Script Writing for Illustrated Books

Script Writing for Illustrated Books

“You reached the end of the course and now it's your turn to do your final project; from the original idea, the writing of your script and your illustrated children's book mockup. I invite you to think about your motivations, what you are passionate about, and delve into a documentation and research process that allows you to develop an attractive and interesting story for the audience of your choice. I share an example of how I would like to see your final project: all starts with an idea: Start by looking for a mother idea, something that you are passionate about and motivated. Write a list of ten ideas that interest you and that you think could be used in a children's book.

Document yourself and choose your audience: Search primary and secondary sources in different media: books, documentaries, articles, photographs. Written sources and images. Check if your ideas are materialized in children's books, and select one of all the ideas on your list, the one that you think is the most original and novel. It also defines the type of picture book you will be working on, and the target audience you will be targeting. The draft: Make your draft script, dividing your story into fourteen scenes. You must find your own voice to tell your story. Describe each of these scenes thinking that they will later be illustrated. Then, transfer that draft to the scene format I showed you. The storyboard: Make a storyboard that contains texts, simple and conceptual sketches for each scene. You don't need to know how to illustrate, but you should think about text and image at the same time. Illustrate your project: If you are going to illustrate your project, you can make sketches (and maybe one or two final illustrations) and build your model on that. You can also ask an illustrator to make test illustrations for you. The important thing is that both you and the illustrator are flexible about the future changes that the picture book could have. Illustrations by Raquel Echenique. The model: Make your analog or digital model that gives an account of the history and visual proposal of your project. Remember that this is a mockup, it is not the final version that will be published, so you can try different texts and illustrations throughout your creative process. At the end, you will have in your hands a project that you can present to publishers or competitions, who could collaborate with you to finally publish your illustrated book. Remember that for this stage, it could be useful to have a digital dossier, as well as a digital version of the model of your project. Do not forget to share your project, you have already worked enough to achieve it, let people know your work. Domestika is a very large and very noble platform that you can also use a little to give visibility to your projects. Remember that if along the way, you have any questions or would like support of any kind, you can use the forum to ask, I will be there to accompany you. I just ask you to be patient because it may take a while to answer you. I invite you to do so if you are in a position to give some advice to your colleagues, but always with respect. Let's learn, grow and write together! I wish you every success, and see you on the forum!”

Partial transcription of the video

“We have reached the end of the course and I want to thank you for taking it. For me it has been a unique opportunity to share my personal experience with you, my achievements and the knowledge that I have learned during these years. Do this course it has also been a time of reflection and analysis, to realize what are the real motivations and passions behind what I do. That is why I invite you to do the exercise to realize your life, your jobs and your dreams. There you will find that mother idea that I proposed you to look for at the beginning of the course. Many times we do not have it id...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Script Writing for Illustrated Books

• Level: Beginner
• 99% positive reviews (93)
• 2543 students
• 4 units
• 14 lessons (3h 31m)
• 6 downloads

• Category

  Illustration, Writing

• Areas

  Children's Illustration, Children's Literature, Narrative, Script, Storyboard, Storytelling, Writing