The Official SCBWI Blog: A PUN IN THE OVEN: How to give birth to wordplay in picture books

by: Megan Woodward

Anyone who knows me, knows I love puns— all kinds. Hamburger puns, hotdog puns, sticky puns, sesame puns... When it’s summertime, I soak up the punshine and right now I’m currently walking in a winter punderland. (Okay, not really, I’m writing this blog, but you get the point.) This girl just wanna have pun. That’s all I really want.

But when it comes to writing picture books, how many puns are too many? Will kids even understand them? Are they mostly for the adults’ benefit? How do you decide which to keep and which to lose? And most importantly, how do you come up with the right pun for the right moment?

Here are some of my tips for pun filled picture books:

ANOTHER PUN BITES THE DUST

As much as I love puns, I sometimes overdo it and have to take some puns out of that oven and throw them right in the trash.

In a picture book, one or more per page is probably too many. It begins to feel forced if they’re in every sentence or on every page. It’s also harder to read because when the words don’t look like what the reader expects, it can trip them up. Sometimes it can take a minute to realize the intended pun, or figure out how it should be pronounced.

In my first drafts, I go all out. I’m experimenting! Puns galore! Then I go back through and see which ones feel the most natural to the sentences and the story.

If I wrote a sentence that only exists for the pun, I usually lose it. Puns should be integrated into the language that would already be there and that is essential to telling the story.

I also have my critique partners read it out loud to me. If they trip up saying or reading any of my wordplay, I take it out. They’ll often tell me when one isn’t working.

Also, some puns are just better than others.

For example here are some good cat puns vs bad cat puns:

Good:

- Pawsitively

- purrfectly

- cat-itude

- fur-ocious

- pawthority

(These words sound exactly or almost exactly like the original word. Sometimes, they’re just spelled differently or have an added sound at the beginning. It’s easy to either see or hear the pun in the word, while still retaining the meaning of the original word)

Bad:

- whiskery behavior (“whisker”, doesn’t sound enough like “risk” and if you say “whisky behavior” it’s more of a baking pun rather than a cat pun, plus, it sounds like you're talking about a drunk person.)

- meowerly (for hourly— see I had to explain that one. If it's difficult to figure out or pronounce,
it can sometimes work in the right context, but most of the time, it will be a stretch)

- fur-ious (This is spelled the exact same as the original word, but you’re expecting someone to pronounce it differently, which they may not know to do. Plus, even if they figure it out, it might sound strange. Fur doesn’t rhyme with “FURE” which is how you pronounce the beginning of “furious.”)

- wooly kittens (If you’re just going to replace the first sound of a word, you need to make sure that that word doesn’t already exist, or else it will be confusing. For example: Cat-itude works because attitude is already a word, but cat-itude is not. But if you’re trying to make a pun with the word “bitten” it doesn’t work to say “kitten” because that word has meaning on its own. There are exceptions to this rule. For example, if you’re using an idiom like “Once bitten, twice shy” Then it might work to replace it and say “once kitten, twice shy” because you're changing a word within a recognizable phrase, not just the word).

So it’s good to analyze your puns and figure out which ones are simple and easy to understand vs which ones are a stretch.

KID PUNS vs ADULT PUNS

There is always a debate about how much humor to put in picture books that will go over the kids’ heads.

Personally, as an adult who consumes a lot of kid content with my kid— books, movies, etc, I appreciate lots of humor that’s aimed at me— otherwise I get bored.

If adults are 50% of the audience, shouldn’t half the jokes be for them?

That being said, you don’t want adults to have to constantly stop and explain the jokes to kids. They need to get a lot of them on their own.

Generally, kids aren’t going to get the following puns:

1. Puns that are spelled differently but sound the same (like purrfect) Many picture book age kids can’t read or spell yet, so a lot of these will go over their heads, but leave them in! Adults will still think it’s clever and may enjoy explaining it to their kids— but they don’t HAVE to explain anything for the kid to still understand the story.

2. Puns that rely on larger vocabularies. It may not work for picture books to make a pun with a bigger word, like ubiquitous. Let’s say you’re making a potty humor joke and saying “poo-biquitous” LOL. Yes, it’s funny to me, but when reading to kids, adults will not only have to explain the original word and its meaning, but also the pun. Leave these kind out. They require too much work.

3. Puns that reference pop culture, events, movies, songs, etc from the past. I made a “girls just wanna have fun” pun at the beginning of this blog. Most kids wouldn’t have understood that. But many adults will. And as long as the kids can still understand the story without knowing that reference, it doesn’t matter. Leave them in, but use sparingly!

4. Puns that reference “adult” words or material. I recently wrote a picture book called WHERE THE CLUCK ARE MY EGGS? The main character, (a chicken) constantly says that phrase while searching for her missing eggs. I thought it was hilarious and wouldn’t have a problem reading that to my kid (who hears me say bad words all the time and knows not to repeat them). But critique partners and others who read that manuscript had mixed feelings about it. Some loved it, while others said they would feel uncomfortable reading it to their kids. Which I totally get. Everyone has different parenting ideas about cuss words. Ultimately, I decided to send it out on sub as is, because my agent at the time liked it and so did I. We figured I could always change it if an editor really liked the story but not that phrase. So far, it’s received a bunch of rejections so maybe that was the wrong choice? Who knows! I say just use your best judgement here and proceed with caution!

Kids LOVE puns and wordplay when they get it. One of my kid’s favorite things is to say: “Look under there!” And when I say “under where?” He laughs and says “You said underwear!” I put this pun in a recent picture book I wrote called NO IFS, ANDS, OR BUTTS. (Also a wordplay title.)

So try to provide ample puns that kids can laugh at without any explaining from an adult! Word play that uses a homophones is great for this, because they’ll get the joke from context rather than spelling. Kids love feeling like they’re in on the joke, so make sure they are at least half the time.