With picture book writing their is a real art to handling a page turn. You have to think through not only the words but the accompanying art on the pages. There are many amazing tools out there to help you envision what your story will look like with each turn.
You can find a wonderful example on Tara Lazar’s website here. Tara is an amazing women and talented writer so be sure you stick around her site and learn more.
However, I’ve struggled to use these tiny box creations. The little thumbnails are too small for me to make any art on (did I mention I’m not an artist). I can kick but at Pictionary but I need room to make my stick people fit.
My next thought was to make my own dummy book with paper stapled together that I could then draw my ideas and turns on. This works great especially when I can sticky note changes, color, highlight, and agonize over it.
Then my agent wanted a dummy copy. Enter frenzied attempts to draw “better” stick people.
I gave up after several nights of attempted scanning of pages and formatting issues. I’m known by my critique pals to be a bit *ahem* quirky with my thought processes and so bear with me on this left field idea. Let’s consider Google Slides a moment. Or PowerPoint or whatever handy projector project maker you have access to. Those slides are just like page turns. Seriously. Bonus that you can print off those slides in smaller sizes across one or several pages. Are you with me?
So taking the formatting found on Tara Lazar’s site or wherever you find one you like you can create your own dummy with nice typed words, illustration notes, and even photos. Another fun aspect is you can play with font, layout, and color in a way that is difficult to fix on a hard paper copy.
Here is a blank copy of the document I made. Feel free to use it to create the best page turn dummy you can think up. Or make your own to use whenever you need.
Happy Questing!
Quest Type 