Perhaps, you are thinking about writing a children’s story.  After all, your elementary and high school teachers had said you are a good creative writer.  Each time those teachers return your writing assignments, you were sure to find an “A” or “A+” written in the upper right hand corner of the page and the word “Excellent” at the bottom or top of your literary masterpiece.

After your high school days, the good-writer title your teachers gave you stayed with you during your college career.  Your professors continue to sing your good-writer praises. “There’s no turning back now,” you said.  “One day I’ll become a children’s writer.”

You have passed the college milestone and heading for the children-writer finish line, but you realize you need to sharpen your writing skills.  With this new realization in mind, you start taking all the children’s writing courses and workshops you could afford.

With your new writing skills, you lock yourself in a quiet room and turn on your computer or grab your writing pad and pencil.  You wait for ideas for your long desired children story to pop up in your head.  Instead, you keep staring at the blank notepad or computer screen and start tapping the side of your head with the tip of your fingers.

After five minutes of trying to tap ideas in your head, you still do not know how and where to start, what you hope will be, the next great children’s story since Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.  You scribble on the notepad, crumple the paper, and threw it in the wastebasket.  If you are using a computer, you are likely to type a few words on the screen only to hit the backspace key several times.

You glance at the clock on the wall and realize you sit down to write thirty minutes ago.  However, all you have in front of you is a wastebasket full of crumpled paper and a blank notepad or computer screen.  You jump up and pace back and forth. You might even walk up and down the street you lived on, trying to jumpstart your writing engine.

You return to your desk, crack your knuckles, take a deep breath, and get ready for your story to start pouring out of your fingertips.  Suddenly, your writing engine begins to start and stop again.

If the examples above describe, in any way, what happens when you think about writing for children, I suggest the following four tips for finding ideas for your stories.

1.    Use Your Life Experiences as a Child.

Think about how you or someone you know might have defeated a school bully who teases and steals from other children.  How you or a childhood friend avoid a spanking for doing something wrong.  For example, how did you explain or would explain arriving at school late four days in a row despite living a block away from school and leaving home thirty minutes early each day?  Another childhood experience might be a child’s parents moving the family to another state or school district to start a new job.  How does the child cope with leaving the school friends he or she makes over a six-year period and starting new friendships at his or her new school?

2.    Read the Newspaper, Listen to the Radio, and Watch Television

Be on the lookout for newspaper, radio and television coverage of events and stories about children.  Then play the what-if game with the stories.  For example, your local newspaper reports that a local elementary school boy runs the fastest one-hundred meter dash at a state sporting event.  You play the what-if game by asking yourself what if the night before the event, the boy’s parents decided he would not participate in the racing event.  His parents tell him he needs to study to retake an exam.   How the boy convinces his parents to let him take part in the racing event?

Although the punishment seems severe for an elementary school boy, who fails a test, what you would have done, by playing the what-if game, is create a conflict or problem for the boy to resolve.  A conflict is what drives any good story.  The protagonist or lead character must have something he or she must accomplish.  The more problems and obstacles the lead characters face, in trying to reach their goals, the more interested readers will be in your stories.

Your stories should not only have conflicts just for having them, but the conflicts must be resolved, preferably toward the end of the stories.  After all, readers are looking to see how the characters get out of the predicaments you have created for them.  It is also preferable that your children stories have favorable outcomes.  Most preschool children up to beginning readers understand what they read as facts.  Therefore, you want to leave them with a positive feeling.

3.    Talk to Children Librarians

Children librarians can let you know what kinds of children stories and books are common among children authors.  At a minimum, librarians can direct you to where you can examine the stories and books children are reading.  From knowing what children are reading, you will be able to come up with story ideas that match your target audience.

4.    Spend time with Children

Spend time studying children in the age group you wish to write for.  Observe the things they do and how they do it.  Listen to how they speak (dialogue).  Authentic dialogues add a sense of reality and believability to stories.  Most important, listen to what children are talking about to get ideas that are basis for children’s stories.

So there you have it.  You no longer have to crumple the pages of your notepad and toss them in the wastebasket when you sit down to write.  Neither do you have to stare at a blank sheet of paper or computer screen.  Rather, it is time for you to start writing that one-of-a-kind children’s story or book.