True Story
Wow! I just came back from my meeting with my illustrator for the picture book. She knocked it out of the park. Not only did she show me sketches of the characters, she also had a storyboard mapped out for the entire book. The sketches look awesome. We had a few pages with some minor changes, but the overall concept is just dynamite. I get to test drive the sketches with kids at a writing camp next week, and I'm itching to show off the images.
The only thing that is a question mark is the ending. Originally, we had conceived the story as the boy blaming his cats for the trouble in the house. I'm wondering if the last sequence should be a bit of payback from the cats. Maybe this story would work better as a "Boy who Cried Wolf" tale. That third sequence is all about the cats fighting and making noise, so the only page that would really have to change is the last one in which the boy has to tell his dad that it is a true story that the cats caused all the trouble. I'm going to mull it over this weekend and see which way to go. Amazing how the illustrators can impact where the writing goes. Very cool exercise in collaboration. I'm loving it.