Preschool and first-grade children's story production was studied. Participants were 96 children who were asked to relate stories about two familiar events: baking cookies and taking a trip to the beach. Story events were depicted in line drawings in a coloring book. Half the sample was assigned to a preview condition in which children narrated stories after viewing the pictures. The other half, assigned to a standard condition, told stories without previewing. Half the children in each condition were given pictures that included a problem-resolution sequence, while the other half viewed pictures of a typical, but uneventful, sequence. Findings revealed three predominant techniques that children used to create cohesion: interclausal connectives, intraclausal devices, and pronominal reference strategies. Effects on coherence were more complicated, and concerned developmental differences in story structure and content. Previewing of the picture sequence affected coherence. First graders, in comparison with preschoolers, seemed to have a more elaborate concept of a story. This concept enabled flexible adaptation to different structural contexts. To some degree, the amount of cognitive effort required determined children's success in using linguistic reference devices and incorporating the episodic story structure into their narratives. Preschoolers' storytelling abilities were tenuous, although not as poorly developed as once believed. (RH)