Go BIG or Go Home...

Escalating tension in picture books

Disclaimer: I can’t stand the phrase ‘go big or go home’. I can only apologise for using it as my title. Please don’t hate me!

The other day I was thinking about CONFLICT and ESCALATING TENSION in picture books. You know, as you do. Casual, like.

Anyway, it reminded me that I do a drama lesson about conflict (yep, for those of you who don’t already know, I’m a secondary school teacher as well as an author illustrator). It happens to be one of my all time favourite lessons - it’s ridiculous - crazy but 100% effective and I think it’s also perfect for those writing picture books.

Hear me out and see what you think…

I get a volunteer to mime going up in a lift. Exciting, I know. I then tell them to get out of the lift and visit a friend on the top floor. We like to add some sound effects like the ding of the doors and some jaunty elevator music but that’s about it. My volunteer takes a bow and I ask the class how interesting that was as a drama. The answer is always the same….

Not very interesting at all or ‘really boring, miss’.

So, I say we have to create a BLOCKBUSTER of a drama. Something we can’t take our eyes off because we have to know what happens next.

And to do this I say we only need one thing…

CONFLICT!

What, that’s all?

YEP - just one magic ingredient of conflict.

I explain what conflict is, give some examples and then get my volunteer (let’s call him Bob) to act out the lift drama again. Only this time the rest of the class have to suggest conflicts and join in! There is, of course, one important rule…we start small and then get bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER!

I’m guessing you might want to know some of their suggestions but as I’ve taught this for a few years now I’ll just give you a flavour…

• Bob narrowly misses the lift and has to wait for the next one. Standard.

• A small annoying child presses every single button. Every floor they stop at has a more ridiculous situation such as a woman giving birth, police breaking down a door, a flashmob who serenade Bob.

• a dangerous animal has escaped from the zoo and it gets in the lift. What will Bob do?

• Asassins are chasing Bob, he must escape!

And on and on it goes.

Poor Bob!

He usually makes it out of the lift but by this point - the friend has become the love of his life and she or he has already left in a taxi to the airport - Bob watches from the top floor window and the maintenance man puts a ‘lift broken’ sign up.

But, why am I sharing all of this with you?

Well…I think it is a great way to approach a picture book and avoid the saggy middle that can sometimes happen. Raise the stakes - put problems in front of your characters and see how big you can go! It’s a fab way of creating an escalating picture book but ALSO a really good way of stretching your ideas and even coming up with new concepts.

Want to know some books that do this brilliantly?

• Wolves in Helicopters - Sarah Tagholm and Paddy Donnelly

• The Pet - Catherine Emmett and David Tazzyman

• Alone - Barry Timms

• Stuck - Oliver Jeffers

So why not have a go yourself. What conflict would YOU put in Bob’s way? I’d love you to try this out on a text you are writing or one that is gathering dust somewhere. Take it out, dust it off and ‘go big or go home’! I hope it takes you somewhere fun!

Over and out.