Adams Media - Story Development for Childrens Books: Tips and Techniques to Get Your Story Back on Track

Its happened to every writer at one time or another: You are hit unexpectedly by the best idea youve ever had, but when it comes time to make use of that idea, it is forever lost in the crevices of your mind. Invest in a small notebook to carry around with you at all times. You never know when a great idea for a story, a character, or even a characters name, will strike you; if you are prepared, you can jot it down and not have to worry about trying to remember it.

Jot down everything that catches your interest. Dont worry about trying to piece together an entire story from one observation. Just write it down and move on to the next thing that pops into your head or attracts your eye. If you harp on one idea, you might miss out on other, more useful observations and ideas for your childrens book.

Theres no right and wrong way to write down your ideas. You can use abbreviations, pictures, full phrases, quotes, or fragments whatever helps you capture the thought and retain its relevance to your work. No one is going to be reading these notes but you, so feel free to use any kind of shorthand you want. The key is to make each note something you understand and can use.

Because you are ultimately going to organize these ideas, it is a good idea to separate them by story. For instance, you may come up with a strong title for your story but no other ideas. For now, write just the title on one page of your notebook and leave the rest of the page blank. If you later come up with character descriptions to go along with your title, flip back to that page and fill them in. If you capture feelings, descriptions, names, incidents, and bits of dialogue, add them to the page as well. Later on, when it comes time to actually write your story, consider how to connect these fragments. The richer your notes, the more cross-connections youll think of.

Use outside sources to expand and grow your idea notebooks. Clip stories from newspapers, and write down web links, maps, drawings, and questions about your characters. Treat your notebooks as mini-scrapbooks of reference material.

You may find that you fill up notebooks quickly. In that case, you should start thinking about actually writing. It is easy to put off writing by using the excuse that you are still gathering material. But if you have several notebooks full, chances are you have a great story in there waiting to be written. Not every writer, not even every best-selling writer, is bursting with story ideas all the time. The next few sections explore different ways to rouse ideas and help you start filling up those notebooks.