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Create a baddie for children's book week

edited October 2011 in - WM and WN
Hello everyone,
anyone doing anything exciting for Children's Book Week this week? Hopefully you are now...

After our enjoyable grisly murder thread a few months ago, we're more than overdue for a fun little writing game (I've been neglecting you, sorry!)
So, who can come up with the perfect kids' book baddie? Write a brief character description, 100-words give or take, by Monday 10 October, and we'll pick our favourite and ask (but not force) the winner to write a story which we can feature on the website.

Have fun!
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Comments

  • OOoer :) I like the sound of this one.
  • Sounds like fun will get my thinking head on.
  • Excellent, looking forward to some colourful entries!
  • Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
  • My character "The Dream Bandit".
    When children talk and make plans for very important events, holidays, birthdays, and Christmas. I like to think they have wonderful dreams of the event to come. Then in comes The Dream Bandit, and steals the wonderfull dreams for it's self, will the Bandit realise how sad it is making the children?. The children will want to know who and what is the Bandit and why it steals their dreams.
  • edited October 2011
    Here is my offering.

    Mr Blossom strode into the school playground. His long black coat flowing out behind. The look on his wolverine face was one of immense pleasure as he smelt the fear created just by his presence. His long nose twitched in anticipation of what the next full moon might bring. His eyes were sharp, his hearing even sharper, he could hear the whispers long after he had passed by. He smiled to himself. Yes, they would be wise to be afraid of him. They were the monsters not him, these children always interrupting his lessons, some braver than the others, sniggering when they thought he could not see them. He had plans for them all though.
  • Lovely chance to explore the nasties!! Haven't had this much fun at 4am with a teething baby in a long time! Thank you!
    My attempt:
    **

    “I hate you, Mum! I wish you were dead.”
    “It's not fair, I wish I was a grown up”

    These angry words bring joy to his sticky-out ears. It's the only time he smiles, showing his yellow teeth.

    Mr Strengar lives in that house. The one with the long grass and the paint peeling from the windows frames. The one you have to pass on the way home from school.
    Alone.

    Mr Strengar makes wishes come true. Not in the Fairy Godmother flouncy way. There's no fairy dust here.
    Mr Strengar makes children disappear.
  • The BioWare Factory is a hunched black box in a dirty alleyway. We kids don't linger for long around there. Only the ones who are desperate: starving hungry, living on the streets, on the scrounge. Every Friday the man from BioWare opens the big black door. He is small and thin. He has a glass eye with a camera in it. He has a robot leg. He has a crooked smile, like the broken edge of a glass. The man from BioWare makes robots for the rich and lonely. Nobody knows where the children go when he closes his black door, but there aren't so many street kids around after that.
  • edited October 2011
    Listen, Garth Black isn’t your new best friend, okay? He makes it sound that way, laughing at your jokes and sharing his sweets, but as soon as your back’s turned..... He’s a bad ‘un, that boy. Before you know it you’ll be stealing cans of coke for him, pulling the legs off grasshoppers and throwing snails at brick walls. And he’s cruel to his mum. Pushes her wheelchair too near the doorframe so she scrapes her knees. Have you seen her scars? Sean Carson saw him pee in the kettle, once. Ever had tea at their house?
    Garth Black's evil.
  • creiky, theres a pair of dark ones ^ is there an age range or just go for it, I know there is a lot of creepy kids about these days.
  • [quote=francis]there is a lot of creepy kids about these days. [/quote]

    I blame the parents.
  • We haven't specified an age range, Francis, but feel free to add a target range to your description, we'll take that into account when we assess them.
    I had Roald Dahl classics in my head when I was thinking up the theme, but interpret the theme any way you see fit.

    Some great ones here already, come on everybody, let's have some more!
  • The shadow. When anyone is watching, he just looks like your regular shadow - but when only you can see he gets up to terrible tricks. He points to places you want to go and know you shouldn't and entices you to climb over the fence, or push open the door. If you don't have enough money for sweets, he reaches out to take some and stuff them in his pocket and you can't stop yourself doing the same. When a teacher or your parents tell you off he thumbs his nose and makes you laugh. When you should be doing chores he runs off and you have to follow.

