Using Writing Challenges to Move a Story Forward

The Internet is full of writing challenges: NaNoWriMo, StoryStorm, 12x12, and more*. And those writing challenges are a great tool for moving your story forward.

*The various writing challenges are explained in more detail at the end of the post.

My debut picture book, FREAKY, FUNKY FISH: ODD FACTS ABOUT FASCINATING FISH, is the result of several writing challenges. In November 2012, I was participating in Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo while at Disney and wrote down Idea #32 “fish in a zoo” after seeing how many fish were named after animals. In 2013, I used that idea and wrote a first draft of a fiction story called NOT A GOLDFISH as a part of Julie Hedlund’s 12x12 challenge. That book never sold. But, in spring 2018, I was brainstorming topics for a rhyming, nonfiction picture book and I remembered all the strange fish from that earlier book and thought that might be a fun topic. I joined Paula Yoo’s NaPiBoWriWe and wrote a new draft about odd fish. After a few months of revisions, I sent it to my agent. In January of 2019 I had my first offer on a picture book! FREAKY, FUNKY FISH came out in May 2021.

My upcoming picture book, WIND IS A DANCE, is also the result of a combination of writing challenges. First, I came up with the idea during PiBoIdMo in November of 2015. For Idea #18 I wrote, “Lyrical NF book about wind—different types? (Similar to WATER IS WATER.)” In February 2016, The Lyrical Language Lab Alumni Group on Facebook had a “poem buddy” challenge in which we emailed poems to each other throughout the month. I decided to take my PiBoIdMo idea and wrote poems on wind. Eventually, I revised and strung those poems together to create a picture book. That book found a home with Kids Can Press and WIND IS A DANCE comes out on October 1st.

Other writers have also found success with writing challenges:

Katrina Swenson’s upcoming debut picture book, LOVE, GRUMBLE, is the result of a writing challenge. Katrina says, “The story started out as a Susanna Hill Valentiny story in 2018. I got an honorable mention and was so encouraged. . . I flushed it out into a full-length manuscript, and then revised it a billion times before earning a PB Chat mentorship with it in 2020 where I revised it some more.” In 2022, Katrina signed with an agent. LOVE, GRUMBLE sold in 2023 and will be released Fall 2026. 

Kelsey Gross also has a success story from Susanna Hill’s contests. Kesley says, “At the end of November 2020, I was already thinking about writing a winter solstice book when Susanna Leonard Hill announced the guidelines for the Kidlit Holiday Writing Contest. That year, all entries had to focus on “helping”. The line, I can help to shine the light! came to mind, and soon I had a draft featuring this repeated line.” Kelsey was a finalist in the contest and she lengthened the story before submitting it to her agent. In January 2021 her agent subbed WINTER: A SOLSTICE STORY and it soon sold to Paula Wiseman/Simon and Schuster. It came out in 2023. 

@Electric Ad Agency

Lisa Katzenberger’s picture book, IT WILL BE OK: A STORY OF EMPATHY, KINDNESS AND FRIENDSHIP, was inspired by this fun photo she saw on Twitter. In January 2017 she wrote her first draft of the story for Julie Hedlund’s 12x12. A few years later, through an SCBWI opportunity, she submitted the story to Sourcebooks. The editor acquired it and it came out in 2021.

Not only do writing challenges provide momentum to get words down on paper, they also help writers find community. Over the 10+ years that I’ve been writing, I’ve participated in many challenges including ones for revision, for studying mentor texts, etc. I not only moved my stories forward with these challenges, I also made some great friends. 

While some of these writing challenges have fallen by the wayside, if you’re looking for a challenge to help your writing and can’t find one, consider creating your own! All of these challenges started out with a writer who had an idea to help other writers. Maybe a new one started by you can help others find success, too.

Here is a bit more about the challenges mentioned in this post:

Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) used to be every November and just for picture book writers. But in 2017 Tara moved it to January, renamed it Storystorm, and is open to writers for all ages, not just picture books. More info can be found here: https://taralazar.com/storystorm/. Participating in it is free.

