Do you want to be the next big children’s author? Do you just want to write a book and don’t know where to start? Is the dreaded writer’s block monster breathing down your neck? Writing a children’s story doesn’t have to be hard work, as a matter of fact, it should be fun!
There are times when authors wrack their brains to come up with the best idea out of a pool of junk. People spend months and even years coming up with story lines that they think would suit whatever age group they have chosen to write for. Once they have finally chosen an idea, they are often exhausted and end up taking a break before the story even begins. This process can be pain free and enjoyable at the same time.
First off, use your imagination. You know, the imagination is the part of the brain that usually ends up shoved to the back under piles of information about the “real world.” Once you grow up, you are expected to put away all childish ideas and think outside of the box, but still within the real world box. Whip out your imagination, dust it off, and get it back into shape. This is a pretty easy task if you have small children around. Play with them! Take them outside. Do activities that you used to do as a child. Pay attention to how they see things. One of the best activities is looking for shapes in the clouds. It’s much harder once you become an adult. Take a child out to watch the clouds and soon a floodgate of imagination will fly open.
Once you have your imagination back into shape, it will be easier to come up with a topic for a story. You can take the time to write down all of your topic ideas. Try to expand them a little. Come up with a direction you want your story to take. Do you want it to be humorous? Do you want it to have moral? Do you want it to be based off of real life or off of fiction? All of these questions should be considered and answered. Some other questions to think about is who the main character will be, what age group are you writing for, and is the child going to be able to relate to it?
Now that you have some ideas and what type of direction they may take, talk to young children about them. Ask them what they would say to an alligator that had a toothache. Have them tell you what would happen next of the boy met a new kid at school you can even ask them to tell you a story that had a zebra in it. You would be amazed at how a child’s mind works. They are able to take in some pretty complex ideas (for their age group) and put them into a story. Obviously, this last idea works best with a child that is very vocal. If you have a shy child, they may only get a few sentences out before hiding their face behind a teddy bear. However, if you get a vocal child, not only will you have a zebra, you will get a race car driver (with sound effects) along with some birthday cake. Ask them to explain the way things look. If there is some birthday cake in the story, ask them what flavor or color that it is. Encourage them to use their imaginations and have blue or purple zebras.
By now, you have spent some time with children. You are beginning to understand how a child’s mind works. That was a huge part of this process. It will be difficult to create a children’s story if you haven’t spent any time with a child. One of the last things to do is to try out your topic. Put it through a test run. Just like an actor has to audition for his part in the cast, you should audition your story. Take the time out to tell a bedtime story to a young child that you know. Use words that they can understand. If you begin to tell the story and the child just doesn’t understand the words you are using, then you know that you need to change that part. You don’t need to put the story on paper, just use the words to paint the picture. You can usually tell by the way the child reacts if it is a good story. You do need to know though, that not every story will suit each child’s imagination. Just because a story with a dragon that has super power shoes entertained the five-year-old boy, doesn’t mean that it will appease a nine-year-old girl. So keep that in mind.
Don’t be afraid to escape your ordinary life to think up ideas for your story. Think outside of the box. Let all things take on life. Write about a talking wall or a giant and an elf. Don’t let common sense stop you from coming up with an extraordinary idea and becoming the next hit child’s author.