    Your Uncle is the only one who seems to understand. He gives you a torch for your birthday. When you switch it on you can't see what The Shadow does - is that a good, or a bad thing?
  • The Toymaker had spent decades creating the greatest playthings on Earth. Everybody commented how wonderfully lifelike his dolls were, how realistic his toys soldiers. Parents fought each other to purchase them and they were always in demand. They were unaware of his previous life as a doctor however. He’d been struck off from The Trade but his connections were plenty. They supplied him with raw materials collected from the children’s ward.

    But he was no longer content with stealing parts to make his creations. He wanted living dolls and the only way to build them was to empty the sickbeds of the living children. The ones nobody cared for or wanted. The Complete Children.
  • He looked like anyone you might meet. Nothing amazing. Just a short guy, thin legs and arms tacked on a rather wide body. But the eyes were different, cold, glazed and purple. That set him apart from the others in the village. He'd drifted in and bought the abandoned pub, but it never re-opened. He rarely talked to the villagers, but spent his time roaming the area with a small black box that glistened in the sun, taking samples of soil and vegetation. Children were nervous, yet curious, and life continued until he received further orders from the controlling galaxy. It was time to collect human samples.
  • Like that, toothlight!
  • Well I dont know about that dora I know some realy nice people, but their kids, well odd.
  • Green slime pulsed at left nostril; controlled by punctuating sniff with each phrase.
    “C’mere runt!” Vivian Postlewine marshalled another first year pupil from Midway Secondary School’s playground. Pimple nose fought to outshine weeping pustules, as tyrant’s face blotted daylight from its cornered target.

    Wary of being spattered; by erupting puss or spittle oiled discordant voice, set Tommy Green’s body trembling. True fear, however, was caused by the reddened pig eyes, bulging with malice, making him feel as though a venomous snake was about to devour his life.

    “On yer knees, head under my skirt.” The third year student glowered. “Now!”
  • She peers out her window with jam-jar spectacles. She taps her finger on the glass in a slow, steady tune. She taps until you look at her. Tap tap tap tap. BANG! Her fist pounds the glass as she catches your eye. Then she disappears. Some say there is a puff of blue smoke. Some say their blood fizzed like cherryade. They have no idea who she is or what she does, but I do.
    She sits at her desk in a dark room. She clicks down the point of her pen. Then she writes about you!
    And when you start barking uncontrollably, or leaking snot like a tap, you know she has made you the victim of her latest ‘fairytale’. So don’t look inside strange windows, in case you catch you catch her eyes. Because Inker’s stories never have happy endings!
  • How many people have a quick glance in a window at them selves I do now and again. Not knowing who is one the other side. CREEPY.
  • edited October 2011
    .sorry deleted mine . very similar to Tony`s
  • He came when they were asleep, disturbing the dust under their beds. Sometimes he would peep over the edge of their beds, longing for them to wake. He loved it when they cried, he fed on their fear, and it gave him power. Sometimes he would make a noise, and then hide in the wardrobe. Of course when Mummy or Daddy looked he could not be seen. But Mr Bogey Man was there. A black cloak hiding his bony body. They could see his bright red eyes glaring at them; they could see his shadow on the wall.
  • Great minds Jenny. Wish I'd read yours before you'd deleted it though.

    Your new one is very Gaiman like. Deliciously creepy.
  • The Artist-
    Each child that was brought into the studio would be painted with great accuracy, The Artist capturing the true nature and soul of the child with each painterly stroke of the brush.

    Have you ever seen one of those paintings where the eyes seem to follow you- well you never know who or what is behind those layers of paint.
  • Webbo and co will have a difficult job with this one...They are all intriguing.
  • Some of these are brilliant.
  • Dorzal Specker rolled the booger into a small, firm ball and flicked it off her finger as quick as a wink. Or at least as quick as a somewhat spherical, elasticized projectile of nose stuff can ping off the end of a finger without a slingshot to propel it.  

