Here's the first couple paragraphs of my new children's book and some of the brainstorming I've done so far. Let me know if you have any ideas or any input.
Premise: a young girl named Poppy lives on a ship in the middle of the ocean. This ship, however, is really a small city on the ocean (not unlike this and contains many eccentric inhabitants. Just as Poppy turns 10 years old, strange things start taking place on the ship, citizens are disappearing and new members are suddenly roaming the halls. Poppy has to gather as much information as possible and battle her way through the decks of the ship to find the key to the madness around her. (cheesy summary, I know)
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Poppy was 10 years old before she realized she was the only person who could see the stain on the bulkhead. It had been there for as long as she could remember, but she had never bothered to say anything; it had always been so small and had almost surely been there long before she’d arrived. At first, it was only a faint grey smudge as large as her hand, but in the last few months it had been growing rapidly with no discernible cause. The color had been darkening as well as if the steel were soaking up stray water from some place.
Perhaps the lack of interest from the other residents was due to the fact that this particular bulkhead was located in the last baggage compartment deep down in the bowels of the ship. No one ever ventured this far below the residential decks—well, no one except Poppy and Mr. Navire, a deckhand who had lived at sea his whole life. He loved The Summerland (or Mag Mell) like it was his very own child and would always worry over the boat’s idiosyncrasies during their chats. Surely, she thought, Mr. Navire would have recognized the expanding imperfection tarnishing his precious vessel. He always noticed imperfections.
When she showed him the spot, however, he only opened his mouth in a cavernous “O” and laughed his big booming laugh. “You had me worried for a moment. Believe me, little flower, if there were a stain on this wall, I would see it. Now stop scaring me with jokes and get back above deck.”
Obviously this is a very rough first draft and is really more about establishing my own idea of who these characters will become. I can't quite decide what the name of the ship should be. Both refer to the Otherworld of the Celtic or Pagan mythology. I like the idea of the ship being a kind of purgatory and that everyone who leaves the ship is really moving on to future lives. However, since all of my favorite books as a child were pretty dark and a little scary, I do want to have some kind of entity on the ship. There should still be something menacing about the disappearances.
The main character's name, Poppy, is also important. A Poppy is a flower, something very much earth-bound. The character Poppy feels very out of place on the ship and has never really gotten her sea legs. She stands out in that way to all of the other characters. It's not that she doesn't fit in, but she's just not suited for their world.
Much of this is still a work in progress so I'll post any re-writes I do or any further parts of the story.
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