Sunday 11 December 2011

What if INVISIBLE was actually...

In a recent picture book writing course, the instructor wanted us to explore how changing a characteristic of the protagonist can open up all sorts of different possibilities for the manuscript.  It could be a change of gender, personality, species, etc.  We were encouraged to take a published work and rewrite a few spreads based on the characteristic we chose.

Here's how I went with my attempt based on Possum Magic by Mem Fox.



Original text:
But the best magic of all was the magic that made Hush INVISIBLE.
What adventures Hush had!  Because she couldn’t be seen she could be squashed by koalas.
Because she couldn’t be seen she could slide down kangaroos.
Because she couldn’t be seen she was safe from snakes, which is why Grandma Poss had made her invisible in the first place.
But one day, quite unexpectedly, Hush said, “Grandma, I want to know what I look like. Please could you make me visible again?”
“Of course I can,” said Grandma Poss, and she began to look through her magic books.

Modified text:
But the best magic of all was the magic that made Hush INVINCIBLE.
What adventures Hush had!  Because she couldn’t be beat she could squash sumo wrestling koalas.
Because she couldn’t be beat she could outleap kangaroos.
Because she couldn’t be beat she was a demon at Snakes & Ladders, which is why Grandma Poss had made her invincible in the first place.
But one day, quite unexpectedly, Hush said, “Grandma, I want to know what it feels like to have my friends win once in a while.  Please could you make me vincible again?”
“Of course I can,” said Grandma Poss, and she began to look through her magic books.


Have a go at this exercise yourself and leave a comment or link to your own example.

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