[david-poston Posts: 60 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

I am working on two manuscripts at this time. I find that when I get block on one, it helps to work on the other.
My question is, can you put multi chapters in an PB? Say if the manuscript is about the 'The Little Pigs', when they go out walking, can you have them
talking to little red riding hood or others to make the story more interesting.

Thanks for any help.

[Dionna]

Howdy, David!

Not sure I understand your question. Did you mean, can a PB have chapters or characters from different fairytales?

In recently published PBs, I haven't seen chapters. In  Easy-Readers, yes.

But multiple characters found in different fairytales? Yes, I've seen that done, and I think yours is a fabulous idea. A retelling. Three Little Pigs meet (not the wolfy dude), but a little girl in a  bright red hood.

Best wishes with it!

[david-poston Posts: 60 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

That what I mean but instead of the pigs, they are the Dog family, papa, mama and baby. As for chapters, I didn't mean that. I hate auto-correct at times.
I meant characters. But if I was to go the chapter way, it would be two or three and be for the oldest age group for PB and the youngest for ER.

[Vijaya Posts: 7,172 Status: Offline Encourage WWW]

I've not seen PBs with chapters, but I have seen some longer PBs, even from a couple of debut PB authors. If you go the chapter-book route, you'll need to control your vocabulary. They really are two very different beasts. In a PB you can lush, lyrical language because a parent/teacher will be reading it aloud to the child.

Fractured fairy tales are great fun.

Vijaya

[david-poston Posts: 60 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thanks, I may forget about the PB chapter book. At lest for PB. I am thinking of an Grimm housing development as the setting. I am thinking
of little red riding hood, the wolf, jack of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and etc living there.

[Betsy Posts: 2,106 Status: Offline PICKY EATERS WWW]

If you make it clever and entertaining enough, you might be able to interest a publisher. But most PBs are less than 400 words these days.

[david-poston Posts: 60 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

My first draft is 900. When I saw that the word count was so large, I look up the word count of other books of
the same subject. They counted from 32 to over 1000. With most being about 500-600 words.

[Betsy Posts: 2,106 Status: Offline PICKY EATERS WWW]

It's not enough to look at the word count. You also have to look at the date it was published, and try to figure out when it might have been acquired (usually at least two years previous to the pub date, sometimes longer). Word lengths have been getting shorter and shorter in recent years.

Which isn't to say you absolutely couldn't sell it. Lengthier books do sell from time to time.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 7,009 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

There are lots of fractured fairy tales out there, and a bunch of picture books with chapters. Jon Scieszka's picture books come to mind. Look at examples of both and make sure yours works with the chapters and has a unique spin. Chapter breaks imply a change of venue or time, nothing more. There are no rules for chapter length. Keep everything as short as possible.

[Shelly Posts: 138 Status: Offline]

My first drafts are usually long and then I trim. And trim again. And again. It never ceases to amaze me how much can be conveyed in so few words. For me, a 900-word first draft could easily be trimmed down to below 600.