PB First Lines April 2025 Edition

Featuring Katie Mazeika and Maybe Just Ask Me!

Welcome to the April 2025 edition of PB First Lines!

I’m so glad you’re here.

If you’re interested in feedback on a first line, fill out this anonymous form, and I’ll analyze submissions in the next newsletter.

This first line was submitted last month:

Katie O' Shea looks out of the window to see what the weather will be.

I wonder if this story is starting in the right place. There’s not a lot of action here—just the (presumably) main character turning her head—and as a reader I’m not on the edge of my seat wondering what the answer is. I would love a bit of detail about why Katie is interested in the weather. Does she have plans that rain will spoil? I’m also a little confused about the tense choice. One can’t determine by looking out the window what the weather “will be” only what it is right now. Consider starting with the answer instead and include Katie’s reaction to it. We don’t need to know why she’s reacting the way she is. The reaction alone will likely entice us to read on.

Katie Mazeika is here today to share the revision journey of her book, Maybe Just Ask Me!—a book inspired by her own childhood. It’s available now for preorder.

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Sara, thank you for letting me share Maybe Just Ask Me! with your readers. I had forgotten how much trouble I had writing the beginning of this book because the rest of it came so easily. My first two books as an author and illustrator were picture book biographies. While it’s based on my own childhood, Maybe Just Ask Me! is my first fiction picture book as an author/illustrator. So, for the first time, I developed the art alongside the text, rather than writing the text and then illustrating it.

Here’s the original first line and spread from March 2023:

It’s her first day of school and Mazie hopes to make some new friends.

At the time, I loved this spread and text! I wanted the reader to feel what the main character (Mazie) feels. Notice the boy in the upper left-hand corner with one eye closed-that’s a reaction I get all the time. I also liked that the text and image are telling different stories. But my editor felt like the beginning was too abrupt for a picture book, we needed some sort of introduction to the main character before we threw her into the story conflict. And once I stepped back, I could see the problem too.

So, I rewrote, and redrew, and this is the second version from June 2023:

The night before her first day back to school in nearly a year, Mazie thought carefully before picking out her favorite scarf and her prettiest eyepatch. She didn’t have to think carefully about pcking her favorite book. That was easy.

This gave us an intro to Mazie—but it still wasn’t right. It felt disjointed to throw a scene from home into the story when the rest of the book is set at school. And while my personal story involved restarting school after a long hospital stay, we decided that it was too complicated.

At this point we looked again at the pacing and changed the page count from thirty-two to forty. That gave a couple of moments in the book more breathing room. And now I had two spreads that introduce Mazie and her story, plus a double page title spread to lead into the story.

Here’s the final version :

It was Mazie’s first day at her new school. She put on her favorite scarf and wore her prettiest eyepatch. She was ready.

This gives the reader a solid introduction to Mazie, while the tone gives us a bit of insight into Mazie’s personality. The title page image shows Mazie’s mom being encouraging and supportive on the title page (no text.) Her parents’ advice comes up throughout the story, so this image was important.

What I learned from this is that sometimes, if that first line isn’t working, step back and review the entire story structure. I know as picture book writers we are focused on keeping the word count down but sometimes a few more words (or spreads) are needed to tell the story. This was a book that came to me all at once. I knew the story and was so eager to tell it I forgot an important step. Establish who the main character is and what they want.

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Revision tip:

If you read and enjoy Maybe Just Ask Me!, leave a review! If you need help getting started writing a review, read this blog post.

Check out my picture book critique services.

Sara offers extensive, straightforward, clear, and on-point reviews. She goes above and beyond, asking questions to encourage the author to deep dive into the story and re-think parts that are troublesome.
Roberta Abussi