by Laura Gehl

I am a HUGE fan of brainstorming. Generate a whole bunch of ideas, and at least one of them is bound to be worth pursuing? YES! I believe this with all of my heart and soul!

Except…when do you need to brainstorm? When you don’t have any ideas. And when you don’t have any ideas, do you feel extremely energized, your brain positively fizzing and whizzing with brilliance, ready to generate, generate, generate? NOPE.

This is why I love to brainstorm two-word lists. No matter how exahusted you are, no matter how much the rest of your life is getting in the way of your writing, no matter that your brain feels like month-old tapioca pudding, you can come up with two little words. Right? Right!

One of my favorite two-word brainstorming activities is to generate a list of verb-noun combinations and then see where my imagination leads.

For example:

  • Throw donuts (Hmm…a donut fight? Why? Wouldn’t everyone rather eat donuts than throw them? Are there rival donut shops involved? Or a donut shop competing with an ice cream shop? Is there a character who hates donuts and just wants to eat carrots? Is someone throwing donuts over a squirrel’s head like a ring-toss game? Or using a donut as a life preserver?)
  • Zoom capybara (A capybara race car driver? Or motorcycle enthusiast? Or skateboarder? Or maybe the capybara just falls asleep in a comfy spot but then discovers himself zooming across the country in a pickup truck?)
  • Bushwhack pickles (Okay, these are two of my favorite funny words, but this pair led to absolutely no ideas. That happens. It’s fine!)

A few years ago, one of my verb-noun pairs led to a book that will be published next month. I’m super excited about this book! It features two bunnies named Carrot Cake and Pufftail who must defend their beloved forest from a troublesome fox (or is he?).

Another two-word brainstorming activity I love is to come up with rhyming pairs of words and then see where those words take my thoughts.

  • Mountain fountain (Ooh, I like this one…maybe there’s a mysterious fountain found deep in the mountains. Who built it? Who uses it? Is it a water fountain or a chocolate fountain? Is the fountain drying up? Who is affected by that?)
  • Small Paul (Who is Paul? Why does it matter that he is small? Is being small getting in the way of his dreams? Is there a Tall Paul? How do Small Paul and Tall Paul relate to one another? Are they friends? Enemies? Frenemies?)
  • Sailboat mailboat (Is the mailboat delivering mail to people on an island? Is the sailboat a mailboat? Or are Sailboat and Mailboat two boats who are buddies? Is Mailboat sick and so Sailboat has to deliver the mail, but he’s much slower than mailboat, because Mailboat has a motor and Sailboat doesn’t?)

Sometimes, pairs of rhyming words can lead not just to book ideas but also to book titles. I have lots of books with rhyming words in the titles!

And it’s not just me! What about our fearless leader Tara Lazar?

Here are a few other ideas for two-word brainstorming.

Brainstorm words that don’t naturally go together.

Pillow revolution
Ballet potato
Foot party

Brainstorm words that start with the same letter.

Saturday school
Towering trees
Bicycle blues

Brainstorm words that start with the same TWO letters.

Frilly friends
Stinky stampede
Princess pride

Brainstorm words in different categories. For example, beach words and sports words.

Sand goal
Umbrella champion
Seagull race

Brainstorm words of different lengths. For example, 1-syllable and 3-syllable words.

Stop sniveling
Fuzz bonanza
Pup tornado

Of course, most of the ideas you come up this way will lead absolutely nowhere! Let’s be honest, “ballet potato” sounds like an idea that I might scribble on a post-it note in the middle of the night thinking it’s the most ingenious picture book idea ever. I will then inevitably stare at the Post-it in the morning trying to figure out what on earth I was thinking. BUT…for every 10? 20? 50? ideas that have no potential, one of them will lead you to write a fabulous book. And I, for one, can’t wait to see that book on my bookshelf soon!

Laura Gehl is the award-winning author of more than fifty books for kids, from board books to picture books to early readers. Her 2026 titles include ATTACK BUNNIES (Beaming Books), PUPPIES KNOW AND GROW and BUNNIES KNOW AND GROW (Barefoot Books), ODD BUGS (Abrams), and BUBBE AND BECCA’S BUCKET LIST (Penguin Random House). You can often find Laura in an ice cream shop, or in the woods in Maryland, where she lives with her husband and four kids. You can also visit her online at lauragehl.com or on instagram @authorlauragehl. Subscribe to her newsletter (with a giveaway in every issue!) here: https://lauragehl.com/contact/.