55 juicy story starters to light up your story the campfire way

Stuck for inspiration?  Try writing your story the campfire way.

Have you ever built a campfire?

Maybe you know the trick already:  you don’t start by taking huge logs and setting them ablaze.  That would never work. 

You start with tinder, small fluffy things that are nothing like the fire you want to create.  From tinder, you work your way up to kindling - bigger things that also catch fire easily.  Once you’ve got some momentum going, THEN (and only then) can you start burning the real stuff:  twigs, and eventually, small branches, and only then… are you ready to set fire to some logs.

That’s how stories work, too.  Even if you want to write a HUGE story, you have to start small.

There are so many big ideas out there, waiting to be written down, that it can seem overwhelming.  So don’t set out to write about the BIG ideas.  Small ideas – whether from your own imagination or from story starters like these – are the tinder that will set your story ablaze. 

That’s where these 55 story starters listed here come in.  These 55 small ideas can help you set fire to millions of stories… if you let them.

Read through the lists.  If one or two don’t click, just move on.  If you get to the end of the list and you haven’t found one… I’ll give you a list of random generators for millions more ideas that just might inspire you instead.

Deal?

Let’s get sparking those stories!

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Best & worst of the Indie Children’s Covers 2014: 19 hits, 10 misses.

UPDATE:  Want to enter the 2015 contest?  Open NOW to any children’s books self-published between Dec 1, 2014 and Nov 30, 2015.

Covers are hard.  If you’re like most people, I hope you don’t even try to do them yourself.  But even if you hire a pro, it’s easy to wander off the path of good judgment into the jungle of horrific, embarrassing covers.

That’s why we need objective feedback. 

Which is where Joel Friedlander, the Book Designer, comes in.  Every month, he hosts a cover contest.  It’s free to enter, and if you have a cover you love, you really should.  It won’t boost book sales directly, but it’s worth it, I promise.

Remember:  every single buyer is judging your book by its cover.  You can’t escape from that simple fact.

Every month, Joel shows off every cover he gets.  Sometimes he adds praise – but sometimes, his comments can sting.  One author proudly submitted his cover with the words “Fully designed by the author himself.”  To which Joel replied, “That’s apparent.”  About another cover, he wrote, “Impossible to tell what was intended here, but clearly this is a disaster.”  (My personal favourite:  “Pretty much announces: “I’m self-published!” And not in a good way.”)

I have to laugh – even when his criticisms are aimed at me, which they have been a couple of times.  Don’t submit anything unless you’re prepared for him to tear it apart.

Most of the covers he gets are for adult books.  Why not more kidlit?  Maybe because most of us aren’t putting enough money/effort into our covers, and aren’t proud enough of the results. 

That’s REALLY got to change.  I hope this list inspires you to create excellent covers that will hog all the top spots for 2015.

Here (in no particular order) is my personal Top Nineteen of all the kids’ covers that he’s featured in 2014.  NOTE:  I haven’t read the books.  I’m literally just judging them by their covers.

Down below, you’ll find 10 “misses” and “near-misses” that failed on one count or another to make it to that empty #20 spot in my “top” list.  Plus two grownup books with really, REALLY bad covers that make me wonder why anyone would submit them to a contest.  And one I loved that inspired me to buy the book.

#1

The Boy Who Loved Fire by Julie Musil.  There were many great YA covers this year; I think authors in this category are a lot more serious about their covers than if they’re just writing “kiddie books.”  (Again, that’s really got to change.)  Joel didn’t say anything when it was listed in January, but in March when he listed it again, he said, “Although a bit overwrought, it is nicely creepy.”

#2

The Little Girl and the Hill by Brett Henley.  In January, Joel didn’t like the smallness of the text and I agree – you can’t read the author’s name, even with this fairly large thumbnail.  He said the art was lovely but that the cover overall is “a dark and easily skipped muddle.”  Still, something about this concept really appeals to me.  Like finding a good black t-shirt for a baby, it’s rare to see an all-black cover on a kids’ book.  (Caveat:  the interior looks similarly all-black, and I’m not 100% sure how good that would look on an ereader.)  I do wish they’d re-do the fonts, however.

#3

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12 nights of Chanukah fun: a mega Jewish holiday picture book roundup

Before you read any further, you should know:  these aren’t exactly reviews.  They’re BETTER.

(That’s also why I want you to read this even if you don’t celebrate Chanukah.)

What could be better than reviews?

As writers, we’re at work even when we read for fun (even when we read to our kids), and that’s a serious job.  We have to examine each book not simply for whether or not we enjoyed it (like ordinary readers do), but analyzing it to figure out IF it works and HOW it works.

That’s the only way we can make our own writing better.

Working while we read (for pleasure)

When I took a children’s picture-book writing course earlier this year, I had to research “comps” – comparable books on a similar topic.  Since I was working on one of my Chanukah books, I decided to research what else was out there in the world of Chanukah books.  I chose these books almost at random, but I think it’s a good assortment of what’s out there.

Have fun reading through them, and hopefully discovering a few new favourites. 

