The Big Picture: writing, editing and submitting a cats and dogs picture book!

With episode 57, we kick off "The Big Picture," a new segment where we walk you through the process of preparing and submitting a picture book for publication. 

Today we talk about receiving, digesting, and implementing feedback.  Our special highlight is an exclusive insight into the valuable critiques provided by Lynn Marie, the  founder of "Rate Your Story." Her expert feedback is instrumental in refining our picture book project, offering a unique perspective on the manuscript's development.

We also discuss how  critiquing can become your personal growth engine. We'll break down the do's and don'ts of handling critical feedback, and the importance of ditching defensiveness for a mindset open to learning. So, grab your notebooks and join us as we navigate the journey together! 

Transcript

Beth McMullen: 0:31

Hello, lovely listeners, authors, aspiring writers and everyone in between. I'm Beth McMullen and I'm Lisa Schmid, and we're the co-hosts of Writers with Wrinkles. Now it took us I don't know 70 episodes to realize we had never introduced ourselves before. So what you just heard, that's the beginning of a new era where we're actually going to identify ourselves as the co-hosts of this podcast, writers with Wrinkles. So really, it's never too late to learn new things. Old dog, new tricks we're like all about the new tricks.

Lisa Schmid: 1:06

Oh my gosh, when you texted me that that we had never introduced ourselves, I just sat there staring at your text. It's just like we were so dumb and I tell you the whole.

Beth McMullen: 1:20

I'll tell you really quickly. So I am obsessed with True Crime podcast and I listened to this podcast called Crime Junkies. That's very popular, that many of you may know, and when they do the intro there's co-hosts and the primary co-host, Ashley Flowers, introduces herself as Ashley Flowers and her co-host is named Britt and Britt never says her last name. So it's hi, I'm Ashley Flowers and I'm Britt. Welcome to Crime Junkies. And I was thinking to myself why doesn't Britt ever say her last name? I wonder why they do that, Do it that way, and I thought, wait a minute, we have never introduced ourselves once on the podcast. It was so funny, I was literally laughing out loud because I was like we are complete idiots.

Lisa Schmid: 2:09

The other thing is sometimes when I listen to the podcast, I don't really know which one of us is talking Like. I feel like we've morphed into each other.

Beth McMullen: 2:18

We have become one. No, it's true. So now that you've heard me say my name and you've heard Lisa say her name, you should be able to distinguish who we are. But in case you don't, there is always a transcript attached to the podcast notes that labels who's saying what. So if you're really confused, go check the transcript.

Beth McMullen: 2:43

Ironing out the wrinkles, oh yeah, and the wrinkles come faster than we are able to iron them, but we are here for it, we are giving it a go, we are trying, and that is all that anyone can ever do. Anyway, so welcome to episode 57. We have cooked up something we are very excited about, and I hope you will be too. So last week we interviewed Heather Mock and Lynn Marie, who are the founders of the platform Seasons of Kidlet, which, if you missed that episode, go and listen to it. They use holidays as a way to promote books and build communities. Super interesting, I mean. I think it will give people lots of ideas for ways that they can use their passion to do these very important things. So Lynn Marie also runs a service called Rate your Story that she talks about a little bit on the podcast, and this service provides a slew of writing related services, one of which is a critique of a picture book manuscript. And guess what? Guess what me and Lisa have.

Lisa Schmid: 3:45

We have a picture book.

Beth McMullen: 3:48

And we thought well, wouldn't it be fun to have Lynn Marie take a look at our manuscript and give us feedback? Because the process of getting feedback is something that, as a writer, you all need to do, whether you like it or not, and sometimes getting feedback can be stressful and painful and makes you want to hide under the bed, no-transcript. By us going through this process with you, we hope that it will take away some of the mystery. What we're planning on doing is starting from the beginning with this rough manuscript for a picture book and taking it all the way through to its natural conclusion. Now the natural conclusion is either published or my God, ladies, this sucks so bad. Nobody will ever publish it.

Beth McMullen: 4:35

Those are the two paths that we could take, and we are here for either of them. We do not know what's going to happen. This is like a write your own ending kind of a thing. So today we have the feedback from Rate your Story and I have to tell you guys, I have not opened the document. Lisa has opened the document and looked at the feedback, but I wanted it to be kind of a surprise for me, so I kind of go through it with you at the same time.