    She lazily pushed herself off a wall and maintained her usual slow, menacing pace on the opposite side of the street; one stride to every three of mine.  I kept her in my peripheral vision but didn't dare make eye contact. Dorzal was always there, always shadowing me. I suspected she had bat sonar. There was no escaping her.
  • The Duck Lady sits on the park bench with her bag of stale bread. She’s a sweet old dumpling with apple cheeks and eyes that disappear when she smiles.
    Whenever a child wanders nearby she says, “Quack, quack,” and throws bread to the ducks.
    She knows the curious child will draw closer and she smiles her roly-poly smile. She offers bread for the child to throw.
    “Say ‘quack, quack’ to the ducks,” she suggests.
    The curious child will take her bread and throw it in the lake, obediently saying “quack, quack.”
    The curious child finds itself swimming in the lake and it can only say “quack, quack” now.
    The sweet old Duck Lady eats confit of duck every Sunday, her webbed feet tucked cosily into her special wide-fit slippers.
  • The Slitherer

    The Slitherer is able to slip through the smallest crack, under doors and down plugholes yet is immensely strong for his size allowing him to lift flowerpots to creep beneath or turn the locks in doors to allow him entrance.

    Visible only to those with the sharp eyesight of childhood, he is responsible for all those items that go missing at vital moments – hairbrushes, homework or handkerchiefs for example. He does not take these to use – indeed his finds are often returned to whence they came once the emergency has passed – but he loves to create mischief in an ordered home.
  • You only know he's been by the footprints. You know the ones. You've seen them. Mum told you off for wearing shoes in the house, remember. It's the other things to. Little things. That's when you know it's your turn. He's comming and there is nothing you can do about it.

    From the depths he comes. Thick drool drips from his fetid teeth, the rot of a thousand years hangs in his breath, the thin steel eyes pearce the mist of time as his form folds out of the darkness. He raises his huge hound like head up towards the lit bedroom window. He draws back the corners of his mouth into something that passes as a smile. As the light goes out in Dan Wards bedroom, 'it's time' he thought.
  • Wow, these are brilliant. Can't wait to sit down and attempt to pick a favourite - but really all of them have potential.
    Last day now... get your last minute entries in now.
  • Mrs Grimstalk was the matron at Happy Days Orphanage. She loved the children, but not in the cuddly snuggly way. Once a month Mrs Grimstalk and her Uncle Uberlucker, who worked in the gardens, would choose the two plumpest children in the home, take them to the kitchens where they would ply them with all manner of sweet things to eat. They would invite the Mayor and his fat wife to dinner and were always complimented on how nice and sweet the puddings were? No one ever missed the children.
  • The devious and mysterious master was ever watchful beneath his jar-bottom glasses and greasy parting. Ever watchful for new ideas. New ideas that he could use to paint colourful fantasy worlds. He would spin fantastical yarns about horrid grown-ups, troublesome teachers and sneaky midnight creatures to enrapture his attentive wide-eyed audience, who would be all too blissfully unaware that the only one they really need to fear was him, cloaked in his mild-mannered alternative identity, Webbo. His only weakness was a complete lack of imagination... so he was forced to solicit ideas from others more imaginative than him. And now he has a rich crop of child-catching characters... but which one will he pick?
  • Oooh, Webbo - can't believe we fell for your cunning plan! (Or did we? Maybe we know the power of the magic TB ink will bring our sneaky midnight creatures to life on your page, so they can smudge your glasses, frizz your hair and simulate the blue screen of death on your monitor.)
  • Webbo that's class and should win for being such a cleverly ironic meta tale.
  • I can`t but help agree with Tony
  • Webbo is DR EVIL in disguise! Anyone seen his mini-me? :-)
  • Why thank you! Not very well written though. Must try harder
  • He he - nice one, Webbo!
  • Gosh this has been tricky. They were all so good - I'd be interested to read any of these entries fleshed out.
    But we have to have a winner... or two.
    So I'm plumping for Phot's Moll's Shadow and Rainbow Lou's Inker. Well done both of you. Would you both like to write a full story (or extract) to appear on here? And thanks everybody else for your entries.
  • Well done PM and Rainbow Lou.
    Have to agree they were all good, Webbo.
  • Congratulations PM and Rainbow Lou. Looking forward to reading them.
  • Good choices - congrats Phot and Rain!

    I enjoyed coming up with something for this thread - I think I will carry it on into a story too.
  • Well done Phots Moll and Rainbow
    I agree with Lou it was fun coming up with ideas and there could be lots of story`s to get out of them for the authors.
  • Hurray for you lot
  • [quote=Webbo]Phot's Moll's Shadow and Rainbow Lou's Inker[/quote]
    Anticipating an intriguing read, good for you two.
  • Yes, bravo PM and RL.
  • Well done Phot's Moll and RainbowLou. This was a fun challenge.
  • Well done, both of you. A great idea Webbo!
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