Chapter 26: Stone Soup

My challenge: I need to think of story ideas with which to write a children's book.

What ifs:

• What if children's books were written for adults?
• What if I were writing a children's book for children who don't speak English?
• What if I were making a children's book and I had to express every idea through pictures and not words?
• What if children's books were written by children?
• What if animals created ideas for children's stories?
• What if strangers were used to come up with children's story ideas?

The "what if" that I decided to dwell on is this one: What if children's books were written by children? I think this is a good statement to base a plan on. Since children are the audience in a children's story, it only makes sense that they are involved with the creation of the ideas. I feel that the best idea to come up with a good children's story idea is to poll as many small children as I can and even ask them specific ideas as to what a good story should entail.

I enjoyed this exercise. I did this exercise in the breakroom of the bank I work at. I only had a half hour to complete this exercise and I worked in nearly complete silence with bright florescent lights. I think the quiet atmosphere hurt my creative abilities, but the time limit helped kick them into overdrive.