In many ways, writing a rhyming picture book is similar to writing a song. You’re thinking about rhyme, rhythm, and lyricism. You’re imaging the artistic effect that you want the words to have—the way they’ll wash over the reader and evoke a certain feeling.
Song lyrics and rhyming picture books both grow on the tree of poetry, but they represent different branches. Many aspects are related, but writing a rhyming picture book is not the same as writing a song. Why?
Books don’t come with sheet music.
Speaking to the audience
Think of a song that’s been covered by another artist. Do you like one version better than the other?
The reason you can even consider the question above is that you’re familiar with the musical choices of each artist. You hear their interpretations of tempo, tone, pronunciation, and more. Even for the musicians themselves, there are guidelines: they might be following sheet music for the melody and tempo, or they might get feedback during a recording session to handle a certain phrase differently.
For a rhyming picture book, your audience receives no such guidance.
When a customer buys your book, all they have are the words on the page. Occasionally, a client will say to me, “But if you read it like I do …” and I have to remind them that they won’t be there with the reader.
Guiding the metre
Metre is the driving force behind a rhyming picture book. It sets the tempo and creates a framework for the reader to follow from rhyme to rhyme.
Related: Rhyme Series Part 2 – Taking the Stress Out of Metre and Stress
When a reader picks up a book, they expect to be able to follow the cadence automatically: even the most rollicking rhythm should feel utterly natural. A well-written rhyming picture book is creative and lyrical, but it still follows the norms of spoken language. The reader should never have to choose between contorting their pronunciation and losing the rhythm.
In music, it’s not uncommon for creators to get creative with pronunciation. The internet is crowded with memes playing off Smash Mouth’s recognizable intro to “All Star,” in which “somebody” becomes “somebody.” Katy Perry turns “unconditionally” into “unconditionally.”
Listeners don’t trip over these changes to word stress because they hear the songs performed. The way the singer sang it becomes the right way for that song. By the time the song is stuck in your head while you’re doing the dishes, you’re using the same approach as the artist.
But in a picture book, those shifts in pronunciation would stand out, and they could read as errors to your audience.
Creating compelling rhymes
A perfect rhyme is easy to spot. Things get trickier when you look at near rhymes. Some editors say they have no place in picture books; I disagree. A particularly clever near rhyme can be delightful in the right context. But they’re a lot easier to get away with in music.
Related: Rhyme Series Part 1 – So You Want to Write a Rhyming Book
In a song, an artist can draw out the (near) rhyming word, emphasizing the vowel sound and de-emphasizing the final consonant so that the similarities stand out more than the differences. You can hear this in the first verse of The Shins’ “New Slang,” where the final sound in “mouth” fades away to let “town,” “mouth,” and “how” work as rhymes.
A singer can also adjust the pronunciation. In “Royals,” Lorde softens the Z sound in “buzz” to make it more closely rhyme with the S in “us.”
In music, it’s not just about how this vowel or that consonant was articulated. Every word comes with its own musical context. How long is the note held? Is it louder or softer than the words around it? Is it spoken with clarity or slurred into the word after it? Is the word sustained over one note or many?
In a picture book, the words don’t appear in isolation, either. For one thing, creative typography can do a lot to signal the tone of a line or the emphasis of a word. But it’s still up to the reader to interpret the text on the page and make it come out in a way that sounds smooth and lyrical.
If a near rhyme is the best, most powerful choice for the line you’re writing, then use it! Play around with language and see what you can do. But it’s likely that a picture book will be able to get away with fewer near rhymes than a song—readers might assume that you simply couldn’t hear the difference yourself. Use your near rhymes wisely so readers see the creativity behind them!
Writing for kids
Above all, the audience for a rhyming picture book has different processing needs than an adult music fan. Young children are building their vocabularies and learning to understand patterns and rhythms. What’s obviously a creative liberty to an adult might not be as clear to a child. (See also: mondegreens!)
Every reader will bring their own nuance and character to a recitation of your book. If you lay a strong foundation, the metre and rhyme will flow along seamlessly, letting your reader focus on bringing the words to life instead of forcing the words to fit.
Writing a picture book is different from writing a song, and it’s important to understand the context and nuances of your chosen form. Either way, the underlying goal is the same: to create art that will truly connect with your audience.