Homepage
Login
New Post
Profile
For past ten months, my wife and I have been telling bedtime stories of our own making to our older daughter (who recently turned 4). We do it on alternate evenings. The stories have a nearly-constant set of characters who face various situations (from real-life-like to quite imaginary).
Though it has been well-received by the audience, there is now an element of dread. Though some repetition is OK, and there is even explicit demand for some re-runs, we would like to vary stories to make it more interesting both for us and for our daughter. However, my wife and I are struggling to come up with somewhat novel plot hooks, and story elements. An extra complication is that to make stories relatable, we must avoid some of the richer elements of adult fiction. Also because of time constraints we construct stories mostly on-the-go.
Are there lists of story elements for young children? Any other resources to enrich oral storytelling for young children?
(6)More posts by @Gail2416123
6 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
Apparently what my grandfather used to do, telling a story to children, was to ask them -- what do you want in the story?
And apparently they'd reply things like:
A spider
A palace
Toffee-paper
And he'd make up a story with those elements:
A new (semi-random) story, because it's based on a new input (seed) from the child[ren]
Extra-entertaining for the audience, because you'd wait to see when and how your story-element, which you suggested, would come into the story
Also, the next morning he'd ask the children to repeat back the story as they heard it and remember it -- and he'd write that down. It's said that he reckoned that they'd remember only the most interesting bits, forgetting the rest overnight, so it was their version of it that was worth recording.
I'd also agree with Chris Sunami's answer: "collections of traditional folk and fairy tales from around the world".
More specifically (off the top of my head):
Aesop's fables (classical Greek)
La Fontaine's fables (classic French)
Br'er Rabbit (southern USA)
Stories of Mullah Nasreddin (Sufi)
Jataka Tales (Buddhist)
not to mention the Brothers Grimm, Hans Anderson, and ...?
I'd guess they are public domain with copies free to read on the internet. Some are "for children of all ages" i.e. adults, but you could skim them or adapt them; and they often have "morals".
You might also find collections by Googling for country-specific stories -- Canadian folk stories for example ... or Nigerian, etc.
You're looking for a random story generator
There are lots of those on the internet. The first one I found Plot Generator. It gave me quite a few prompts that weren't child-suitable, but I hit gold when I randomly generated a Fantasy Blurb.
Garth Butterscotch, the Troll
A Fantasy Novel
by Untitled writer
In a cave there lived a beautiful, bendy troll named Garth Butterscotch. Not a magic sensational, killer cave, filled with soup and a false smell, nor yet a pink, minuscule, violent cave with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a troll-cave, and that means shelter.
One day, after a troubling visit from the dragon Charity Wu, Garth leaves his cave and sets out in search of three giant trousers. A quest undertaken in the company of girls, people and fluffy robots.
In the search for the dragon-guarded trousers, Garth Butterscotch surprises even himself with his intelligence and skill as a housekeeper.
During his travels, Garth rescues a kettle, an heirloom belonging to Charity. But when Charity refuses to try shouting, their friendship is over.
However, Charity is wounded at the Battle of Blenheim and the two reconcile just before Garth engages in some serious shouting.
Garth accepts one of the three giant trousers and returns home to his cave a very wealthy troll.
I also found the Scholastic Story Starters, which are completely kid oriented, and should generator child-friendly plots.
Look for Mythology collections for kids
Generally speaking, myths and legends tend to be the opposite of child friendly. But a lot of work has been done collecting the less adult myths (or sanitizing the more adult myths) and collating them together for children to read. As a bonus, this gives you a good opportunity to introduce your child to other cultures they might not interact with on a regular basis.
Yes, collections of traditional folk and fairy tales from around the world. Although there is a limited number of well-known stories that are retold again and again in the modernized world, they represent just a small cross-section of the endless number of enchanting, psychologically rich stories, from every culture and nation, found in the folk tradition.
Not only can you tell these stories just as written, they also lend themselves well to variation and adaption, to being rewritten and remixed, not just for children but for adults. I always recommend anyone who has trouble with plot and story structure to read more fairy tales.
One additional bonus is that fairy tales are believed by some researchers to be psychologically beneficial, and another is that stories from other cultures can teach a lot about how other people see the world. With that said, however, you may wish to be alert to hidden messages under the surface of stories that you might not agree with. For example, a number of the otherwise enchanting stories from the 1,001 Arabian Nights have a disturbing undercurrent of misogyny.
Our son is still very young. In addition to the other excellent answers, we also make up stories that reflect things we want to teach him. For example: if during the day he doesn't listen to us when we ask him not to do something, because it's dangerous; the night time story will be about a baby monkey who got into trouble rushing up a tree when daddy monkey asked him not to.
Another fantastic resource are story cubes, which are available in many different themes. The idea is to incorporate all the images on the dice into a story. Not only can it give you some ideas for bedtime, it can be a fun imagination-building game to play with the kids. We play with everyone taking turns to add a few sentences to the story based on the dice.
(I don't know if there are other such products out there, I just know of this one brand. I am not affiliated with them)
Children's Writer's Word Book
The Children's Writer's Word Book is a very good resource for what you are looking for. It is quite readable (will hold your interest) and has enough material to help you generate unlimited plots and story elements all the while providing ideas that will be age appropriate and yet not simple and boring.
It also lists numerous resources which can lead you to other helpful information.
The book is not just a list of words though it does provide word lists that can also be very helpful in stimulating ideas for story generation too.
Another book that is also good is Writing Picture Books.
It can help you to think about what a story is and how to make it come alive in pictures and provides plotting ideas that will be interesting. Since it is based on telling a story visually, it will help with your oral type of stories as you attempt to describe the scenes.
I gave your question some thought, and I figure the best source of inspiration for you would be an encyclopaedia. Let me explain: your regular characters can travel to distant lands where they'd encounter new views, customs, wildlife etc. They can travel back in time to various interesting historical periods. They can pop into famous fairy tales (like Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood) and shake things up a bit.
You can then shape the plot around where you threw the characters this time, and what you'd like to tell your daughter about that place/period/whatever. For example, send your characters to Japan, and you can have something centred around the Hanami.
Good luck! Bedtime stories are awesome.
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © selfpublishingguru.com2024 All Rights reserved.