Lisa Schmid: 5:03

You forgot something really important, and I Like saying our names at the beginning of the episode or something else.

Lisa Schmid: 5:10

No, but this is like the title of our new segment is the Big Picture. We are going to be like taking you guys through everything, and I think I'm one of those people that I actually love getting critique. Every time I see a critique coming in, I'm like clapping, I'm like ooh, I'm going to learn something new. That proved to be true with Lynn Marie's notes. So I looked at it and was like, oh my gosh, things that seem really obvious. She just was there really good, so we can kind of go through those.

Beth McMullen: 5:46

So before we get into the nitty gritty, just a quick summary of what this picture book is about. It is about a dog and a cat, and the dog desperately wants to be friends with the cat and the cat wants none of it, totally uninterested. So if you're a dog person or a cat person, you should understand this plot pretty well.

Lisa Schmid: 6:11

This sounds suspiciously like the beginning of our friendship.

Beth McMullen: 6:17

OK, the cat and the dog are just avatars for us. Well, that's not true?

Lisa Schmid: 6:23

No, I mean, I know, I remember when I first met you I was like, oh my god, you're an author. If I had a tail, it would have been wagging.

Beth McMullen: 6:33

Oh my god, that is so funny. I'm going to keel over to death.

Lisa Schmid: 6:37

Well, I mean, think about it, the first time I met you and I was like, who are you on Twitter? I'm going to follow you, da, da da. And then you kind of disappeared, like.

Beth McMullen: 6:45

I was at the SCBWI conference, wasn't it?

Lisa Schmid: 6:48

The local one. And then I saw you at the airport when I was sitting in the wine bar and I about accosted you.

Beth McMullen: 6:56

That should have been my sign of our future, because I found Lisa in a wine bar, an airport wine bar. Oh my goodness.

Lisa Schmid: 7:03

Screamed across the airport at you and so like have you ever seen? I don't know what kind of an animal it is? And he's just like he's. It's like a gopher or something, and he's sitting on a fence post and he's just like ah, that's me. That was totally me.

Beth McMullen: 7:21

That is exactly what I thought of when I saw you, a gopher, sitting on a fence post. Anyway, that is the summary of our story. Maybe it's a story about us, but really it's cats and dogs. That's what we're working with here.

Lisa Schmid: 7:36

So I have a feeling we have a lot of rejections in our future. But the good news is, with that we can do blackout poetry with the rejections.

Beth McMullen: 7:46

So there's a silver lining to people being like I'm sorry, this is a terrible, terrible manuscript. Oh my God, you guys are really awful. But also, in sharing these things with you, it demystifies it a little bit, right, you know. It makes you feel not so bad about the rejections that you will inevitably encounter in your writing career.

Lisa Schmid: 8:08

Yeah, and we're not. We're not just going to go through the writing process, we're going to go through the sub process, and I should note that both of our agents have given us the go ahead to sub this on our own so that our listeners can see what the process is like and what we're going to have to go through. We're going to read our pitch letter. We're going to tell you about, like, not exactly who we're subbing it to, but just you know that we are subbing it out there and that when we get responses coming in, we're going to read those rejections as soon as we get them. And so I think it'll just it'll be fun for everyone to see, or interesting to see, somebody else go through the process in real time.

Beth McMullen: 8:49

Yes, experiencing this in real time, so as it happens to us.

Lisa Schmid: 8:55

It will happen to you.

Beth McMullen: 8:57

Maybe it's like delay for you guys, but not very much, okay. So let us, let us jump in. So Lisa's going to take the lead because, like I said, I have not read the comments from Lynn Marie. I literally opened them up right before we turned this on so that I can kind of experience this at the same time that you guys do.

Lisa Schmid: 9:19

As we mentioned, it's a story about cats and dogs and the title of our original picture book is Cats Rule. So I'm gonna read her kind of opening editorial comments. And so it says this is from Lynn Marie. This is part of our critique. This is a cute and fun concept. I do think it can be amped up with more fleshing and flowing, but it's a wonderful start. I recommend that you read any and all cat and dog books you can get your hands on and take note of title, author, publisher, year, topic and theme. It will give you ideas of what has been done and what hasn't been done before and what you might do that's different to make yours sound out against the rest. Can I just can we?

