#picture book dummy

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.

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.