Picture Book Plot Structures

Scott — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:11:32 +0000

From Shutta Crum — “children’s author and teller of stories”. Shutta outlines eight picture book plot structures. So far I haven’t seen anyone else come up with a list like this:

Cummulative -> Toppling Structure
Decreasing Structure
Increasing Structure
Simultaneously Increasing and Decreasing Structure
Parallel Structure
Story Within a Story Structure
Time Line Structure – straight time line
Time Line Structure – full circle
Traditional Rising Action Structure

Shutta gives examples for each structure. The fun part now is to figure out which structure when reading new books.

Writing Picture Books » plot structure

Picture Book Plot Structures