Why All Illustrators Should Try Writing And How To Start.

Spoiler Alert: It's Terrifying But Totally Worth It

Image by Rob Sayegh Jr. www.robsayart.com

Summer has officially begun, and I have officially started working on ideas and manuscripts to pitch to my agent and editor for my follow-up book to DAWN PATROL (2025) with Candlewick Press, which will be my third author/illustrator picture book. After meeting with my fabulous editor, I reflected for a while on how taking the plunge into writing has helped my career in so many ways. As horrifying and intimidating as it was initially, it allowed me to be much more proactive in my career toward getting new work. Writing for me was and still is a challenge, but through that challenge, I have grown to love it. What drove me to keep working on becoming a writer is that I knew that by showing I could be an author and an illustrator, I could bring more value to a publisher and my work. Besides the career opportunities writing has given me, it has made me a MUCH better storyteller and illustrator. By writing stories and pitching them to my agent and critique group, failing countless times, and seeing what sticks and what doesn’t, I gradually learned how to become a writer and, more importantly, discovered things I loved writing about. I believe many illustrators have countless ideas for stories, and the writing part scares them away.

Here are some tips I have learned so far that have helped me to remove my fear of writing as my career continues to develop as an author/illustrator.

DON’T THINK OF IT AS WRITING. THINK OF IT AS STORYTELLING.

I am not a technically trained writer, and in my early writing attempts, I let that get the best of me. I tried to write as if I was a writer. I would torment myself trying to figure out a whole manuscript and getting words on the page just to get something down, but I slowly realized the process that a writer might use to create a manuscript isn’t how I ever started an idea for a story in my life. Whether as an illustrator or in my previous career as a toy designer, I have always started with a thumbnail or a drawing which would then blossom into a bigger idea. It is just how my brain works, and I was forcing myself to use words to figure out a story because I was obsessed with “written text” being the sole outcome. One day, I got so frustrated with trying to write and figure out a story that I just decided to draw moments of story elements I wanted to convey. I then laid these moments out in a sequence that felt right to me, and it slowly became a wordless dummy book. This helped tremendously in giving my story structure and also gave me visual cues of what story elements I was missing. It provided a map and direction for me to write towards, and once I had a grasp of the visuals, the words and story aspects became so much easier to see. It was also helpful in making sure that my art and my words were telling the same story without saying the same exact things, which helped simplify and enhance my writing. You are writing for words and pictures to work as one, and if you create a story that truly works in that harmony, no one will care which elements you figured out first in your process.

LEAN ON YOUR IMAGES AND KEEP YOUR MANUSCRIPT SHORT.

Particularly in picture books, author/illustrators have a huge advantage when pitching manuscripts because they can pitch projects with visuals. An editor can get the idea of the whole book in your pitch as it pertains to the artwork style, the flow of the dialogue, etc., just from your pitch which is so different from an author just pitching manuscripts without any visuals. When I have leaned into this idea of relying much more on my visuals to tell the narrative, it has paid off tremendously. Picture books need visuals to tell the story, so using your illustrations as a tool to carry the narrative even from the beginning of the pitch and submission process will help you get noticed if done right. Keep your manuscript length tight and short, under 500 words max, and let your artwork do the rest of the storytelling.

CREATE, PITCH, GET FEEDBACK AND REPEAT

I have written a lot of stories. I have also pitched A LOT of stories to my agent and critique group. I would say about 95% get cut for some reason or another. Whether it’s not a great story, there’s a lot of competition in the genre or even just timing, I have said “goodbye” (or sometime “see you later”) to a lot of hard work. But without that 95% of work that doesn’t make it through or even to the submission process, I wouldn’t have the 5% that I am incredibly excited about working on and gets picked up on submission. By creating a dummy book, going through the process, refining, getting feedback, and refining some more, I am getting the experience and development of the process it takes for me to make a story. By doing this process repeatedly, you will begin to see the better stories rise to the top and get a better sense of where your time and work are best suited.

CONTINUE TO BUILD YOUR ILLUSTRATION CAREER WHILE WORKING TOWARDS YOUR AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR GOALS.

When I first got into children’s publishing, I thought I would get to be an author/illustrator right off the bat, and boy, I was WRONG. I believe for many illustrators; it is much better and easier to cement themselves as an illustrator in children’s publishing first before going into the author/illustrator market. It may be because that is our backgrounds and our knowledge set, but personally, I found it much easier to get my foot in the door as an illustrator, which later on made it easier for me to share my manuscripts with editors and art directors that I had worked with in the past. I think having an established illustrator career first shows the publishing world that you are capable of making narrative art for a book, making it easier for an editor or an art director to take a chance on your story.

CREATE AN IDEA BANK SO YOU ALWAYS HAVE AN IDEA TO WORK ON.

In my previous post about my favorite creative app, Apple Notes, I put all my ideas in the app so that when I do have time, I can pick up where I left off, no matter where I am. An idea bank is a great idea, especially for working illustrators. Our time and schedules change so much that you never know when you will have time to work on your author/illustrator projects. By having a bank of ideas, you can jump on them whenever you have the time, taking the stress away from where to start. Make it second nature to jump into your own stories in-between other projects. It will bring you joy, but it will also give you a chance to establish your own author career to coincide with your illustration-only projects.