LAST RESORT

I wrote a picture book over a year ago.

I love it.

But it has never felt “right” to me.

I’ve revised countless times. My kids are tired of hearing me read it outloud. And my critique partners are ready to put it to bed.

But still… it felt like something was wrong. I didn’t have peace about it. I had the opportunity to submit it somewhere, but I couldn’t. It just wasn’t right.

The other day, my hubby said something about a different picture book – but I disagreed with him about it. I still do.

BUT… he got me to thinking. And then I did something I never thought to do with the picture book that just doesn’t feel right.

My MC was a boy, now the MC is a girl.

I wrote the story thinking all the things he was doing were “boyish” things. And yes, they were. But in this case, they are TOM-BOYISH things! And the flow is much better, at least to my ears. The opening and ending images work SO much better. And the relationship between the MC and others sounds natural, where as before it sounded fabricated and out of place.

Even though I’ve suggested this very thing to others for their characters, I never thought to do it to mine in this particular story.

After I made the change, I was finally able to cut down on the word count even more, use more vivid adjectives in the opening scene and find just the right words for the closing scene.

Have you ever had this happen?