Guest Post for Kidlit Zombie Week 2025, Day 1: RXs TO BRING MANUSCRIPTS FROM DEAD TO READ by Lynne Marie (6/23/2025)

contest, Contests, Editor, Guest Post, Kidlit, Kidlit Zombie Week 5 Minutes

Dear Kidlit Zombie Week friends,

Welcome to the first post for 2025’s Kidlit Zombie Week! If this your first time joining us, you’ll find this is a deadly-fun week full of discussions about how to bring your dead manuscripts back to life, with tons of incredible prizes to boot!

Today, I’m delighted to share our first inspiring post written by multi-published, award-winning author of picture books and editor at The Little Press, Lynne Marie! Without further ado, here we go!

RXs TO BRING MANUSCRIPTS FROM DEAD TO READ by Lynne Marie

I have to admit I really love this challenge! What’s more fun than digging into your dead manuscript files and mining those with potential and then, like Dr. Victor Frankenstein, finding that spark that will bring it to life? 

Since my path to becoming an author started by going back to college to focus on writing for children, I have tons of dead manuscripts – also known as homework assignments. I got my grade, and then buried them in paper files and moved on with my efforts. 

But strangely enough, many years later, I did resurrect a few:

Roommates, which published as BroomMates: A Brewing Boundary Battle 

School Bus Buddies, which published as Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten

The Day of the Nativity Play, which published as A Star in the Christmas Play

The Palace Rat, published under the same name

So what brought these particular manuscripts from Dead to Read? 

Roommates/Broommates: A Brewing Boundary Battle – This was based upon my experiences with my sisters Jean (as a child) and Michele (as a teen) sharing a room. It showcased issues many siblings have. As a story, it got a good grade, so it was well written, but was it good enough to be a picture book story that a kid would want to read? Unfortunately, no. I needed something to bring it to the next level. So I played What If?

What if the sisters were not humans, but witches? What if there was magic involved? What if there was a playful rhyme that made it fun to read? So I revised, brought on my longtime friend and partner in rhyme Brenda to work together to make the rhyme shine, and voila! BroomMates was born, published and has been named an Anna Dewdney Read Together Award Finalist and Honor Book, as well as Children’s Book Council Favorite for Teachers, Librarians and Kids! 

RX: Let go of the original conceit for the story and explore possibilities that bring it more alive. 

School Bus Buddies/Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten – This was based upon my son’s experiences taking the bus for the first few times. Again, it was a good story, but was it a fun and satisfying picture book? No, not really. 

I considered what would make it so. I had a little hedgehog (Apollo (Spike-y) Nike) who was nervous, much like my son. So I swapped them out, and had a new main character (Spike)! That invited in a host of fun animal characters who I gave fun animal names to and incorporated their qualities into the narrative. I sent it to Scholastic who did not have a school bus book in their Fall flyer, and BOOM! It sold! 

RX: Try an anthropomorphic animal (they appeal to a wide audience) instead of a human, or vice versa. There’s all kinds of thoughts and qualifiers on this, which I won’t get into here, but no matter what, this is a great writing and growing exercise. You will see that one, over the other, either gives you more freedom and fun with the story or has more heart and connectivity to the reader. 

The Day of the Nativity Play/A Star in the Christmas Play – This was actually a sad and depressing story about how the last time I saw my Sunday School friend was when we were angels in the play. She died of meningitis two days later and I had to stay home from school and take preventive medicine. It wasn’t a story anyone would want to read, although it was therapeutic to write. But could I make it into a picture book? 

I took a page from the School Bus Buddies transformation, anthropomorphized the characters, made it about something else entirely (struggle with self-acceptance of a personal flaw), and finally, it was able to shine its light. It was a winner in the Sparkhouse/Beaming Books 1st Annual Picture Book Contest (which no longer exists), where it won a contract and nice advance. It has been published in Hardcover and Softcover and there is a play for church schools to perform.  

The Palace Rat – This book was inspired by a real rat that ran across the courtyard when we were waiting to enter The Palace of Versailles. While the original conceit of the story was much the same as it is now, it would never have been published in its original form. It had too many important secondary characters and it was, at 2,500 words, much too long. 

I had to streamline the story down to 650, put some of the attempts to solve the problem in letters, kill off one of the secondary characters (Papa Mouse), and put every word on trial. This is one that had made the rounds, but it didn’t get a sale until I really really got serious about letting go and did what I had to do, and figured out what I was trying to say with the story (Bloom Where You Are Planted). 

RX: As above, always streamline to make every word count, make sure each character has three important reasons for being in the story, make sure each line moves the story forward, use art to tell part of the story and consider your mission for the story / theme. 