Beth McMullen: 10:01

talk about this for a quick second before we move on. Okay, I know, on this show, especially Lisa is always saying go and find the books that are like yours, read them, critique them, mark them up all of those super important things. So I think what our assignment is gonna be for ourselves in the next couple of weeks is gonna be going to the library, going to the bookstore, finding these books and figuring out how we can have a fresh take on the cat and dog story, which everybody knows has just been done to death. So what is the? What is the fresh take? I love that she starts out with this, because it's so, so important.

Lisa Schmid: 10:44

And it's true. So, okay as to fleshing out, I might make the characters a bit more unique, while still being clearly a dog like. Perhaps the dog has a favorite thing other than a stick. I once saw a video about a dog who loved pumpkins and carried one around, just an example. Or maybe it's a large branch, so it's a bit funnier and a bit more personality.

Beth McMullen: 11:07

I really like this too. I like the idea of something quirky because, remember, with picture books you have no space to develop your character. It's not like a novel where you can spend pages and pages talking about who this person is. So in this case, this dog has to have a distinct personality with just a couple of little details. So I think super important to make sure those details count, and just carrying around a stick, which our dog is doing, is not enough. So I think this is also something to keep in mind as we're editing to make this character of the dog and the character of the cat those are the only two characters in it that they really have to be unique and interesting in a very quick way, like you have to bring that really quickly.

Lisa Schmid: 12:00

I would think a bit on motivations and stakes and make them a bit clearer as well. A stronger character arc would surely make the story even better. As to transitions, I recommend making them a bit more smooth and logical, and I think we both already knew that that it was a little bit yeah. It was a little bumpy, that's the best thing I can say.

Beth McMullen: 12:21

It was a little bumpy Again.

Lisa Schmid: 12:24

This is a wonderful start and there's a lot to work with. Surely some strong hooks as readers love cats and dogs and there's always that question is whether they can be friends Definitely go for an even clearer ending, perhaps with a twist or food for thought. Best of luck with this. I enjoyed reading it. Okay, I love how she opened and closed with the positive. That's always a good critique.

Beth McMullen: 12:50

Yeah, and that's actually something to keep in mind if you're critiquing other people and there's I wanted to say this up at the beginning when we were talking about critiquing, but you, as a writer, will learn a tremendous amount critiquing other people's work.

Lisa Schmid: 13:06

Yes.

Beth McMullen: 13:06

It's not a one-way street, it goes both ways where you're going to get as much out of doing the critique as you will of receiving a critique. This is a really professional way to do it, where you say this is what I like, here are the things to work on, here's some other stuff I like you feel good at the beginning, you feel good at the end and you're like I can do the stuff in the middle. I can totally do that. I'm motivated.

Lisa Schmid: 13:32

Absolutely. And as far as learning from critiquing other people's work one of the things that when I first started I didn't know how to critique and so if anybody's just starting or they're afraid to jump in and start critiquing, I get it, because when I first started I didn't know anything and I just took it from the view as a reader because I didn't feel like I knew enough about the craft. So that's kind of how I jumped in and then, as I started learning more and more, I was able to add and develop my critiquing skills. So just know that you don't have to go in it and be a full-fledged writer right away and know everything, because I certainly didn't. Yeah, I've done some stuff where I'm like, oh my god, I should have just kept my mouth shut, because you're trying sometimes as a critiquer, you're just trying to say something, to say something. Don't do that, don't feel the need to do that, but just know that we all have to start somewhere.

Beth McMullen: 14:26

Yeah, and you can be really upfront about where you are in your process. So, for instance, I've written what? Seven middle grade novels and now I'm going back to an adult novel. So I'm looking for new critique partners who work in that space and I haven't worked in that space in a long time, so it feels a little. It's definitely a little bumpy, but when I was corresponding with a couple of people who might potentially be a good fit, like I said, this is where I'm at. You know, I have published a lot, I have a lot of experience, but I haven't been writing in adult fiction. I love to critique. I think it's really useful on both ends, like I said. But you have to bear with me that I'm like kind of just getting my feet wet again. So, like I'm saying upfront this is where I'm coming from and feel free to tell me where you're coming from so that when you're reading the critique or doing the critique, you have a kind of an idea of the environment it's happening in, if that makes sense.

