I have been writing short childrens stories that range from 6 to 11 thousand words and what I want to do is turn these short stories into 20 to 26 page picture books. Why? One because the attention span of a child is like unto a gnat and two that is the popular method today. I learned this from performing reads at our local library for small children. Anyway, how do I break up my longer stories and create very short ones without destroying the story. It's an edit nightmare, The popular format seems to be a word wrap around picture thing today and in order to do that I really need to slice up the story. Any and all suggestions accepted with deep gratitude and appreciation. PS: I create my own illustrations.
I have no expertise for this but maybe your short story is not really designed for a picture book. I would think a picture book story is going to be very limited on words and perhaps you could start with a picture and add the words that describe the picture, the association would help a child understand both aspects. I see a picture book's role as trying to get a child interested in reading since the words can reveal details they might not have noticed otherwise.