Julie Hedlund’s 12x12 is a challenge for picture book writers to write a rough draft every month for a year. But it's so much more than that. Membership includes a community forum, webinars, opportunities for critiques, and more. There are different levels of memberships at different price points, with the highest level providing submission opportunities to agents. More info can be found here: https://www.12x12challenge.com/membership/.

Paula Yoo’s NaPiBoWriWee (National Picture Book Writing Week) was a challenge to picture book writers to write one rough draft every day for one week. While it no longer happens, her website still has great posts from when it ran from 2009 - 2019. Check it out for some inspiration! https://napibowriwee.com/.

The Lyrical Language Lab is an online class taught by Renée LaTulippe. After the course, you can join the Alumni Group on Facebook. In 2016, Renée created a "poem buddy" challenge. While there aren't always challenges with this group, the class is top notch if you want to learn more about writing lyrically. More information can be found here: https://www.reneelatulippe.com/lyrical-language-lab/

Susanna Leonard Hill’s Writing Challenges: Susanna is an author who hosts holiday-themed writing challenges on her blog for Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and the December Holidays. More info can be found here: https://susannahill.com/for-writers/contests/

©Yanka Photography

Debra Kempf Shumaker started reading at the age of four and hasn't stopped since. She grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin but now writes picture books from her home in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. She is the author of FREAKY, FUNKY FISH (2021), TELL SOMEONE (2021), PECULIAR PRIMATES (2022), and the upcoming WIND IS A DANCE (October 1, 2024). 

Debra is a member of SCBWI, several critique groups, and also a co-host of #PBPitch, a Twitter pitch party for picture books. Debra reviews picture books on Instagram every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, firmly believing there is a picture book for every reason, every season, and every age. Visit her online at www.debrashumaker.com, on Twitter or X at @ShumakerDebra, on Instragram at @debrakshumaker, and Bluesky at @debrakshumaker.

Julie Hedlund Gets Innovative With Publishing Picture Books!

Julie Hedlund's first picture book, A Troop Is A Group of Monkeys, was an story app first, and then became a trade picture book.

Her second picture book in print, My Love For You Is The Sun, is coming out in Fall 2014.

It's with the same publisher, Little Bahalia, yet it took an even more innovative route...

I caught up with Julie to get the details:


Fascinating and inspiring!


You can find out more about Julie, her books and the 12x12 picture book-creator community here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Brilliance from Jane Yolen (courtesy of Julie Hedlund)

"The eye and the ear are different listeners."
- Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen is a legend, the author of over 300 books for children and teens, a member of SCBWI's Board of Advisors, and a brilliant teacher!

Julie Hedlund attended a recent Picture Book Boot Camp Jane offered, and shared on her own blog this great post with some of her take-aways and Jane's advice, including:

If you believe your good reviews, you will have to believe your bad reviews, too. Better to believe in the piece that you are writing.

The post also included this fascinating and very useful video glimpse of the workshop:



Thanks to Jane for the insights and to Julie for sharing!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Publishing “In-Between” – Opportunities Abound! A Guest Post By Julie Hedlund

Julie Hedlund

I am confident that every member of SCBWI loves writing and/or illustrating above most, if not all, other activities. At the same time, I suspect the vast majority of people who join SCBWI do not do so solely for the love of writing and illustrating. They join because they want to be published.

But what does it mean to be published these days? Let’s take a brief look at what’s happened to the publishing industry over the past few years. The “traditional” model, where an author submits a manuscript to a publisher who “acquires” it, pays the author an advance and then the author earns royalties if s/he earns out the advance, still exists. In fact, traditional children’s publishing is thriving, especially when compared to other genres.

Several years ago, publishing began to change in a big way as new technologies, such as e-readers and tablets, emerged which enabled authors to self-publish and distribute their own work much more economically than had been possible in the past. We started seeing many discussions about “self” versus “traditional” publishing. These discussions have been useful, but what tends to get lost is that other opportunities to publish exist, opportunities that blend the best of both the self and traditional publishing worlds.

My first book, A TROOP IS A GROUP OF MONKEYS, was published first as an interactive storybook app for the iPad and is now available in print. Most people, upon hearing the book was published digitally, assumed it was self-published. Not so. My publisher, Little Bahalia, acquired the manuscript with the intention of publishing it first as an app. The publisher edited the manuscript, hired and art directed the illustrator, produced the app, and published it to the iTunes store. The only thing “non-traditional” about this publishing deal was the format.

