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The Darkness Light

by Scott the Writer 

Posted: 01 August 2007
Word Count: 1178
Summary: A tale of two boys and how the path that each takes catches the world in the middle


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"Nick!" shouted the frantic little boy

"Who?"

"NICK! er the Darkness...WHATEVER....just stop fighting and LOOK!" Figgy continued to shout as he desperately grabbed Buzz by his ears to try and get his attention

Even those who were grappling on the ground stopped to look up at the eruption of silent light consuming everything in its path in the vast distance and then they realized what Figgy was so terrifyingly trying to tell them, the Darkness light was rapidly advancing right towards them

"He's gonna drag everyone into the slumber world, he is going to destroy us all cos he in going to turn us into them" Figgy said pointing to the horrid creature Sky and Buzz were trying to keep down

However, even the creature had stopped to look, he had stopped struggling as he too was enthralled by the spectacle in the sky. Buzz let go and stood up in a shocked daze. "Oh no no no no no” he said shaking his head in disbelief “it's heading this way....run Figgy...RUN!!!"


Chapter 1: Bedtime

1 week earlier

It was ten o’clock on a Wednesday night when Miss Broadbottom was awoken yet again by all of the children in her street who were awakening with a scream from the horrific nightmares they had been having. Just as suddenly a loud familiar voice boomed through the wall behind Miss Broadbottoms big fat head.

“Is that Figaro making all of that horrible racket?” the loud voice shouted

“No!” she barked back

“he hasn’t come back yet”

“You WHAT!?”

“He hasn’t come back yet!”

“You what!!!”

“HE HASN’T C…..” Miss Broadbottoms repeated sentence was abruptly halted by the big bang her door made when it was slammed open by Mr. Geoffery who was a very small man with a big nose above a even bigger moustache that looked like he had a black cat shoved up each nostril .

“Figaro hasn’t come back! He is ten years old, he should have been back hours and hours ago, why on earth didn’t you tell me you silly woman?”

“I was too busy sorting out all of the rooms and it completely slipped my mind”

“The rooms, the rooms! Figaro is our only guest, he sleeps in a little bed, in a little empty room and he never ever makes a mess, you were probably too glad that he hadn’t turned up so that you could eat his dinner you wicked lady”

“But…”

“No buts, now get ya self outta bed now and come help me find him. Gawd I hope the wee lad is okay…” Mr Geoffery said while walking out of the room with one had on his oily head and the other hand waving one stumpy finger angrily at Miss Broadbottom “Because if he isn’t we’ve lost our only paying guest and I’ll have to sell the hotel and you’ll be back testing dog food at Barkies”

Eventually the pair got on their shoes and thick coats and ventured out into the dark cold night, shouting out Figaro’s name and trying to see past the thick blizzard that was pouring down around them.

“Could he be at one of his friends house?” asked Mr. Geoffery

“He hasn’t got any friends!” Miss Broadbent snapped

Had either of the pair thought about looking in Figaro’s room they would of seen the small boy sat on the end of his bed tightly clutching his teddy bear lucky who was getting increasingly wet with the tears that were rolling off of Figaro’s face and drumming on his head.

Figaro was a very small boy, even for ten, he hardly ever spoke, just the occasional yes or no and he often went unnoticed by everyone. Figaro collapsed back onto his bed and rolled over to look at a postcard on the bare brick wall beside him. The postcard was one of those new picture ones and on the front were a picture of his Mom and Dad in between Mickey Mouse and Goofy at Disney Land Orlando. On the back it enthusiastically stated

