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a man slumped on his desk, from 'The Sleep of Reason Produces
      Monsters'

Oblomovka

Currently:

some notes on the flying bed

For the last four years or so, I’ve been telling my daughter stories at night and, in an attempt to keep her fine skill at spotting inaccuracies at bay, struggling to keep the narrative universe consistent. The basic premise is usually the same:

One upon a time, there was a little girl called Ada. And whenever Ada wanted to have an adventure, or see something she’d never seen before, or do something she’d always wanted to do, all she had to do was to climb into her bed, close her eyes, hold her hands really tight, and make a wish. And suddenly — I don’t know how — her bed would rise into the air beneath her. And suddenly — I don’t know how — the windows to her room would slowly open, and the bed would fly out, and whatever she wanted to see, or whatever she wanted to do, or whatever adventure she wanted to have, the bed would take her to it.*

We had a couple of long serials — one in which Ada and friends investigated a secret polar world inside a fridge, and another one with an tree with an elevator in it, that could take you to different worlds — but me and Ada have agreed we prefer the short, Star Trekky, story arcs rather than the long drawnout multiple bedtime Babylon 5 scenarios.

This is good, because generally Ada’s been picking up a magical device every night, and after a few weeks we basically have an entire thaumaturgical armoury at our disposal, which makes for tricky plotting. I’m already learning to limit the powers of each device to stop it being brought up as a potential solution.

Another tradition that makes for tricky plotting is that before we start, Ada gives out a laundry-list of items that should appear within the story, which sometimes makes for Whose Fairytale Is It Anyway feel. Last night for instance, my director stated that the story should:

  1. Be about her dinosaur toy coming alive
  2. Should involve Dyson (our cat), but only in a side-role.
  3. Should have a glowing magic sword.
  4. Should have exactly one unicorn.

Together we worked on a story that involved the magic bed in a rare solo flight going off to get the magic sword, which brought the dinosaur to life, but with unfortunate consequences. The more the dinosaur ate, the bigger it got, until it got too big for her bedroom, and we had to fly off, with it holding onto the flying bed with a single paw, to find the owner of the magic sword, and undo the magic. One magic forest and unicorn later, and we discovered that this magic sword was always available to be lent out to children who wanted to give their toys the gift of life. But the unicorn (who was the keeper of the sword) explained that it knew the downsides to being alive, having once been a tiny toy unicorn itself. The world was full of toys who had come to life and got to big or too bored in their own toyboxes. And that’s why this forest had been made, so there would be a place for all the magically alive toys to live happily, where their old owners could visit them and say hello whenever they wanted.

I’m writing this down, because I think the Forest of Living Toys is going to make a comeback, along with the Volcano Monster, and the Endless Tree, and the Planet of the Lolcats, and the Feather of Every Color, and the Warm Mittens of Truth, and I need to keep it somewhere…

Plot factory shamelessly stolen from Enid Blyton’s Wishing Chair series, cheers.

2 Responses to “some notes on the flying bed”

  1. Paul Dixon Says:

    Can we have the story of the Warm Mittens of Truth? Can we can we can we?

    A few weeks ago I told my daughters a tale which featured bum-faced goats. These were, understandly, a huge hit. Now every story has to have a bum-faced goat in it. Mrs Dixon wasn’t happy.

  2. chrislunch Says:

    Now, *I* want the story of the bumfaced goats. Can we can we can we?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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