Guest Post for Kidlit Zombie Week 2025, Day 2: REVIVING THE DEAD: Six Ways to Breathe Life into a Beloved (but Stale) Tale by Shannon Stocker(6/24/2025)

Dear Kidlit Zombie Week friends,

Welcome to the second post for 2025’s Kidlit Zombie Week! If this is 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 second inspiring post written by multi-published, award-winning author who is a fierce advocate for children with disabilities–the one–the only, my good friend: Shannon Stocker! Without further ado, here we go!

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REVIVING THE DEAD: Six Ways to Breathe Life into a Beloved (but Stale) Tale by Shannon Stocker

This is not necessarily an advice column with a happy ending. I am not here today to tell you that every time I revise, and revise, and revise again, the editor/house of my dreams says, “SHANNON! This is BRILLIANT! I want to publish this RIGHT NOW!”

That would be a fairy tale. And we are in zombie world.

But does that mean we should be satisfied burying our beloved tales? Absolutely not! I am of the belief that everything we write has value, regardless of whether it winds up published or not. Perhaps it teaches us that an idea didn’t work.

Perhaps we gained a new perspective.

Every draft is worthwhile. And if it doesn’t get picked up, and you love it so very much that you cannot say goodbye forever, then I would argue that it’s worth another revision.

It is worth CPR.

Then, maybe it will limp to yet another revision. Maybe it will moan in a folder for years to come, until you choose to embrace it once again. But maybe, just maybe, it will land in the right hands and see the light of day as a living, breathing story.

But how do you do that? How do you revive a story that seems to be scaring everyone away?

Well, allow me to suggest six quick tips that have helped me elevate my stories in the past. As a side note, these are also some of the most common pitfalls I address with my critique clients…so if you find these relatable, I want you to know—you’re not alone!

1. Consider your audience:

This may sound silly, given that we write picture books, but I cannot tell you how many character-based stories I’ve critiqued that seem to be written for the parents, or for a child that’s older than that typical five-to-eight age range. In today’s market, agents and editors really want to see age-appropriate books where the character solves their own problem. They want books that encourage independent thought, with age-appropriate material and dialogue. That doesn’t mean you can’t have magical thinking, or a precocious MC, or use big words. You can! But if you don’t have children or grandchildren in this age range, consider hanging out at a playground, or in the children’s section of a library. Interview a kindergarten teacher to find out exactly what the kids that age are learning. Ask a pediatrician about age-related milestones. If your MC came out of the womb forty years old and able to construct spaceships, fabulous! We have a magical story! But if the problem and the character are meant to be realistic, then your setting/dialogue should be, too.

• Kill your darlings:

This one sort of goes along with number one. If your MC’s mom feeds a piece of advice, then guess what? Your MC’s mom probably needs to go (sorry, Mom). If someone else is giving your MC the answer, then you likely have another problem: you’re probably telling your reader something you can show instead. What might your MC witness that gives them an idea? What mistake might they make? If you find a creative way for them to solve their own problem, you might just find that Mom (or Dad, or a friend, etc) isn’t needed.

• Ensure you have ONE problem.

This one’s a little tougher to spot, but I see it with my clients (and in my own early drafts) all the time. If you cannot write a two-sentence pitch using the word “but” or “until,” then you just might have multiple problems in your story. To have a plotline that young readers can easily follow, you must clearly define that one single problem, be sure that the reader knows this problem within the first two spreads of your story, and then work to solve this one problem for the rest of the book. Maybe the MC solves it; maybe they don’t. That is your twist to explore. But if the plot meanders, then you will surely have readers that do the same.

• Show, don’t tell:

I know you probably hate hearing this phrase, but it’s an important one. Still, how can revise with an eye specifically for this? Well, one way to show is to be sure you’re using active verbs. When critiquing, I will frequently do a search through drafts for the words “was” or “were.” If someone “was thinking,” for example, then the reader is being told, rather than shown. So how can you strengthen that verb? Consider what you’re trying to say: what if you showed the reader that the MC scratched their head instead? This is a stronger verb, and now, in context, the reader will just know that the MC is thinking. Another red flag is the word “looked.” Many times, you don’t need to tell the reader what the MC sees. Show us what’s happening instead. “MC looked around” is not active. “MC’s eyes widened when Sally swallowed the fish,” though…that is. Gross, sure. But active.

• Poetry, baby:

Those who know me well know that lyrical writing is my thing. I love it. My kids think I’m ridiculous because I get stupid excited when I make time to play with words. My sixteen-year-old daughter recently wrote a poem for Speech Nationals, and I was downright giddy when she allowed me to give her a crash course in poetic tools. But a first draft is rarely lyrical—certainly not as lyrical as it could be. A first draft is meant to get the plot on paper. It helps me get in touch with my themes, my characters, and my problem. But when a story is stale, poetry is one wonderful way to revive it. Play with a thesaurus! Play with rhymezone.com! Learn about alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and then put them to use! Your readers will thank you.

• Use less dialogue:

I initially wrote this blog with only five suggestions, but this is one is too important to ignore. Dialogue can be a great way to develop voice. BUT—it can also be a cop-out. It is a way of telling the reader what’s in the MC’s mind, or heart, without having to paint the picture. But guess what? That’s just another wasted “show” opportunity. If your story is written in mostly dialogue, I would challenge you to revise it in a way that uses little (or no) dialogue. Try to put us in the MC’s shoes by showing us the world around them. Show us body language so we know the emotions in play. You can always go back later, and add dialogue for color/voice.

Sometimes, revisions will help your manuscript live another day. But sometimes, they will just head back to their graves to wait.

My favorite story that I’ve ever written is still hanging out in a folder. Every now and then, I revisit it to see what can be tweaked because I refuse to let it die. But there are others, like GET A HUG (coming out in 2026 from S&S), which I wrote years ago and just kept revising until it did sell! If you believe in a story, keep pulling your tools out of the toolbox. Keep finding ways to revise. And maybe, just maybe, that zombie story will one day be a fairy tale.

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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