DWPFF: Silver-Hair & the Three Xairs

[Lee Nordling]

Okay, time to take my medicine.

This is more of a short outline than a pitch, but it's still less than two pages.

FYI, Silver-Hair was one of the earlier names for the Goldilocks character, and a brief reading through the Wikopedia entry confirmed why I always thought she was a little brat.

Silver-Hair & the Three Xairs
by Lee Nordling

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Silver-Hair, who was warned by her parents to keep close to the space colony’s encampment perimeter, so she did what she always does, which was to ignore the warning and do the opposite.

Silver-Hair immediately wandered off into the alien woods, and was soon lost.

After some time, she became bored.

After some more time, she became tired.

And after still more time, she became hungry.

Soon after that, she came across a house in the woods, strange-shaped and not quite accommodating to humans, but a house, none-the-less, so she went inside.

Everything inside the house was strangely shaped and placed.

She was tired, so she chose a sofa-like cube to sit down on, but it was much too sticky, and she could barely pry her tush loose.

So she picked another sofa-like sphere to sit down on, but it was much too soft, and she fell so far down into it that she could just barely crawl out.

Then she picked a floating sofa-like pad to sit down on. It was just right, and her tush would’ve thanked her if it could.

But, being Silver-Hair, she quickly became bored again, and looked around for something to eat.

Then she saw something that looked like a table with three bowls on it.

She went to the table, and looked at the soup inside the big bowl. She tested it with the tip of her finger, and it was much too hot.

So she looked inside the medium-sized bowl, and tested the soup with her finger. It was much too cold.

So she looked inside the smallest bowl, tested the soup with her finger, and found it was just right.

So she picked up the bowl and drank it all down.

Silver-Hair licked her lips then yawned.

It had been a long day, and she looked for a place to lie down.

She went up the escalating slope to the second floor balcony, where there were three sleeping enclosures.

She lay down in the first one, but the surface was so buoyant that she couldn’t get decent back support.

She lay down in the second one, but the surface was so fluid, and she couldn’t float well enough to go to sleep without sinking.

Then she lay down in the third one, and she floated so well that she went instantly to sleep.

And that’s where the aliens found her.

Silver-Hair awoke to their high-pitched gurgling anger, a whole squad of gelatinous creatures with electric prods and ray guns.

She tried to protest, but was quickly shackled and led down the escalating slope.

She was led past the grief-stricken parents of the child who’d napped in the third bowl.

Then Silver-Hair was taken out of the house, through the angry alien mob, and into the police cruiser. The cruiser flew her toward the city, her trial, and eventual incarceration.

The creatures called Xairs have been having nothing but trouble since the humans arrived.

There are six million misunderstandings on this planet, and this was just one of them.

THE END

[Lovecraft13]

Since you were kind enough to comment on mine, allow me to return the notion. Perhaps instead of posting this as an outline, develop the story and post it again as a pitch, as the guidelines dictate. Not only does this read like a recipe, but your intended use of repetition slows it down even more.

[Lee Nordling]

The short version:

This is the story about Silver-Hair, a little girl who wanders away from her colony on another planet, and enters, uninvited, the home of three alien Xairs.

But the Xairs aren't there.

Tired and hungry, she figures out which seat is most comfortable to sit on.

Then she sees the bowls of soup on the table, and drinks the one that's "just right."

Then she takes a nap in the most comfortable bed enclosure, and is awakened by the Xair police for drinking the Xair child out of the bowl.

There are six million misunderstandings on this planet, and this was just one of them.

[galmando]

heh, i like this one!

hope it makes it

[RonaldMontgomery]

That is SOOOOOOO wrong!

(I hope this makes it!)

[Pixelpushing]

I do like the ending, but for my taste it is perhaps a little too much like the original.

[Lovecraft13]

Thanks for posting the shorter version, which understandingly flows much better, but like the gentleman (or lady) above me mentioned, it does resemble the original source material far too much, even to the extent that you can simply swap out key words and they would be no distinction between stories-- well, except for the punchline. Without an original take, this feels quickly tossed together and doesn't work.

[Jason Copland]

Originally Posted by Pixelpushing

I do like the ending, but for my taste it is perhaps a little too much like the original.

I was thinking that until I got to the end. I think it needs to be just like the original tale so that the ending can catch you unaware. You have an expectation of what is going to happen only to have it not happen the way you expected.

I will admit that I almost didn't get to the end (of the longer post) to find the twist ending, though. I probably wouldn't have if I didn't know it was a writer I knew would give me a decent resolution.

[Lee Nordling]

Originally Posted by Pixelpushing

I do like the ending, but for my taste it is perhaps a little too much like the original.

You're absolutely right; it does bear (pun intended) close to the original.

In fact, it probably doesn't work if it doesn't stay close to the original, because the end requires knowing the original in order to appreciate the twist. (I'm not extolling the story's virtues; I'm just trying to say that I thought about how close I needed to stay to the original in order for it to work, and my thought was that I HAD to. It needs to be written like a fairytale, and be drawn like a fairytale; wish Wally Wood or Walt Kelly was alive to draw it.)

In theory, the twists on the set up would get the reader to THINK "fairytale," which sets up the bizarre twist of what turns out to be a crime story.

And, as a comic, the chairs can't really be sat on like chairs, the bowls (it turns out) aren't really filled with soup, and the beds can't really be slept in easily by humans, so that gag progression, each a variation on the original, was intended to entertain until we reached the punchline.

