Getting Permission To Write About Others - Jacqui Lipton Explains It for Our Friends at the Highlights Foundation Blog

Over at the Highlights Foundation blog, lawyer and Senior Agent at The Tobias Literary Agency Jacqui Lipton shares a guest post, (When) Do I Need Permission to Write About Real People and Events?

Jacqui starts off with this overview:

If you plan to write about real people and events, you may face questions about when you need permission to reproduce text, imagery (photographs, maps, charts) or anything else you’ve uncovered in your research. The main body of law relevant here is copyright which basically prohibits reproducing and distributing other people’s work without permission. Note that the law applies to the actual expression of the work—e.g. the actual words the creator has used—and not the idea behind the work. Ideas and facts can’t be copyrighted so you only have to worry about copyright law, and permissions, if you plan to actually copy someone else’s protected expression. 

And then breaks down the information into four sections, 

1. Public Domain

2. Creative Commons

3. Specific Permissions—Licenses

4. Fair Use

The blog post is helpful and well-worth reading. (And if you want to dive in deeper, Jacqui also wrote the book Law and Authors: A Legal Handbook for Writers.)

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Emily Jenkins Shares Three Tips for Writing Funny Picture Books Over at the Highlights Foundation

Wanna get your creative flow flowing?

Check out Emily's craft suggestions for writing funny picture books. Some of them are really liberating, like #2:

“Put some outrageously long words in there, just to see what they do.  Picture books don’t have to have limited vocabulary.  In fact, one of their jobs is to to expose children to new vocabulary.” —Emily Jenkins.

Check out the examples, and the rest of Emily's suggestions, here.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

A Helpful List of "Things to Consider When Writing a Picture Book Biography"

Posted last year on the Highlights Foundation blog, Donna Janell Bowman's list of points to consider when writing a picture book biography is really helpful, as is the pull-quote "Tell compelling true stories that read like fiction."

Here's Donna's point about Narrative Arc:

What events led to your character’s meaningful contribution? Though this is an over-simplified definition, a story usually involves a character who faces internal and/or external obstacles while in pursuit of their goal. Their journey–the active plot–is the narrative arc where stuff happens. For example, an encyclopedic entry might read: The Great Blondin performed on a tightrope over the Niagara River in 1859. That is fact. But crafting a beginning, middle, and end that includes historical context, character insight, and how Blondin overcame skeptics, dangers, and an obstacle-riddled process to achieve his goal, is a narrative arc.

The post also covers theme, point of view, structure, and more. Read the full text here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Leslie Helakoski and Darcy Pattison share 9 Picture Book Topics to Avoid (or, at least be forewarned about!)

Over at the Highlights Foundation blog, SCBWI members and all-around awesome picture book folks Leslie Helakoski and Darcy Pattison share a post on 9 Picture Book Topics to Avoid.

What's so helpful is that they acknowledge the well-worn themes, but also point out that if you go there, you better be bringing something new and fresh to the category... and then they list some picture books that have done just that.

From the tooth fairy to a new baby coming into the family, the areas are familiar... but are the fresh takes on those as familiar?

They ask us to consider, for a fresh take on tooth fairy stories, The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy by Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Israel Sanchez

and for something new on the new baby on the way stories, You Were the First (2013) by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin.

The full blog post is well-worth reading.

Consider, does your current picture book work in progress fall into any of these nine categories? And if so, do you have an approach that will help your take stand out?

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee