📚 Make it a story
Our cartoon writing algorithm: it helps you put your ideas into cartoon form, without changing a word you wrote.
In Create Your Own Book, kids make their book one page at a time. Each page is one character talking. Pages made one at a time don't always line up into a story yet, and that's where Make it a story comes in. Think of it as a friendly cartoon writer looking over your shoulder.
Built on our true guiding principles
Every book teaches one of our true guiding principles and values, like integrity, empathy, courage or gratitude. Our characters each have their own personality and way of talking, and they're built around those principles. So when your kid picks a character for a page, the character stays true to their personality and the principle shows through what they do, never with a lecture. That's how a pile of fun pages gets funneled into a book that teaches something good.
You bring the ideas
The algorithm can't write the book for you, and it won't. Your kid writes every idea: what happens on each page and who says it. The AI helps say it in the character's voice, then helps put the pages in order. More ideas make a better book, so the best stories come from kids who keep adding pages.
Written like a cartoon
Good kids' cartoons keep a laugh coming about every 20 seconds, and our algorithm writes the same way. It keeps the funny moments coming through the whole book, and if the story goes too long without a laugh, it suggests a funny page to add.
Your tries, four approaches
Each book comes with 3 Make it a story tries, so you can shape the same pages different ways and keep the one you like best:
- Hero's journey. Every kid is a unique story waiting to be told. This shapes the pages into the kid's own hero's journey: a challenge that takes courage, adaptability or discipline to overcome, and coming home proud. It gives kids something to tell you about besides "Fine."
- Classic. A clear beginning, a problem, what the characters try, how the principle helps, and a happy ending.
- Funniest. Pages ordered for the biggest laughs, with the best punchline saved for the end.
- Surprise. Hooks the reader from the first page and ends with a twist.
Every extra 25 pages adds 2 more tries. After that, each extra try costs 5 tokens (5 cents), taken from the grown-up's tokens.
What each try gives you
- The best order for your pages for that approach. If your order already works, it keeps it.
- A title of 2 to 7 words. If yours is already good, it keeps it.
- The back-cover words: two or three sentences that make a kid want to read it, without giving away the ending.
- The big idea: one or two sentences on what your story teaches, in words a kid understands.
- Let's talk about it: three questions a grown-up can ask after reading it together.
- Words to know and ideas for more pages: up to six good words from your pages with kid-friendly meanings, and up to three ideas for pages that would make the story stronger. It always says something you did well first.
You're still the author
It never rewrites a page. Nothing changes until you look it over and tap Use this. Then you can still move pages up and down, change the title, or edit the back cover yourself in About the book. Don't like the ideas? Ignore them, make a few more pages, and try again.
A quick example
Pages in the order they were made: Big Sal finds a lost wallet. Mama Linda says to give it back. Captain Blackbeard says "Finders keepers, matey!" Big Sal returns the wallet and the owner smiles.
Make it a story (Classic) suggests: start with Big Sal finding the wallet, then Captain Blackbeard tempting him to keep it (the problem), then Mama Linda's advice, then the happy ending. Title: Finders, Not Keepers. Big idea: "Doing the right thing feels good, even when nobody is watching." Idea for a new page: "Add a page where the owner tells Big Sal how worried they were."