HAVING A GREAT TIME. LUV MAM AND POPS

Figaro, or Figgy as he prefers to be called, had slipped in around the normal time at the hotel he had been living at for as long as he could remember. He had a Mom and Dad and knew what they looked like but only by the postcards he had always got once a month, or two at Christmas. As hard as he tried he could never remember ever having met them in person. Once he got a phone call from a lady who said it was his ‘Mam’ but she had to hang up quickly because the casino machines were making too much noise as she had just won the jackpot. Anyway, Figgy has slipped in because he has a big nasty black eye, given to him by Nick the school bully and he knew if Mr Geoffery saw he would have to endure another night of being taught how to box by Mr Geoffery punching him in the arms. Mr Geoffery always seemed to be nice to him, he would greet Figgy most nights by asking him how his day had been but as soon as Figgy would begin to give an answer he could see Mr Geofferys eyes glaze over as if he wasn’t the least bit interested. Even at 10 Figgy had figured out that Mr Geoffery was just being nice to the only guest he had, one that was keeping his dirty little hotel next to a stinky dump yard in business. When Figgy wasn’t in the room and Mr Geoffery thought he couldn’t hear, Figgy would hear the grayish old man tell the big flabby Miss Broadbottom what a miserable little snotty boy he was and how he had to endure listening to him drone on about how the bullies were making his life hell, oh was an inconvenience Figgys anguish was for him to listen to for all of 30 seconds. You would think Figgy would stop talking to him knowing how he secretly felt and though sometimes he did refuse to speak to him it was true what Miss Broadbottom had said, Figgy had no friends and just to remind himself that he could talk he did like to answer Mr Geofferys half hearted questions even if his replies went unheard.

Figgy had not been asleep, not only was he being bullied by Nick at and out of school but lately it had seemed he was being bullied in his sleep too by the lumpy headed rotter. Figgy was afraid to close his eyes, he was afraid because if he went to sleep he would endure more nightmares but worse still sleep would bring the next day hurtling forwards and before he knew it he would be back in the school yard be hit with sticks and stones and being called all sorts of nasty names. Figgy tried to stay awake but eventually his heavy eyes fell further and further down until he was sound asleep.






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Comments by other Members



Scott the Writer at 23:21 on 01 August 2007  Report this post
The idea for this story came about when my partner and I were designing characters for a pre school picture book. When designing characters I like to know their story, it helps to mould them, and the more I thought about it the more I came up with a story I really liked. The story is far too much for a basic picture book which would be in the same fashion of Pocyco and so I've decided to type it down and see what people think. So far I have only established Figgys character but I have a whole lot more planned out and what follows next is all about Nick and what he does and how he and Figgy get caught up in something that concerns the whole wide world! If you would like to see the D.C characters for this tale you can see them if you look at image 3 on our portfolio website at www.evansvisualarts.com

We still need to create 3 more D.C Monsters, the Darkness, Nick and Figgy in 3D before we decide what we are going to do put at the moment I am planning to put it forward, at this stage probably just as a basic picture book but if I can develope the story to a good standard then who knows? if it is good enough I might try and do something more with it.

Scott the Writer at 10:57 on 02 August 2007  Report this post
Any feedback on this adventure story would be of great use in helping me decide whether my writing style, even on the short passage entered, is good enough to continue with or whether I'm better off sticking with the day job of being a character designer.

Scott the Writer at 19:07 on 02 August 2007  Report this post
Any feedback on this adventure story would be of great use in helping me decide whether my writing style, even on the short passage entered, is good enough to continue with or whether I'm better off sticking with the day job of being a character designer.

eve at 00:36 on 03 August 2007  Report this post
Hi Scott, you look keen for comments so here we go...

You have some great characters here that could make a brilliant story.

I'm not sure about the prologue part, I found it very confusing not knowing who was there or exactly what was happening.

You seem to write in the passive voice sometimes which makes it difficult to follow what is going on. For instance a sentence like:

Had either of the pair thought about looking in Figaro’s room they would of seen the small boy sat on the end of his bed tightly clutching his teddy bear lucky who was getting increasingly wet with the tears that were rolling off of Figaro’s face and drumming on his head.


sounds so much clearer when written : Figaro sat on his bed, his small head bent over the tightly clutched teddy bear. His tears rolled steadily off his face and drummed relentlessly against the bears furry head... or something like that.

