How to Write a Story for Children in 14 Steps
How to Write a Story for Children in 14 Steps
Where do I even start? That's the overwhelming thought that comes across most aspiring children's writers when they want to write their own book. It doesn't matter if you want to write a picture book or a novel – the problem is always the same. The goal of this article is to teach beginners how to write a story for kids, from having a simple idea to publishing your complete story. Let's get started on writing your first children's story.
Table of contents [Hide]
- Planning Your Story
- Brainstorm your ideas
- Develop your ideas
- Develop your characters
- Get the setting right
- Plan the ultimate climax
- Plan an awesome ending
- Outline your story
- Writing Your Story
- Write the opening
- Use effective dialogue
- Include sensory elements
- Write the Ending
- Publishing Your Story
- Read and edit
- Give your story a title
- Publish your story
- So, to summarise…
Planning Your Story
Before you even begin writing your story, you need to plan out all the important elements. Carry on reading for our amazing tips on how to plan your story.
Brainstorm your ideas
Inspiration is everywhere, you just need to know how to find it. Sometimes it takes a short walk or a moment to yourself to find inspiration. Other times you could be talking to your friends or just watching TV when inspiration strikes.
Wherever you find inspiration it is important to keep a note of this moment. We really recommend getting into the habit of carrying a notebook and pen with you wherever you go. This way you won't forget all those amazing ideas that pop up in your head. You can even call it your ideas book! There is no right or wrong way of structuring your ideas book, but if you need help you could try the following:
- Write a list of words you find funny or interesting
- Draw or describe different characters
- Stick newspaper or magazine headlines you find interesting
- Stick any photos or images you find interesting
- Make note of any dreams you had and remember
Another great idea could be to carry a camera with you when you're out on a walk or on a day trip and take snaps of anything that catches your eye. These photos could later become the inspiration for your story setting or characters.
Pro Tip: If you're struggling to come up with ideas, try using GenStory.app's AI story generator. Simply input a few keywords or a basic concept, and the platform will help you generate multiple story ideas, character concepts, and plot variations. This is especially helpful when you're feeling stuck or want to explore different creative directions quickly.
Develop your ideas
Once you have a collection of ideas in your ideas book, it's time to develop them into a proper story. Pick one idea that really stands out to you or that you find the most interesting. This will become the foundation of your children's story.
When developing your idea, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is the main character in your story?
- What problem or challenge will they face?
- Where does your story take place?
- What happens in your story?
- How does your story end?
Answering these questions will help you form a basic structure for your story. Don't worry if you don't have all the answers right away – you can always come back and develop your ideas further as you continue planning.
GenStory.app can be incredibly helpful during this stage. The platform's story development tools can help you expand your basic idea into a full narrative structure, suggest plot points, and even help you develop your characters' backgrounds and motivations.
Develop your characters
Your characters are the heart of your story. Without interesting characters, your readers won't care about what happens. When creating characters for a children's story, you want to make them relatable and memorable.
Here are some things to consider when developing your characters:
- Name: Give your character a memorable name that fits their personality
- Appearance: What do they look like? This helps readers visualize them
- Personality: What are they like? Are they brave, shy, funny, or serious?
- Goals: What does your character want to achieve?
- Fears: What are they afraid of? This creates conflict
- Strengths and weaknesses: No character should be perfect
Try creating a character profile for each main character in your story. Write down everything you know about them, even if you don't use all of it in your story. The more you know about your characters, the easier it will be to write about them.
Character Development Made Easy: GenStory.app offers character creation tools that can help you develop detailed character profiles. Simply describe your character concept, and the AI will help you flesh out their personality, background, goals, and even suggest character arcs that fit your story.
Get the setting right
The setting is where and when your story takes place. It could be a real place like a school or a park, or it could be an imaginary place like a magical forest or a castle in the clouds. The setting helps create the mood and atmosphere of your story.
When planning your setting, think about:
- Location: Where does your story happen?
- Time: When does it take place? (Present day, past, future, or timeless)
- Weather and season: What's the weather like? This can affect the mood
- Details: What can you see, hear, smell, and feel in this place?
Try drawing a map or picture of your setting. This will help you visualize it and make it easier to describe in your story. You can also write a detailed description of your setting before you start writing your story.
Plan the ultimate climax
The climax is the most exciting and important part of your story. It's the moment when your main character faces their biggest challenge and must make a crucial decision. This is usually near the end of your story, but before the resolution.