An image from MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN

My next book, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN, will also be published by Little Bahalia in fall 2014 as a print picture book. This time, the approach we took was a bigger departure from conventional publishing. I ran a campaign (ongoing) to fund the initial costs associated with producing, publishing, and printing the book via Kickstarter. Little Bahalia, however, is still in the “publisher” role and I am still in the “author” role. In other words, Little Bahalia decided they wanted to publish the book under their name with the goal of eventually earning a profit from sales of the book. I’m not simply paying them for their publishing services, which is akin to self-publishing.

In this model, I will provide the funds to Little Bahalia to publish the book, through the first-run printing, via the funds I raise on Kickstarter. In a “reverse advance” model, Little Bahalia earns out those fees via book sales. Once they earn back the fees, the royalty structure returns to a traditional model of the publisher receiving their share, the author, the illustrator, and in this case my agent, receive their shares.

Why does my agent earn her commission? Because she helped me both develop and negotiate the contracts required to make this deal work. Freelance editor and publishing professional Emma Dryden wrote a fantastic guest post on this topic on my blog a couple of weeks ago about what is now being called “hybrid publishing,” or the “in-between” for those atmospheric writers out there.

What’s even more interesting is that in the span of time I’ve been running the Kickstarter campaign for my book, two other well-published (traditionally), agented authors have announced their own projects that fall outside the exact realm of “traditional” publishing.

Author/illustrator Katie Davis’ picture book, LITTLE CHICKEN’S BIG DAY, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2011. She and her husband wanted to write and illustrate a sequel titled LITTLE CHICKEN’S BIG CHRISTMAS, but as a self-published ebook this time. Katie’s agent consulted with S&S, got the go-ahead, and Katie published the book to the Kindle store in time for the holiday season. 

Ann Whitford Paul, of WRITING PICTURE BOOKS fame, and illustrator Nancy Hayashi recently self-published a print picture book called ‘TWAS THE LATE NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS because, as Ann said, “our book is not easily classified.” The book is a parody of Clement C. Moore’s famous poem but with a more adult slant, from the perspective of an exhausted mother in the post-Christmas chaos.

What these three books all have in common is that they didn’t easily fit today’s market parameters for traditionally published picture books. Mine because it is a bedtime poem rather than a character-driven book with a narrative arc. Katie wanted to experiment with publishing an ebook with a fast time-to-market. Ann’s was written as much for adults as for children. Yet, each book has found an audience. 

Does the existence of non-conventional publishing options make membership in SCBWI less relevant? On the contrary, I think it makes SCBWI membership even more important. Why? Because the first thing we need to do before publishing is make sure we have a fantastic book to offer, and SCBWI is the master of teaching craft.

Secondly, more publishers and agents themselves will be thinking about new and alternative ways to publish, and those opportunities will be presented to SCBWI members as they become available.

Last, but certainly not least, the connections made within SCBWI are invaluable. I met my publisher at a regional SCBWI conference. I met the illustrator for MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN, Susan Eaddy, at the SCBWI booth at the Bologna Book Fair in 2012. In fact, I first pitched my agent Erzsi Deak at that same booth. I met the host of this very blog, Mr. Lee Wind, at the 2010 SCBWI Winter conference in New York.

Gather those contacts, serve them well, and keep them close. Some of them may lead you to traditional publishing contracts. Others may lead you to an “in-between.” Either way, it’s our audience, the children, who benefit by having more books made available to them in many formats and voices.

Julie Hedlund is a Children’s author. She’s had two books published as interactive storybook apps for the iPad by Little Bahalia Publishing -- A TROOP IS A GROUP OF MONKEYS and A SHIVER OF SHARKS. A print version of TROOP was released in fall 2013.

Julie is the creator of Julie Hedlund’s Template for Storybook App Proposals and the founder and host of the 12 x 12 picture book writing challenge, with more than 500 members. She is a monthly contributor on Katie Davis’ Brain Burps About Books children’s literature podcast, and a PAL member of SCBWI.