I need a little help from my friends.
I posted previously about a bedtime story that went horribly wrong. I just completed a series of bedtime stories that were the complete opposite--the kids were absolutely enthralled for nights on end. That's the problem. Now I've set the bar pretty high and they will accept nothing less than perfection. The natives are getting restless for a new batch of stories. I feel like Cheherazade of the Arabian Nights story--forced to come up with new and exciting stories on pain of death. Well, not death, but you get the idea of the pressure I'm under.
I need some ideas. The last story was about how my daughter, son, and three nieces were princesses and a prince going on various quests to see who was worthy to be queen or king of the kingdom. In the end they all realized that they had to work together and rule jointly. Government by executive committee, if you will. I jazzed it up by giving them all special powers (power to heal, super strength, Benjamin could turn into a rock creature like The Thing, super speed). I also gave them their own special weapons. They used their skills and weapons to fight various monsters like a dragon, a shark, and an ogre. One night after I finished a particular section of the story, the kids talked themselves to sleep discussing the best way to turn the story into a movie.
I'm toying around with a few ideas. The kids are a band of kid mercenaries called together when their nation needs them via secret signal--kind of like the Bat Signal. Who do they fight? Special powers, or do they just have special weapons?
Any suggestions?
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6 comments:
Wow, that's a pretty hard story to top. Rock creature and special powers - cool. It took me 8 months to think up a blog name - if you're counting on me you're in trouble.
The first think that comes to mind is adapt some Star Trek episodes to stories, include your kids (no red shirts for them), and shorten it so they're not an hour long.
Tell the story of the legendary quarterback who retires at the top of his game, and then suddenly shows up for practice with his former team, who ship him to NY to play for the Jets. Don't forget the part about him being stoned to death by loyal Packer-Backers during the season opener.
I'm sorry. Let me try this again later.
Aside from writing a book about "how to make up bedtime stories for your kids," which you should definitely consider, here is an idea: give each one of them a special skill or quality (anything from compassion to computer hacking) and lots of cool gadgets. And, apparently, a pretty pony will have to appear somewhere.
Make up a "next chapter" to your story where all of the heroes slowly become villains. There's a mole in the midst - and each night, you get to vote to kick a sibling off the island.
At the end, all the kids are gone, and you get a pleasant night's sleep.
Or...you could take the easy way out. My girls were about that age when I started reading them books out loud. Right after dinner, we would sit and read a chapter.
Then, you get to make up voices. And that's always fun.
HA! Martha stole my thunder. I was going to suggest adapt old Star Trek plots to your kids' characters.
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