Kidlit Zombie Week 2024 Day 1: Dissecting Comp Titles to Bring Your Dead Manuscript to Life by DK Ryland

Hi Everyone,

It’s been so long since I’ve posted as I’ve been on a blog hiatus for quite some time, but I’m delighted to break that with this brilliant #KidlitZombieWeek post by DK Ryland. Find out all about this fantastic, free kidlit event with great prizes here, and I hope you join in the fun!

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Welcome to the 5th annual #KidLitZombieWeek! All week we will be providing inspiration and insight for bringing your “dead” manuscripts back to life. This post is all about one of my favorite techniques for diving back into a shelved manuscript – using published comp titles for revision. 

Even though you decided long ago that your manuscript wasn’t working, it doesn’t mean it can’t. Maybe it has a great character, or title, or a really clever scene you just can’t let go of. For one reason or another this story has called to you from beyond the grave, so let’s dig it back up! 

First, read your dead manuscript. Listen for its faint heartbeat. Where is it coming from?  

Write this on a piece of paper:

The best part of this manuscript is… 

This is the heart of your story. You can always come back to this to make sure your revisions point back to it. 

But before you jump further into revisions, let’s do a comp check. Go to the library and check out all the living, breathing, published comp titles you can think of. 

Your book is a funny story about a pirate’s first day of school? Great! Check out all the pirate books. All the first-day-of-school books. All the funny books with a similar comedic style to yours. 

Now read these books with intention. Let’s dissect how the author created a publishable book with similar themes, characters, or style to what you are resurrecting by asking some key questions. I highly recommend writing these out for each picture book you read: 

• Who is the main character? Are they kid-relatable? Do they change in some way over the course of the story? 

• What is the main problem of the story? Would a kid care about this problem? 

• How quickly does the author introduce the main character? How about their problem?

• Identify the beginning, middle, and end of the story. How much of the story is dedicated to each of these? 

• Do the problems in the middle of the story escalate as the character tries to solve them? Do these problems culminate into a big climax before the ending? 

• Does the middle of the book connect the beginning to the end? Do all the scenes move the story forward? Are they all necessary? 

• Does the ending resolve in a satisfying way? Does it make you laugh, or cry, or make you say “aha!”? Does the ending relate back to your beginning? Was there a seed planted at the beginning that created a stronger ending?

In a published picture book, the main character will likely be kid-relatable, the problem and character will likely be introduced in the first spread or two, the beginning and ending will be short and concise with the middle holding most of the meat of the story, and the ending should be satisfying because it will leave the final impression on the reader. 

Sometimes these “rules” will get broken, but usually there is a good reason. If the rules are broken in a picture book you read, see if you can identify why. 

Now that you have dissected your comp titles, hopefully you are feeling a bit of inspiration to dive back into your own manuscript. 

Re-read your story and ask the same questions as you read. A good trick here is to read it and revise it like you didn’t write it. You don’t want to be so attached that you can’t answer the questions honestly. In fact, let’s pretend a zombie wrote your manuscript. Zombies don’t have feelings, right? Zombies don’t need niceties or critique sandwiches. Zombies only want brains. 

These questions should reveal where your manuscript could use some strengthening and if any of the answers to these questions are “no,” you have a place to start with your revisions. Revise until your answers are a resounding “yes!”

And for any illustrators out there, using comp titles works for illustration too! I used many alphabet book comps for my fourth picture book, THE DANGEROUS ALPHABET BOOK (Fall 2025, Astra). 

This book was written in 2019, went through too many revisions to count, was on submission on and off for two years, went through a Revise and Resubmit, and publishes in 2025!

The illustration on the left is from the very first dummy. And the illustration on the right is a sketch revision from the current dummy, because what is better than 1 zombie zucchini?… A zillion! 

Laying out and designing an alphabet book is a unique challenge, especially when the book has a lot of characters and dialogue. So studying other more traditional and then unique alphabet books showed me what works and what doesn’t visually, and gave me a great jumping off point. 

You can use comps for loads of illustration challenges: color palette, layout, when to use full spreads vs. vignettes, how to illustrate movement and climatic moments, character design, illustrating dialogue, page turns, hand lettering, etc. 

So go check out those comp titles and have a spooky (yet productive) week of bringing back the dead!

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Thank you all for joining us. Please head over to the #KidlitZombieWeek Twitter account (this post specifically) to join in on the discussion sharing what you think about this post and of course, thanking the fabulous DK Ryland for sharing. (Another great way to thank creators is to review, purchase, and/or request their books from your library, check out all of DK’s books here!)

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn Sanchez