by Lisa Frenkel Riddiough

Greetings, StoryStormers!!

I must confess right off the bat that I am not one who struggles to find ideas. I have gazillions! Sometimes I have so many ideas that I become frozen and can’t move, let alone start a new manuscript.

Some of you might not like hearing that because you are searching high and low for a new idea.

So, I am here to remind you that ideas are surrounding you at this very moment.

In fact, YOU ARE THE IDEA!

The best ideas are the ones that we come by naturally. They are the ones that appear when we are just living our lives. They come from the people, places, and things that make us who we uniquely are.

I am going to walk you through an exercise where you are sure to discover at least one idea just by being you, on this random day, living in your uniquely magical world.

Are you ready?

Here we go!

Make a list of five of your favorite things. Five things that define you. They come easily to your mind. If a good friend were to see this list, they would say, “Oh, yes. This is SO YOU.”

Here are five of my favorite things:

  • Sequins
  • Felt
  • Pie
  • Sprinkles
  • Pierre ⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓

If you think I live in a fantasy world, YOU’RE RIGHT!

Do you have your five things?

Now take your five things and put them through the machinery of your mind. How are these things authentically you?

Let’s take the word “sprinkles.” Here is how this word is authentically me:

I have a sprinkle drawer.

Adding sprinkles to baked goods makes my heart sing.

There is a story here.

The next step is to quick, quick, quick, come up with titles. Don’t worry about story or character or theme yet. Just titles.

Here are five titles for the word “sprinkle.”

  • The Cupcake with No Sprinkles
  • The Case of the Missing Sprinkles
  • Sprinkle, The Pixie Who Lost Her Dust
  • A Sprinkle of Kindness
  • Sprinkled with Love

My latest picture book, PIE-RATS!, illustrated by David Mottram (Viking 2024), came from this exercise. I knew I wanted to write a funny, rhyming PB about one of my favorite foods. When I settled on “pie,” I ran it through the machine of my brain until I came up with the title “pie-rats.” Pirate rats in search of pie! True confessions: I thought I had made up this word. But, alas, there are other pie-rat stories out there. Even still, I worked hard on my story and it turned into this:

Now you try it!

Write a title for each of your five things. DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE STORY YET!

Good Job.

Now, I want you to list five of your happiest, happy places. Here are mine:

  • Lake Tahoe (specifically, Sand Harbor)
  • Tennessee Valley Trail
  • My home office
  • Sitting in The Happy Chair (yes, sometimes I name my furniture!)
  • Peet’s Coffee in El Dorado Hills (also the one on Piedmont Ave.)

Now take your list and riff on titles again.

Isn’t this fun?

I’ll work with The Happy Chair.

Wow!

THE HAPPY CHAIR is its own title. Yay!

Do you have your five titles?

For our final round, take a look at the room you are sitting in right now.

Just do it.

Look around.

Find five things that spark for you.

Here’s what I see:

  • A paper punch
  • My tray of Flair pens
  • The teeny, tiny bowl that I keep my chocolate chips in
  • The bunny I painted in 1970
  • Grammy’s owl statue

You know what to do next.

Find a title!

If you are the type of person that needs a bit more time to come up with a title, just call your book GRAMMY’S OWL until you find something better.

Hey! I kind of like that title. Wow! Hmm? I wonder what Grammy’s owl is up to today? Does she have siblings? What is her favorite dessert?

Oh, sorry about that! Back to the blog post.

The point of all of this is that the life you are living every single day is filled with authentic ideas that are uniquely yours.

You don’t even have to leave your house to find picture book ideas. Just look around, make a list, put that list through the machinery of your mind, and pop out some titles.

When you write about something that is authentically YOU, you can’t go wrong. It might take you five or ten years to get that story right, but it will be worth the wait.

In 2015, I made a list of things I wanted to improve about myself. Naturally, I wrote one for each letter of the alphabet. And in 2022, that list became a book: LETTERS TO LIVE BY, illustrated by Asa Gilland (Running Press Kids).

And if you think my next picture book, EMBARRASSED FERRET (Illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi, Disney Hyperion, July 8, 2025) is all about the various embarrassing episodes of my own life, YOU’RE RIGHT!

Not only are you the idea, but also, YOU ARE THE STORY!

Lisa Frenkel Riddiough has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. Her projects include middle-grade, picture books, and board books. When Lisa is not sitting in The Happy Chair eating freshly sprinkled baked goods with Pierre, she can be found commiserating with her backyard squirrels. Learn more at LisaRiddiough.com and follow on Instagram @lisariddiough.

Lisa Frenkel Riddiough is giving away a signed copy of PIE-RATS!

You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm 2025 participant and you have commented only once below.

Prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of Storystorm.