How to Use Narrative Distance in Picture Book Writing
with Lisa Rowe Fraustino
What is narrative distance and how can it help you write a better picture book?
In this session, Lisa Rowe Fraustino explains techniques that
award-winning authors use to achieve their desired effect through
control of narrative distance. Also called psychic distance or authorial
distance, narrative distance refers to how far the narrator takes the
reader inside a character's thoughts and perceptions. Understanding
narrative distance helps a writer stay in a consistent point of view and
show characters versus telling about them.
"Lisa, thank you for your presentation! Extremely helpful to my present manuscript. Great advice."
- Marlena Colino Leach
Your Instructor
Lisa Rowe Fraustino has published a long list of children’s books, poetry, and criticism. Her picture book The Hickory Chair, illustrated by Benny Andrews and published by Arthur Levine/Scholastic, received widespread critical acclaim. Her YA novel Ash served as her PhD dissertation at Binghamton University, her middle-grade novel The Hole in the Wall won the 2010 Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature, and she wrote the Dear America book about the Salem witch trials, I Walk in Dread. Also an award-winning teacher, Lisa directs the Graduate Programs in Children’s Literature at Hollins University.
Course Curriculum
Frequently Asked Questions
"This was so helpful and insightful! Thank you so much for your thoughts and wisdom, Lisa!"
- Marie Prins
"Very helpful and thought-provoking in a grand way!"
- Carmela McCain Simmons