Have you got a great idea for a picture book? Writing consultant Renee Gray-Wilburn (pictured, via) offered some advice for working with the form.

Gray-Wilburn urged writers to avoid offering parental guidance to young readers in a picture book. She also talked about incorporating repetition, the five senses, and fun words into your picture book manuscript.

Here’s more from the blog post: “Kids love nothing more than to know that they were responsible for solving a problem. So whatever conflict or crisis situation you’ve set up in your picture book, allow the child character to be the one to figure out a solution. It’s OK to have parents in your picture book; this is a normal part of a child’s world, so they’d probably be expecting them.”

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Bestselling author Suzanne Collins (pictured, via) is writing a new picture book. According to The New York Times, the untitled project will be her “most autobiographical work to date,” using  family members’ names and illustrations inspired by family photos.

This new project will focus on war, a theme present in her two series, The Underland Chronicles and The Hunger Games. Collins’ grandfather, uncle, and father all served in military careers, and the novelist will write about war for teenage audiences.

Collins explained: “I specifically want to do this book, one as a sort of memory piece kind of honoring that year for my family, and two, because I know so many children are experiencing it right now — having deployed parents. And it’s a way I would like to try and communicate my own experience to them.”

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