When planning your climax, think about:
- What is the biggest problem your character must solve?
- What choice must they make?
- What are the consequences of their decision?
- How will they overcome the challenge?
The climax should be exciting and make your readers want to keep reading to find out what happens next. It's the turning point of your story where everything changes.
Plan an awesome ending
A good ending is just as important as a good beginning. Your ending should resolve the main conflict of your story and show how your character has changed or learned something. It should leave your readers feeling satisfied.
When planning your ending, consider:
- How does your character solve their problem?
- What did they learn from their journey?
- How have they changed?
- What happens to all the characters?
- Is there a message or lesson in your story?
Remember, endings don't always have to be happy, but for children's stories, they usually should be positive and hopeful. Your ending should tie up all the loose ends and answer the main questions of your story.
Outline your story
Now that you have all your ideas, characters, setting, climax, and ending planned out, it's time to create an outline. An outline is like a roadmap for your story. It helps you organize your ideas and makes writing much easier.
Your outline should include:
- Beginning: How does your story start? Introduce your character and setting
- Middle: What happens? Show the problem and how your character tries to solve it
- End: How does it end? Show the resolution and what your character learned
You can make your outline as detailed or as simple as you like. Some writers write a few sentences for each section, while others write a paragraph or more. The important thing is that it helps you know what happens in your story.
Story Structure Assistance: GenStory.app provides story outlining tools that can help you organize your plot points, structure your narrative, and ensure your story flows smoothly from beginning to end. The platform can even suggest plot developments and help you identify any gaps in your story structure.
Writing Your Story
Now that you have everything planned out, it's time to start writing! This is the fun part where you get to bring your ideas to life.
Write the opening
The opening of your story is crucial because it's the first thing your readers will see. You want to grab their attention right away and make them want to keep reading.
A good opening should:
- Introduce your main character
- Set the scene (show where and when the story takes place)
- Create interest or curiosity
- Hint at the problem or conflict to come
Try starting your story with action, dialogue, or an interesting situation. Avoid starting with too much description or background information – you can add that later. The goal is to hook your reader from the very first sentence.
Example of a good opening: "Emma couldn't believe her eyes. There, sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor, was a tiny dragon no bigger than her hand."
This opening immediately creates curiosity – why is there a dragon in Emma's room? What will happen next? Readers will want to keep reading to find out.
Use effective dialogue
Dialogue is when characters speak to each other. It's a great way to show your characters' personalities and move your story forward. Good dialogue sounds natural and helps readers get to know your characters better.
When writing dialogue:
- Make it sound like real people talking
- Use dialogue to show character personality
- Keep it simple and age-appropriate
- Use dialogue tags like "said" or "asked" to show who's speaking
- Break up long paragraphs with dialogue
Example: "Where are you going?" asked Mom. "I'm going to explore the forest," said Emma bravely. "But it's getting dark," Mom replied, looking worried. "I'll be careful," Emma promised.
Notice how the dialogue shows Emma is brave and adventurous, while Mom is worried. It also moves the story forward by setting up Emma's adventure.
Include sensory elements
Sensory elements help your readers experience your story through their five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. This makes your story more vivid and engaging.
When writing, try to include:
- Sight: What can your characters see? Colors, shapes, movements
- Sound: What can they hear? Voices, music, nature sounds
- Smell: What can they smell? Flowers, food, the air
- Taste: What can they taste? (if relevant)
- Touch: What can they feel? Texture, temperature, sensations
Example: "Emma stepped into the forest. The air smelled like pine needles and damp earth. Birds chirped overhead, and the leaves crunched under her feet. The sunlight filtered through the trees, creating dancing shadows on the forest floor."
This description uses multiple senses to help readers imagine being in the forest with Emma.
Write the Ending
Now it's time to write the ending of your story. This should resolve the main conflict and show how your character has grown or changed. Make sure your ending:
- Resolves the main problem
- Shows character growth
- Ties up loose ends
- Leaves readers feeling satisfied
Your ending should feel natural and make sense based on everything that happened in your story. If your character learned something important, make sure that's clear in the ending.
Publishing Your Story
Your first draft is now complete, it's time to read and edit your story until you are happy to share it with the world.
