There are a couple of great aspects of writing a story for children, for example: it is quite simple, it won’t take too much of your time, it makes a great present, and you don’t have to worry too much about someone criticizing your work. You can go through a couple of children books in your local library, or online, so that you can see how simple and fun this kind of work may actually be.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Begin with brainstorming the elements that you want to appear in your story. Feel free to include some absurd features, like a six-armed monkey, or cows with wings: kids will most certainly find it interesting. If you want, you can borrow elements from other fairy tales, stories or cartoons that are well known, just alter them a bit since it is your story and it should be unique. When you determine all of the elements that you wish to include in the story, write them down on a piece paper. Make sure that you don’t have too many characters involved, so that the kids can follow the story with ease.

Step 2: The Moral of the Story

Once you have your characters, think about what is the message that your story is supposed to convey to children. It should strive to inspire a couple of good values, like for example: how good triumphs over evil, and how good people can have their happily-ever-after, how they shouldn’t be selfish or lazy, how they shouldn't take their friends for granted, etc. After you have decided on the morals of your story, you can go on to the next step.

Step 3: Outline

Before you begin writing your story, make an outline of it first, if that is necessary (if you are writing for kids that are around two or three years old, you probably won’t have to make an outline). It would be wise to have the structure of the story planned in advance, not only will it be easier for you to introduce the characters that way and develop them, but it will also be easier to present how and why they ended up in conflict.

Step 4: Choose Your Words Wisely

The most important thing about writing for children is to always bear in mind the age of your audience. When choosing your words and sentence structure, make sure that it is on a level that your readers will be able to understand, but at the same time try to add something new so that there is an input of knowledge in your story (if you are good at this, there is a chance that your story will end up in school books as a part of an educational program). Another thing that you should do, while writing, is to use humor and be witty. Try using rhyming schemes as well, so that reading your story out loud is more interesting. Dr. Seuss is one of the greatest writers of stories for children; it would be wise to read some of his stories in order to see how it is done.

Step 5: Every Story Needs a Hero and Every Hero Needs a Picture

The last thing that needs to be done, after the writing is finished, is illustrating your characters or some other elements of your story. This, however, may be an obstacle for you if you do not possess certain skills. There is no doubt that kids will love your story even more if it has illustrations, especially if your audience is very young. Luckily, there are artists who can provide these sorts of services for you and make sure that the illustrations go well with your story. Even though we try to teach kids that they shouldn't judge the book by its cover, chances are that during those years, kids are more likely to get interested in a book based on its cover and the pictures that are inside.

Step 6: Conclusion

To conclude, writing a story for children can be a very interesting experience and you also get to see just how creative you can be. Determine the age of your audience, think of the elements, characters and moral of your story, and make an outline. When you are finished with writing, make sure you get someone to illustrate a couple of scenes from your story and your book will finally be ready for reading.