Anyway, that was the goal.

It was a fun exercise.

--Lee

[Pixelpushing]

Originally Posted by Lee Nordling

You're absolutely right; it does bear (pun intended) close to the original.

In fact, it probably doesn't work if it doesn't stay close to the original, because the end requires knowing the original in order to appreciate the twist. (I'm not extolling the story's virtues; I'm just trying to say that I thought about how close I needed to stay to the original in order for it to work, and my thought was that I HAD to. It needs to be written like a fairytale, and be drawn like a fairytale; wish Wally Wood or Walt Kelly was alive to draw it.)

In theory, the twists on the set up would get the reader to THINK "fairytale," which sets up the bizarre twist of what turns out to be a crime story.

And, as a comic, the chairs can't really be sat on like chairs, the bowls (it turns out) aren't really filled with soup, and the beds can't really be slept in easily by humans, so that gag progression, each a variation on the original, was intended to entertain until we reached the punchline.

Anyway, that was the goal.

It was a fun exercise.

--Lee

That clicks more with me now when thinking the chairs and so on will sort of be hints without giving it away that something is coming that is different. I do enjoy the punchline of it a bunch so thanks for explaining your reasoning.

[Uziel]

Is this just for fun or are you pitching for the anthology? I love the twist and would like to see this one in the book.

[Lee Nordling]

Originally Posted by Uziel

Is this just for fun or are you pitching for the anthology? I love the twist and would like to see this one in the book.

Yeah, it's a pitch to be accepted or rejected by Chris/the powers that be.

He was kind enough to invite me to do so, and I came up with an idea I like well enough to write.

And I'm happy with the story, so as I wrote in my other post about editing, now I need to find an advocate for it.

Only Chris knows how well this (and other stories) will fit into his anthology, so there won't be any hard feelings if he passes; that's his job, and he's a nice, talented, enthusiastic guy, so I'll completely respect his decision and trust his instincts.

--Lee

[galmando]

Originally Posted by Lee Nordling

It needs to be written like a fairytale, and be drawn like a fairytale;

well in that case i really really hope it gets picked and i really realy hope i get to draw something like this!!!

[jrod]

Lee, I'm going to do this in two posts. First about the pitch, then about the content.

I'm glad you turned this into a shorter pitch for starters. When I first came into this thread yesterday and read the story I said, "Ah, man, now I'm going to have to call Lee out for not doing this in pitch form when that's what the guidelines specifically called for." I'd be a bit hypocritical if I didn't.

However, and this is a big however, the long-form opens this up for an interesting discussion on politics in comics and, since this whole experiment has been a bit of a behind-the-scenes of comic creation it may be a good idea to talk about this. Sometimes, people get a bit of leeway in how they pitch or what they pitch, that's just a fact. Going back to POSTCARDS...

There were two pitching processes. For fifteen of the sixteen stories, I found you, asked you if you wanted in. If you said "yes," I sent you three antique, used postcards. You picked the one you liked the most and send me a pitch for a story inspired by the postcard. If I liked it we worked with it, if not I gave you another shot. Sometimes several shots. Sometimes it just wasn't going to work. For the final story, I posted a used postcard online and accepted short pitches and chose the best one. And that was the pitching process. Sort of.

Pekar pitched me his idea over the phone. It had nothing to do with antique postcards. He and joice Joyce wanted to retell the history of their marriage using postcards. I didn't even once say, "Well, guys, that's not the point of the book." I just said, "That sounds great!" and then figured out how to make it work. And let's talk about our current editor, Chris Stevens. I sent him some postcards and he said, "I kind of want to do a story about Lucy the Elephant," so I went out and found a postcard with Lucy the Elephant on it so that it could be "part of my collection" and so Chris could do the story he wanted to do. So, the politics of this is, Harvey/Joyce and Chris were going to be in the book no matter what they wanted to do or how they wanted to pitch it.

Having said that, if Lee had just emailed this story to Chris, Chris would have accepted or rejected it based on its merit, despite how it was pitched, because Lee's being a great help to the book. And that's politics. But, since Lee posted it here as an open sub, it should have been in the same format as every other pitch (and he corrected that) because an anthology should have a consistent appearance.

So that's my thought on the pitch itself.

[jrod]

And as for the content...

My question, as someone who's a real hard-ass for details, would be: Why are there beds in the house when the aliens sleep in the bowls? I think this is a case of an ending being more clever than the build-up. If you want to make an interesting turn towards the end, why not make Goldilocks mistake the alien creatures for the beds themselves? She can then be brought in for statutory rape instead of murder (if only this wasn't a YA project...)

But, seriously, I think the build-up needs to be more than "uncomfortable" and "too hot." I think in order to really adapt this for sci-fi, we can play on ideas of xenophobia and ignorance (while still making it funny) by going into things like: Goldilocks simply smells the first bowl, pinches her nose, and says, "Yuck! How can anyone eat something that smells like this?" She sips the second one and says, "Blagh! How can anyone eat something that tastes like this?" The third one smells ok and tastes ok so she shrugs says, "This is passable." She then slurps the whole thing down.

Something like that would be more of a comedic parable for imperialism and xenophobia. Take what you want, insult what you don't, never think of the consequences. But make it funny, so that it's humorous the first time, thought-provoking the second.

That's my thoughts, at least. And, as usual, I'm not Chris.