Resources
I’ve created a variety of resources to help you expand your writing craft and overcome writing blocks. Feel free to download and share (with credit) anything you find useful. Please reach out if you have any questions.
Please be patient as I restructure and update my resources page. If there’s something you would like to see here, please reach out.
Critical Thinking Handout
To develop critical thinking skills and push back against rampant propaganda, ask yourself these 6 extended questions:
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
Picture Book Resources
Deconstructing Picture Books
This exercise is designed to help you identify story structure in previously published picture books.
When you study a picture book, you need to strip it down to its fundamental structure in order to understand the various layers that make it successful (or not!). When you understand how common patterns work, you can apply them to your own writing.
Picture Book Plot Development
To tell the best version of your story, you need to spend individual time with each section of it.
This activity is designed to help you craft an interesting plot and a tasty story. It is designed specifically for Picture Books. However, if you expanded on the middle bits, you could make it work for an older audience.
The Book Dummy
A Book Dummy is a mock-up of your book. It is excellent for kinesthetic learners, but it is also an essential tool for understanding the pacing, rhythm, and flow of your story.
If you’d like an exercise on using a Book Dummy, please reach out. Otherwise, feel free to download and use the thumbnail book dummy below.