Whether or not you have dead manuscripts that will fit any of the few RXs that I have prescribed above, the important thing is to think outside the box of your original idea and try different main characters, storylines, structures, words, and possibilities on for size. And the important thing is to enjoy the process while you do so that hopefully, someday, kids will enjoy the story, too! 

Lynne Marie is the multi-published, award-winning author of picture books, including three with Scholastic,  The Star of the Christmas Play   (Beaming Books 2018), Moldilocks and the 3 Scares (Sterling / Scholastic 2019),  Let’s Eat! Mealtime Around the World (Beaming Books 2019), The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project (Mac and Cheese Press 2022), The Palace Rat (Yeehoo Press 2023), and Henny Penny’s Weather Worries (Mac and Cheese Press, 2025) and more, forthcoming. 

Lynne Marie’s recent book, BroomMates: A Brewing Boundary Battle (The Little Press 2024), is an honor book for the 2025 Anna Dewdney Read Together Award,  has been awarded a 2025 CBC Favorite in K – 2 from Teachers, Kids and Librarians, as well as a winner in the Holiday Category of the 2024 Northern Lights Book Awards.

She’s an Editor at The Little Press, Director of RateYourStory.org, Mentor at ThePictureBookMechanic.com, Creator of March On With Mentor Texts (www.rateyourstory.org/march-on) and Mentor Text Talk, Co-Host of #SeasonsOfKidLit (www.seasonsofkidlit.com) and a Columnist at Children’s Book Insider (https://writeforkids.online/).  Visit her at www.LiterallyLynneMarie.com. 

Thanks so much for reading and participating in Kidlit Zombie Week! Now, hobble your zombie self on over to our Kidlit Zombie Week Bluesky account and join in on the conversation. Don’t forget to check out the prizes for the week and invite writing friends to participate in our 2025 Kidlit Zombie Week, where we talk about revising manuscripts and have great prizes too!

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn Sanchez

Published

50 thoughts on “Guest Post for Kidlit Zombie Week 2025, Day 1: RXs TO BRING MANUSCRIPTS FROM DEAD TO READ by Lynne Marie (6/23/2025)”

  1. An inspiring post to help us take another look at the manuscripts we’ve pushed to the back of the drawer and see how they may be brought back out into the light. Thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. An inspirational post to help us drag those dusty manuscripts lodged at the back of the drawer out into the light of day and see how we can make them sparkle. Thank you.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Thank you for these creative ideas, Lynn Marie and Kaitlyn. I have many manuscripts currently resting in peace that may come to life with a few “what if?” prompts. I’m excited to dig in!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I adored reading about the evolving nature of Lynne Marie’s PBs! All began as great ideas and, through a revivial, ended up becoming published picture books. So excited for her awards and continued success. Congratulations!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. I love Lynne Marie’s suggestions for rethinking our manuscripts. I have a pile of ‘dead’ ones, so it should be interesting to see if I can resuscitate any of them!

    Like

    Reply

  12. Thank you Lynne for the helpful tips. Breaking them down to a short, boldface print list helps narrow down those different kinds of revisions.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. Great prescriptions to bring a manuscript back to life, Lynne Marie! I like the idea of tweaking the characters and the setting to see what happens to the story. And it’s safer than trying to catch lightning like Dr. Frankenstein to boot.

    Like

    Reply

  15. I’m SO EXCITED to be taking part in my first KIDLIT ZOMBIE WEEK! 

    KAITLYN: THANK YOU SO MUCH for creating SUCH a FUN and MUCH-NEEDED event to help us give our old manuscripts another chance. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! LYNNE MARIE: THANK YOU for sharing your INSPIRING writing journey to show us how you were able to reconstruct . . . er, resurrect old stories by breathing new life into them. Ideas are already generating on how I can apply some of these tips into applying some MUCH-NEED CPR to my own stories. THANK YOU!!!  

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. Lynne Marie inspired me. Although my books are nonfiction, and I can’t really anthropomorphize most of them, there are one or two that I might be able to rewrite. Her experience did make me think of going in a different direction.

    Like

    Reply

  19. This post is so timely for me. My brain took a rest from brilliant new ideas, so I poked around and dug deep into random files. And what do you suppose…

    the ideas that arose from were ones that I entered in online, few words, contests! Won some. Didn’t win some. But I’m excited to look my zombies straight on and have them tell me where they want to go now!

    Thanks Leann and Lynn Marie.

    Like

    Reply

  20. “From Dead to Read” is so memorable. I can picture those words on a KidLitZombieWeek t-shirt!

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.