• How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Mark Teague
• Mrs. Greenberg's Messy Hanukkah, by Linda Glasser, illustrated by Nancy Cote
• Esther’s Hanukkah Disaster, by Jane Sutton, illustrated by Andy Rowland
• Chanukah Lights, by Michael J. Rosen, illustrated by Robert Sabuda
• Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat: A Chanukah Story, written and illustrated by Naomi Howland
• The Story of Hanukkah, by David A. Adler, illustrated by Jill Weber
• Sammy Spider's First Hanukkah, by Sylvia A. Rouss, illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn
• Biscuit's Hanukkah, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illustrated by Pat Schories
• Elmo’s Little Dreidel, by Naomi Kleinberg, illustrated by Christopher Moroney
• Light The Lights! A Story About Celebrating Hanukkah And Christmas, by Margaret Moorman
• Engineer Ari and the Hanukkah Mishap, by Deborah Bodin Cohen, illustrated by Shahar Kober
• Battle for Torah: The Message of Hanukkah, by Kay Kindall, illustrated by Neil Kindall

While you’re reading through these short blurbs, take a look at some of the different ways we – as writers –should be analyzing “comps.”

What to look for

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15 gifts writers will scream for: the essential 2015 Write Kids’ Books gift guide.

You’re here because you’re a writer or know a writer, or both.  Either you’re looking for the perfect gift that will draw gasps of delight or screams of satisfaction (is that even a thing?), or you’re hoping to pamper yourself in the middle of this season of selflessness.

Either way, here are 15 great ways to give yourself permission to go for it.

1) Paperback room fragrance / cologne by Demeter

If you haven’t tried Demeter perfumes, colognes and fragrances, you should.  They’re mindblowingly “real” scents in varieties you’ve never imagined:  Tomato, say, or Dirt, or Thunderstorm.  They all smell great.  Years and years ago, I got a bottle of their gin and tonic scent, and I loved it almost to death.  I still have the bottle, which I refuse to use up.  I sniff it from time to time when I need a pick-me-up.  But what could be a better pick-me-up for a writer in need of inspiration?  Available as a home atmosphere spray – to get you in the writing mood! – or as a cologne.  (The bottles look similar; make sure you choose the one you want.)

2)  Flying wish paper

Write your heart out, then set it on fire.  Send your dreams upwards.  Hopefully you’ll wish for inspiration, and be rewarded with tons of great ideas and incredible words (that you won’t want to burn).

3) SimplyRain –

Better than background music when you’re trying to write. 

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Making space for… nothing. 5 books, 5 experts on white space.

It’s called “white space,” but it doesn’t have to be white.  Are you using enough of it in your kids’ books?  I’m going to show you five books that do a GREAT job with white space – in a couple of cases, becoming classics along the way.

And then, because (gasp!) creating white space is one of my weak points… I’m going to share with you not my own wisdom, but that of five experts who have Things to Say and manage to say them far better than I could.

To get us in the mood, here are five kids’ picture books that make GREAT use of white space:

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Seven picture books that heal the diversity gap.

Lee & Low Publishers reports that the “diversity gap” in kids’ books hasn’t changed in the last 18 years – even though 37% of the U.S. population now comprises people of colour (a term I don’t like because it includes purple and cyan, but there you go). 

Pale-skinned people like me are slated to become a minority by 2060, yet up to 91% of kids’ books today are about people roughly the same shade as me & my family. 

This isn’t good for anyone – especially whitish folks like my kids, who look up from their reading to see a nation far more diverse than anything they see in books.

(True, we live in Israel, not the U.S., but yeah, it’s far more ethnically diverse than anything you might picture!)

The solution isn’t stocking up on books about black kids, written by black writers.  Change will only come when our shelves are stocked with TRUE diversity, books that reflect the true cultural context of our lives.  Books by every-colour authors, about every-colour kids. 

Not all-black or all-white, but a rainbow

Here are five “every-colour” books you can keep on your bookshelf and read to your kids to help them understand what a big, wide, wonderful world this is!

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Apps? Software? Nope! 27 low-tech toys for the writer in your life.

Forget books, amIright?  Everybody always gets us books! 

Let’s just imagine THAT thought process for a second… “Hmm… she’s a writer, she likes books, let’s buy her a… book!”  There’s a reason you’re the creative genius in the family! 

Forget gadgets, forget software… next time you have a gift occasion, point ‘em this way to help pick out a gift you, as a writer, truly will adore.

(Heck, if nobody buys them for you, or you have no occasion coming up, I say… buy ‘em all for yourself!)

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A Trip Back in Time: 15 books from 30 years ago that are still great today.

Do you remember 1984?  I hate to admit it, but yeah, I do, too.

Realizing for the first time that my kid is turning 20 this year (a “duh” moment, because he turned 19 last year!), I decided to do something “historical.”  But then I did the math wrong and pulled together a quick roundup of kids’ books from 1984 that are still great today.  That’s 30, mom, not 20. 

But never mind!  I’m happy I did… it’s been a great chance to rediscover some old favourites.

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