I think what you have to do is decide who's story this is. Is it Figaro's story? If so, get inside his head and see everything from his Point of View. What he thinks, how he feels and what he sees.

You have written some of this in an omniscient Point of View which is extremely difficult to pull off especially for a new writer and especially in children's fiction. Not impossible, I have to say since it is done but really really difficult.

But then we go inside Figaro's head and get a huge info-dump of internal thoughts that alternates between tenses and really doesn't seem like something he would be sitting there thinking about.

So I would say you have a few things to iron out -

Who's telling the story? If it's Figaro then get into his head and tell it from his POV.

What tense are you writing it in? If it's the past tense then you should really stay with that and try to avoid writing things like "Anyway, Figgy has slipped in because he has a big nasty black eye.." It would be clearer as, 'Figgy had...'

I think especially when writing for children you should try to make the meaning of every sentence as clear as it possibly can be - as in writing it succinctly and directly. Of course we all have our own styles and this doesn't mean you have to compromise your own way of doing things. For example:

Miss Broadbottoms repeated sentence was abruptly halted by the big bang her door made when it was slammed open by Mr. Geoffery who was a very small man with a big nose above a even bigger moustache that looked like he had a black cat shoved up each nostril .


This could be a very funny sentence, your observation of the moustache is great but it's lost at the end of a huge sentence. All you need to put is : Mr Geoffery slammed open the door. The small man had a massive nose that looked as though it had a black cat shoved up each nostril.

So, I don't think you should stick strictly to the day job. I think you have some brilliant observations and characterisations that will come through if you just get a handle on how to convey them in the simplest and most basic way that kids will follow. I know when I started this lark many moons ago I had to get a grip on how to put things down on paper to get them from my head to the readers head, and a huge amount of it is practice!

Hope this helps a little.







<Added>

Figaro sat on his bed, his small head bent over the tightly clutched teddy bear. His tears rolled steadily off his face and drummed relentlessly against the bears furry head.

Just noticed this has adverbs that really should be changed for something stronger... see, practice, practice, practice...

Scott the Writer at 16:04 on 03 August 2007  Report this post
Thank you Eve for that, everything you said was very useful indeed. My day job is a character designer so often I have to use my imagination daily, we build up back stories to help us decide how a character should look but this particular group gave me a story I liked so much that I wanted to do something more with it so this is my start. I will incorporate everything you've said because you made a lot of sense. Just getting time to write this is the nightmare; I wish I could just sit down and write because I know the story but 'the day job' is so hectic it will have to get done bits at a time.

eve at 17:43 on 03 August 2007  Report this post
I think your job will help you immensely with getting inside the characters head and also put you one step ahead of a lot of people with regards to imagination. The rest will follow on naturally with practice. And it only takes one word after another - that can be done a word at a time if needs be.

One of the things I forgot to say though is a biggie - read, read and then read some more. I believe that at least half of our writing time should be taken up by reading. Not necessarily your chosen genre but you should be aware of what else is out there in the field you're looking to crack. But read everything and anything that takes your fancy and try to do it with a semi-critical eye. If a sentence or paragraph catches your attention, sit for a while and figure out why. How has the author put it together so effectively.

Of course this pretty much ruins reading for the rest of your life - but it does help, a lot!

Above all, enjoy playing with words, it's the biggest buzz when you get it to all sit together just right!

Scott the Writer at 12:28 on 04 August 2007  Report this post
Cheers, I do read alot but chiefly biographys and so I think I need to sit and start reading more fiction books. After all the hype about Harry Potter Ive decided to go buy the first book and see what I think.

The Mighty Mouse at 12:04 on 13 February 2008  Report this post
I've got to present a number of projects to an agent. She is mainly interested in my illustrated children’s book but upon hearing my synopsis for one of my stories rewritten for an older age group, she has asked me to forward a small section so that she can see how well I can write it.

I am thinking of sending what is posted above BUT before I do I will be heeding Eve’s advice and do some major corrections and rewrite.

Any more advice will be appreciated.



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