Writer's Support Room - Publishing Paths

by Marianne Mitchell

A rebus story is written for the beginning reader using pictures to help decode the meanings of the words. Some magazines use the picture and the written word, some use only the picture in place of the written word. A good rebus story is constructed like a well-told joke, complete with punch line at the end. When planning a rebus story, you must think of a simple story with few characters and lots of picturable nouns.

1. Focus on a small anecdote, one event. Don’t waste words on setting up the situation. You don’t have the luxury of describing the scene, what the characters look like, or giving background information. Start your story where the problem or action begins. Example: "Mouse had the hiccups." In four words we have the main character and his problem. The rest of the story will be how his problem is solved.

2. Tight writing is the key. Your story must have engaging characters, a "situation" or problem young readers can identify with, a beginning, middle and a satisfying ending, all in a few well-chosen words. How few?
Ladybug 75 to 100 words
Highlights 80 to 125 words
Turtle 80 to 100 words
Humpty Dumpty 150 to 200 words

3. Generally a rebus story uses 7 to 10 picture words, some of which are repeated in the story. Focus on nouns, colors, and numbers. Verbs don’t make good picture words. There should be only one way to "read" the picture. For example, "smile" is not a good rebus word because the reader might be confused with a picture that showed a mouth, teeth and lips. But, "nose" is a good picture word because there is no confusion as to its meaning.

4. Limit the number of characters in your story so you don’t end up with too many "heads" as pictures. Generally a rebus has 1 to 4 characters.

5. Keep the number of text lines to 17 or under, unless your word count allows for up to 250 words. A Highlights rebus never has more than 17 lines of text. Watch out for too much dialogue in your story because it can eat up precious lines.

6. What topics work best? Anything that is part of a 2- to 6-year-old’s world: family, friends, home, toys, animals, school, holidays, weather, gardens and nature. Sometimes a retold folk tale works well in this format.

7. How do you begin? Jump right into the problem or conflict:

Statement: It was the first day of school.
Question: When will Hanukkah come?
Guessing game: "Guess what I have in my box," said Toby.
Once upon a time: One day, Mark went fishing.
Make a wish: "I wish we lived where it snows," said Anne.
Name the characters: Billy helped Dad load the car.

8. General tone:

Kids figure things out on their own.
Stimulate your readers’ imagination.
Foster good will, sense of success, positive values.
Avoid negative words. (That’s stupid. How dumb!)

9. You can even teach a lesson through a rebus. Teach a mini science lesson, how
to count money, how plants grow, changes in the weather, a craft activity, or something about another culture.

10. Don’t use puns. The word "before" is not represented by a picture of a bee and the number four. The word "I" is not represented by an eye. The point of a good rebus story is to help children learn to read. The pictures aid in decoding the words.

11. Avoid first-person tellings. Use kids’ names and get the names introduced early on. Talking animals are fine. Even non-living things can tell the story, as in a fable about the sun and the wind.

12. Contractions are okay and will save you words.

13. Use simple tag lines: said / cried / called /roared / asked.

14. Keep the language and sentence structure simple. Don’t worry about using big words if they can be pictured. For example, hippopotamus or wheelbarrow will be used with a picture.

15. It’s okay to have several picture words in a row. Remember, they will probably be separated by the written words.

16. How to end? That’s the hardest part! Here you need a surprise or a twist, just like a good joke needs a snappy punch line. Your ending should make the reader say, "What fun!" or "That’s neat!"

17. Cut as many words as possible. This will take several drafts and rewrites. Shorter is always better. Just to check, (not to send in) type your story triple spaced, leaving room to doodle in some pictures yourself. Take a look at your story now. How many lines did it use up? Do you have some repetition of pictures? Do you have too many pictures or too many of the same picture? This layout is much like your story will appear on the page of the magazine (with their art added) so it will give you a good idea if your story will fit.

18. Submission format: Don’t send in your doodle version. Send it like any other story, typed, double-spaced, name and address on the top left, word count on the top right. You may like to underline or highlight with yellow marker the words you think would make good pictures.

Rebuses look like they’d be easy because they’re so short. But they can be some of the toughest writing you’ll ever tackle. But when you’re done and it all works, you’ll feel like doing cartwheels and shouting "Hooray! I did it!"

© Marianne Mitchell 2002

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