Lisa Schmid: 15:32

It's all good and I think when people are starting out, they just need to know it's okay. We've all been there.

Beth McMullen: 15:38

So I want to just touch on a few of the very specific comments that we got from Lynn Marie. The first one is formatting. We formatted this thing entirely wrong, which there is no excuse for. I blame Lisa no, I don't really. It's probably my fault, but formatting is something that you should be able to hit the nail on the head every time, because you can go out on the Internet and find examples. So we need to fix that. We screwed that up.

Beth McMullen: 16:12

The other thing that Lynn Marie pointed out, which I think is very valid, is that our transitions are wonky, so from scene to scene it's not smooth. We are leaving opportunities behind that we could use. So, for instance, the transitions feel a bit random. We're not connecting them. So we have an opportunity to connect them and to make things more funny by doing that.

Beth McMullen: 16:39

So I think for our homework, for this project. So we have written a manuscript, we've submitted it for feedback. The next things that we're going to do we're going to go out and read a lot of cat and dog picture books and see what's being done, see what's being done well, see how it's being done well, and then we're going to come back and we're going to fix the formatting and we're going to fix these transitions. All the while, we're going to keep in mind the idea that this needs to be a fresh take on an old story. Right, the idea of cats and dogs not being friends is a story as old as time. How do we make it fresh? What do you think? Do you accept the challenge?

Lisa Schmid: 17:25

I do accept the challenge. I'm excited. You know we both love this, but we're like those typical writers that we wrote something that made us you know laugh and that amused us. It might not amuse all the editors and we are going to be subbing on our own, so there's some unsuspecting editors who will be.

Beth McMullen: 17:44

So get ready to witness maximum humiliation. Humiliation is galore, but actually an important lesson is to never be defensive about feedback. Even if you don't take it right, Even if there's stuff in there that you're like I don't agree with this, you never assume a defensive posture. You're happy for any and all input and then it's up to you to decide how to use it. So even just glancing at this document right now, just like Lisa said, makes me totally excited to be back in the story and fixing it and elevating it based on what Lynn Marie has graciously provided for us A lot of time and effort you can tell she put into what is, you know, like a four page document and things that we really can do to just elevate this story.

Lisa Schmid: 18:40

Yeah, and just I want to hype her services a little bit. There's Rachel Story and which is we submitted to it, and then she has this other thing where service. It's like a membership service where you can submit like 18 manuscripts a year, which so if you are a picture book writer, this is a valuable service. Like if I was starting out and was writing picture books, I would be all over this, especially if you're out there like you haven't connected with other picture book writers yet. This is a wonderful opportunity for people to really get some wonderful feedback from somebody who's you know, obviously knows her stuff, and there are other authors that also help with critiquing these manuscripts. So again, it's a huge plug for rate your story and the work she does over there. We highly encourage you to check them out.

Beth McMullen: 19:33

Yeah, I cannot agree more. I think it's really valuable and if you could see the actual document and all of the efforts you put into it, it's. You just can't get that in any other way. You're never going to be able to see what's right in front of you. If you've been in the manuscript for too long. I know that people writers experience this all the time. You stop seeing your own stuff because it's so familiar. You can't get any perspective.

Beth McMullen: 19:58

So this kind of thing, this sort of critique, this is a great option. If you're pressed for time or you don't feel comfortable critiquing other people's work, this is a great option. Of course, you can always get those two way relationships where somebody's critiquing you and you're critiquing them. But invaluable overall and that's kind of what we wanted to stress at this point in this project is that this stage is so important. Yes, the submitting and all of that stuff is important later.

Beth McMullen: 20:25

But if you don't have the best product to submit, the whole thing feels kind of pointless. So even though we're like 80% sure no one's ever going to want to publish this, like we're going to make it as good as we can possibly make it, yes, and you get to come along for the ride, my happy listeners. Yay, all right, folks, that is it for today. We hope you found this useful. We will be back next week with author Jason June, who will be our last guest for season two, if you can believe that, after Jason, we'll be rerunning two of our favorite episodes on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, but I'm not going to tell you which, so you have to just show up and see and that is all. So until then, happy reading, writing and listening. Bye Lisa, bye guys.