That said, I finally got around to reading Perry Nodelman’s thoughts on picture books, as posted by Susan of Chicken Spaghetti back in September.  Nodelman says, “…on its own, a picture book text is not completely anything yet, any more than a playscript is complete before its performance.”

He adds, “… while each section of the text must be visualizable, they must not obviously convey visual info themselves. If they did, they’d render the pictures that are going to accompany them pointless.  So the writer needs to leave space for visuals which are nevertheless going to be a necessary part of the story. And, since in conventional publishing practice illustrators and writers don’t usually work together, it’s the text itself (emphasis mine) that must convey to the illustrator what the illustrations need to show.”

In the comments, Susan (Chicken Spaghetti) speculates: “I suspect that many of the best picture-book people (say, Sendak, Henkes, Willems) have an intuitive sense of how to construct a picture book.”

Yes, I think that, in addition to their intuitive sensibilities and their dedication to developing their craft, these author/illustrators have the advantage of working on both sides of the “fence,” so to speak, but I’d like to think that even those of us who create only the words can learn to write in the very particular way Nodelman suggests.