Read and edit
If you have written your story on a computer, we suggest you print it out as it will make it easier for you to read a printed version. Once you have your story in hand, find a pen (preferably a red one) to circle or make notes of anything that doesn't make sense in your story.
When reading your story, we suggest reading it out loud, so you can listen to any words that are repeated or sentences that don't make any sense. Read your whole story in one sitting, as you read you can make notes in any white spaces around the story text.
While reading lookout for any boring or unnecessary information in your story and highlight it. In your first reading, we suggest that you avoid looking at spelling and grammar errors, instead focus on the content and ideas in your story.
Once you have done this, you can edit your first draft. It is likely that your second draft will be slightly shorter, as you would have removed any boring parts of the story. Do the same with your second draft, ask yourself if the plot is clear and interesting? Are the characters interesting? Have I described the setting clearly?
When you are happy with the story concept, you can then move on to editing your story for spelling and grammar mistakes. At this stage, you can also look for opportunities to be more descriptive and sentences that start with the same words.
Once you have sorted out these mistakes, you can ask someone else to read your story or even read it out loud to them. Another person will be able to give you feedback on how interesting your story is and whether it makes sense. They may even be able to give ideas on how to improve your story further.
The final step is to edit your final draft with all the changes you identified and then it's ready for publishing.
Give your story a title
Your story is almost ready, but we need to give it an interesting title. When picking a title for your story, you might focus on a particular quote, the name of the main character, or even key objects from your story. In most cases story titles are short and easy to remember, so avoid using long and complicated words in the title.
If you can't find inspiration from your own story, try doing some research by looking at other book titles or using our book title generator. When researching make note of book titles that interest you and review your list to see what they have in common.
Remember the story title is the first thing your reader will see, therefore it should make them curious to open and read your book.
Title Generation Help: GenStory.app offers a book title generator that can help you come up with creative, memorable titles for your children's story. Simply input keywords or themes from your story, and the platform will generate multiple title options for you to choose from.
Publish your story
So your story is now ready to be shared with the world! You can publish your story for free on many websites, including GenStory.app.
GenStory.app is the perfect platform for creating and publishing children's stories. Here's what makes it special:
- AI-Powered Story Creation: Use advanced AI to help generate story ideas, develop characters, and even write entire stories
- Easy-to-Use Interface: Create professional-quality children's books with our intuitive story creator
- Multiple Formats: Generate picture books, chapter books, or interactive digital stories
- Illustration Integration: Add beautiful illustrations to bring your stories to life
- Age-Appropriate Content: Ensure your stories are suitable for your target age group with built-in content guidelines
- Publishing Tools: Share your stories with a community of readers and writers
- Free to Use: Start creating amazing stories today without any cost
The benefit of publishing your story on GenStory.app is that you can share your story with a community of active members and receive feedback from other writers. You can even include images, create a cover for your story and print out your final story to share with friends and family.
With a solid story under your belt, you might be ready to write some more stories. To motivate yourself you can enter many story writing competitions for young writers, where you can win awesome prizes for your writing skills. We also recommend using GenStory.app's daily writing challenges for those who want to practice their creative writing skills.
So, to summarise…
Writing a good children's story requires a lot of research and planning before you even actually begin writing it. And even with all your notes and ideas, drafting, rewriting and getting feedback can take a long time. The important thing to remember is to let your imagination run wild and never worry too much about spelling or grammar (or at least not at the beginning).
If you're looking for a quick step-by-step on how to write a children's story, then here is a summary of all the crucial steps you'll need from planning to publishing your story:
- Brainstorm your ideas
- Develop your ideas
- Develop your characters
- Get the setting right
- Plan the ultimate climax
- Plan an awesome ending
- Outline your story
- Write the opening
- Use effective dialogue
- Include sensory elements
- Write the Ending
- Read and edit
- Give your story a title
- Publish your story
Ready to start writing? Visit GenStory.app today and begin creating your first children's story with the help of our AI-powered story generation tools. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced writer, GenStory.app makes it easy and fun to bring your stories to life!
Are you ready to write a story? Let us know your beginner tips for writing stories and what your next story is about in the comments below.
Ready to start writing? Visit GenStory.app today and begin creating your stories with the help of our AI-powered story generation tools. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced writer, GenStory.app makes it easy and fun to bring your stories to life!
Tags:
- Children's story writing
- Kids book creation
- Story writing for kids
- Children's literature
- Picture book writing