's perfect. And it was so good. And we just really got to know the characters.

[Helen]

Yeah. And we anchored those characters in things that about us and things we know. So there's one character in it called Kitty who we immediately thought was Tanya because she has this kind of reckless enjoyment of life that gets her into trouble sometimes. And then Salty is an artist. Artist and musician. And he's quite kind of calm and he has a life a bit like an illustrator, I suppose. He likes cooking. He likes anything creative. And then we have Bernard, who's a very kind of high maintenance anxiety duck. And we based them all on people that we knew. We thought about people we know, we thought about hobbies that we have. Would you remember when we were trying, we said, so if they were watching telly, what would they watch? And we both agreed we would watch Police Camera Action. Top number one favorite program. So we. So we decided to brainstorm how we could change that to be a child friendly version of that. And what did we call it?

[Lou]

Baddies Get Caught.

[Helen]

And I think when you anchor the story and things to do with your own Life or things that you know really well or even go out and draw from life, whatever your story is about, it sort of makes it feel part of you. So you're not just going to let it go. You're not going to lose confidence in it because it feels like it's part of you. I think a good place to start with that would be to do our Childhood Illustrated thing on our website. There's a workshop on the website for free. And it helps you dig into childhood memories and draw them, which is a really, really good starting point for a picture book because anything that starts in something a little bit to do with your own life is a really good starting point.

[Lou]

And because it's coming from you, you're not borrowing somebody else's idea or inventing something. It's like. It's a bit like your freak flag, isn't it?

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Lou]

Childhood Illustrated. It's like digging into what makes you you and what your memories are.

[Katie]

Absolutely. You're the. You're the subject. The quirk excavator. I'm just thinking, though, that question that Walker asked you, the extra questions they asked without infringing their IP or anything, it would be amazing to get a list of questions that you can apply to all characters as a starting point. And then it could be like those TV shows. You've got their photograph in the center and loads of arrows pointing out to them. This is. This is Salty on his first marriage before he left, you know, quiet illustrator living in an upside down boat. And then lots of other photos of them like they do on those TV shows, to flesh out the characters. Because a lot of writers do that, don't they? Fiction writers will get photos of someone who looks like the character in their head and then maybe a photo of the house and some other things. They like the interior of their room. And they'll put visuals up as a reminder. So once your character becomes vivid in your head, it seems you're saying, then you've got the connection that will stop the pinballing.

[Helen]

It does. And then if you think, okay, so now I have three characters and there's going to be a storm, how would each of those characters react? And then you've already got a story, because one of them, the high maintenance duck, of course, would be scared of storms. And Kitty, the reckless cat, would absolutely love storms and want to go out dancing in the. A thunderstorm. And then I was sensible, Salty would probably put a pan of soup on or something. And so as soon as you've really anchored their personalities, then Every situation you put them in, you've instantly got a story there, just from their reactions to whatever the incident is. Oh, yeah. The list of questions from Walker, they were good, weren't they? They were things like, what do they drink? What do they do in their spare time?

[Lou]

And I think. I think it was things like, if this happened, how would they each react?

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Lou]

Because then the story writes itself, doesn't it? Because you're just g them a situation. And because you've sturdied up the characters, you know who they are, you're like, oh, well, obviously they would do that.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Lou]

You know, you're not trying to pinball around or think of random ideas.

[Helen]

Yeah. Because I think if your story feels like it's plucked out of your imagination, bits from here and there, and they're not really anchored in something substantial, I can easily see why you'd end up putting that story down.

[Katie]

Yeah. This seems like such a good idea. And having had the story read to me this morning, I can tell you it's brilliant. There are five stories that I listen to and they're so funny and the characters are so strong and as you said, they're so sturdy and real and their reactions are consistent in each narrative arc. They just. You can't wait for the next one because, you know that, you know, Fussy Bernard is going to have a hissy fit about something and the title almost tells you how. How they're going to react. So I think all that investment into creating a character that really means something to you has obviously paid off, because the stories are just brilliant.

[Helen]

Yeah. Made it so much easier to write as well, once we had the characters anchored down, didn't it?

[Lou]

Yeah.

[Helen]

So when Bernard needs his blanket, we think, well, what kind of blanket would he have? Well, of course it would be a cashmere blanket. So it's not Pass me my blanket, it's Pass me my cashmere blanket. And you learn so much about his personality just from what items he has around him. He likes his book about France.

[Lou]

I was going to say, it's not just reading a book, it's a book about France. Just adds these little silly. They're not silly details because they make it memorable, I think.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Katie]

I think we've got to write that list. That character questionnaire seems to be the key to it.

[Lou]

I have to find that email from Walker.

[Helen]

I'll find it.

[Lou]

Yeah.

[Katie]

So that we've got. Yeah.

[Lou]

We've got some more questions, but we wanted to let you know that the picture book course, if you're listening to this now. I mean, you are listening to this now. You know what I mean? If it's Friday. No, if it's the date 14th, if it's Valentine's Day, then we've just flung the doors open to the picture book. Course, they're open for one week. So we're going to come back next Friday with some more questions and we'll remind you again that the doors are closing again. So the 21st, they close.

[Helen]

Yeah. Open on the 14th, close on the 21st. We've got an art club live on instagram on the 14th. On the Friday night, 7:00 UK time. And we've got an art club on the 21st.

[Lou]

Yay. And we are at the Good ship Illustration.

[Helen]

Yeah, we'll see you there. See you there. Bye.

[Lou]

Bye.