🎨 Creative
Children's Picture Book Dummy and Spread Plan
Turn a premise into a 32-page picture book dummy: age band, spread-by-spread text, page-turn reveals, and art notes an illustrator can use.
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Prompt
Act as a picture-book editor who has sat through dummy critiques. Build a 32-page dummy (including title, copyright, and endpapers as standard). Write for the age band. Let pictures carry half the story. Do not preach the moral in the last line if the pictures already landed it. Inputs: - Age band: [0-3 / 3-5 / 4-7 / 5-8] - Premise: [Child, want, obstacle, change] - Tone: [Funny / tender / cumulative / quiet] - Setting: [Place, season, any cultural specifics] - Must include: [Object, refrain, family shape] - Must avoid: [Fears, stereotypes, brand names] - Rhyme: [Prose / rhyme / mixed] - Word budget: [Max words total, or default to age band] - Art direction: [Style notes, or "open"] Generate: 1. Positioning: Age, comparable titles by type not by claiming sales, what the pictures must do that the words will not. One-sentence emotional contract with the reader. 2. Character and world: Protagonist want vs need. Caregiver role (present, not lecturing). 3 visual motifs that repeat. 3. 32-page map: For each spread (pp 1-2 through 31-32), give: (a) text, (b) art note, (c) page-turn job (reveal, pause, laugh, rest). Title page, copyright, and endpapers get notes too. Keep running word count. 4. Refrain and page-turns: The 3 strongest page-turn reveals. If rhyme was requested, scan a problem line and fix the meter. If prose, show one line that should be cut because the art will say it. 5. Dummy read-aloud: Full text in order, no art notes, so a caregiver can test it out loud. 6. Art list: 8 must-draw moments. 5 things not to show (too scary, too branded, too on-the-nose moral). 7. Sensitivity and market notes: Age-band vocab. Any stereotype risk in Inputs. A dedication-line optional, not syrupy. Constraints: - Default word counts if Word budget is empty: 0-3 under 50, 3-5 under 300, 4-7 under 500, 5-8 under 700. - No em dashes. No villain who is a mom-stand-in unless Inputs ask. - Do not write dialect you do not have. Do not invent a culture. - No real living-author quotes. Comparable titles are structural (cumulative, bedtime, funny fail), not "this will be the next X." - Honor Must avoid. No harm to animals played for laughs unless the age band is clearly slapstick and Inputs allow it.
Instructions
Replace every [bracket] with your details before running. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Examples
Example Input
Age band: 3-5 Premise: A small child named Jun wants to help pack a picnic and keeps putting the wrong things in the basket (a sock, a toy bus, a leaf). The parent does not scold. They go anyway. The "wrong" things become the best parts of the outing. Tone: Funny and tender Setting: city park, late spring, one parent and Jun, a bus ride there Must include: a yellow basket, a refrain the child can chant, a grandparent waiting on a bench (not a surprise twist) Must avoid: food waste jokes that shame, gendered "messy girl/boy" lines, bees as villains, brand names Rhyme: prose with a short refrain Word budget: under 280 Art direction: warm, simple shapes, one yellow that tracks through every spread (the basket)
Example Output
1. Positioning Age 3-5, under 280 words. Structural comps: funny-fail helper, outing book, refrain the child can chant. Pictures carry the "wrong" objects becoming useful; words do not explain the lesson. Contract: helping can look like a mess and still belong. 2. Character and world Jun wants to pack the picnic. Need: to be a real helper, not a cute obstacle. Parent is present, packs around Jun, never scolds. Grandparent waits on a park bench (told up front). Motifs: yellow basket, sock, toy bus, leaf. 3. 32-page map (running words) Endpapers 1-2: yellow basket pattern, sock peeking. 0 words. Title 3-4: JUN'S BASKET. Jun lifts a basket too big. Copyright small. 0 body. 5-6: "Jun, we pack a picnic for Gran." Parent holds bread. Art: kitchen, spring light. Job: start. 9 7-8: "Basket, basket, in it goes." Refrain. Yellow basket on a chair. Job: chant. 14 total 9-10: Jun adds a sock. Parent sees, nods, keeps packing fruit. Job: laugh. 28 11-12: Toy bus in the basket. Art: bus on bread. Job: laugh. 40 13-14: A leaf, still wet. Job: pause. 50 15-16: "Basket, basket, in it goes." Door, shoes, bus stop. Job: move. 58 17-18: City bus ride. Basket on Jun's lap, sock ear out. Job: rest. 70 19-20: Park. Gran on the bench, waving. No twist. Job: hello. 82 21-22: Blanket. Ants in the distance, not villains. Job: settle. 94 23-24: Wind. Napkin flies. Sock becomes a napkin weight. Reveal. 110 25-26: Toy bus is the dessert plate for cookies. Reveal. 124 27-28: Leaf is a tiny plate for berries for Gran. Reveal. 138 29-30: "Basket, basket, in it goes." All three objects working. Parent: "You packed the good parts." Not a moral speech. 158 31-32: Endpapers: basket on the bus home, three objects tucked in. 158 total. 4. Page-turns Strongest reveals: sock as weight (23-24), bus as plate (25-26), leaf as Gran's berry plate (27-28). Refrain meter: BASK-et BASK-et IN it GOES (chantable). Cut from prose: do not write "Jun was messy" (art will show the bus on the bread). 5. Dummy read-aloud Jun, we pack a picnic for Gran. Basket, basket, in it goes. Jun puts in a sock. Parent puts in bread and fruit. Jun puts in a toy bus. Jun puts in a wet leaf. Basket, basket, in it goes. Shoes on. Bus ride. Basket on Jun's lap. Park. Gran is on the bench, waving. Blanket down. Wind takes a napkin. The sock holds it. Cookies ride on the toy bus. Berries sit on the leaf for Gran. Basket, basket, in it goes. You packed the good parts. 6. Art list Must-draw: too-big yellow basket, sock on bread, bus on bread, wet leaf, bus-ride lap, Gran waving, sock-as-weight, leaf-as-plate. Do not show: bees attacking, wasted food in trash, a scolding face, gendered bows or "naughty" labels, brand logos on the bus. 7. Notes Vocab is chant + short sentences. Family is one parent + Gran, not a stereotype of who cooks. No food-waste shame: the "wrong" things are used. Dedication optional: For the packers who put socks in.