An Idea for Generating Children’s Story Ideas

Here’s a quick way to generate children’s story ideas.

Every sentence has a noun and a verb. Let’s use these as basic building blocks for generating story ideas.

Start by writing a list of ten nouns and another list of ten verbs.

Nouns:
cup
clock
element
blanket
juniper
fireplace
candy cane
headphones
guitar
child

Verbs:
run
mow
chop
coddle
generate
drink
carry
start
close
lie

Next combine each noun with a verb, and write a potential first-line sentence using them. You should end up with ten sentences. It is okay if they are weird ideas.

I’m not going to do the entire exercise here, but will give three examples using the words above, and carry them through the entire exercise.

Example One:
element – generate
Using a periodic table of elements, Harvey generated a huge blaze that destroyed the local high school chemistry lab. (This could be a good start for a young adult novel. I see lots of conflict opportunities in finding a resolution for this event. On the downside, it might be hard to get the readers to like your main character if he’s an arsonist.)

Example Two:
candy cane – start
Christmas started out good, with a box of candy canes on the kitchen table. (Seasonal stories are always popular. This first line doesn’t offer much information, however. It could be the lead-in for a picture book or for a middle grade novel.)

Example Three:
juniper – mow
Andy mowed the lawn around the juniper bush. (This could be the start of a picture book idea.)

Next, create a thematic statement for a story dealing with each of the above sentences.

Example One: When you do something you shouldn’t, you live to regret it.

Example Two: Expect the unexpected when you least expect it.

Example Three: When you make your home look nice, people think better of you.

Give each of your children’s story ideas a middle and an ending.

Example One: After spending six months in juvenile hall, Harvey is expelled from school. He never commits another crime and when he becomes an adult he pays his parents back for the damages they were forced to pay.

Example Two: Santa arrives, waking Tom up, bringing round trip tickets for two to the North Pole on New Year’s Day. He is instructed not to let anyone else see the tickets, or they won’t work. Tom goes on the trip with his sister, Elizabeth. They arrive home safely after helping Santa develop toy ideas for the next year. Their parents won’t believe their story about where they’ve been.

Example Three: Andy is busy cleaning up the front yard, mowing the lawn, etc. People keep coming by and telling him how much they like what he’s doing. Children stop and stare, wishing they could do the same thing. His mother is excited; his father is proud. A man offers him a landscaping job. The best thing of all – when he’s done he can look at his own work and feel proud that he spent the day doing something that made a difference.

. . .

Please don’t use my ideas for writing children’s stories… I may be using these myself! But go ahead and generate a few ideas of your own. Make a collection of them so when you want to sit down and write a story, you’ll have a variety of ideas to choose from. A perfect place to keep track of ideas like these is a writer’s notebook. Never leave home without one!

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