Question bedtime story help

Alrighty then, this started out as a conversation with my daughter, who is three and a half years old. She told me about Princess Tianna Tiyoka, who has pink hair, blue eyes, and sometimes wears blue dresses or pink dresses, and blue or pink shoes. Putting her to bed a few minutes ago, I had a BRILLIANT idea to use this princess to tell a story to my daughter. Made up off the cuff. I added a magic ring that lights up and chases away shadows.

I barely have the beginning, don't have an ending, and I think I used the classic opening, "Once upon a time..."lol.

So... I am going to share the start of this little tale, and ask for some help growing this to a full bedtime story. Keep in mind that this is for a little girl, so let's try to keep this at a G level. On the other hand, the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales might be of interest to her, later... So maybe some of the gory details, but not for this first tale, 'k folks?

On to the beginning...

Once upon a time, Princess Tianna Tiyoka was wandering the grounds of her castle's garden. Looking at all the flowers and trees, Tianna wasn't paying attention to where her feet were going and she tripped over a root. When she thumped into the ground, her magic ring slipped off her finger, and rolled into a deep dark hole under another root. Tianna gasped as her ring rolled down the hole, because the ring had been a gift to help her with her fear of the dark.This ring could light up, like a tiny star, and chase away shadows, or illuminate her bedroom.

A tear traced her cheek as she thought of loosing her ring, because she was so scared of going down that dark hole to get it back. Then she remembered her Uncle telling tales in the hall, talking of what courage meant. How even he felt fear sometimes, but he chose to stand and face that fear. Tianna bit her lip and crawled into hole to get her ring.

The earth close around her, Tianna kept moving forward. After a while she began hearing strange noises, clicking and dripping sounds. And then she heard what sounded like a monster.... snoring? Tianna paused, trembling in place. Then she put her hand down in front of herself, and forced herself to keep going, she had to find her ring!

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end of beginning

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And that is where my little girl fell asleep. Yes it's simple, and I have no idea where to go with it. So folks .... Help?


Wrayth

*Puts up the anti Domo wards* Should be your first step.

The snoring is from an ogre. He has the ring around his long elephant like nose and when she creeps up to get it he wakes up.
He's really grumpy and threatens the princess, but she snaps at him, telling him to be nice and that the ring isn't his.
He tells her since it's on his nose it's his, BUT if she helps him, he'll give her the ring.

Typical fairytale type tasks, maybe spice it up with dealing with goblins, etc, make the fetch quests as many as you like.

At the end the ogre is happier and gives her the ring, inviting her back whenever she wants as he always has work that needs to be done.

Domo is nice, his muse just has a few ... issues... that need to be worked out on his characters.

Domo, thanks for the advice.

Wrayth

This story reminds me a bit of a story I read back when I was in elementary school. The story was called "Story Hour" and was in a short story anthology called "A Glory of Unicorns".

I'm probably going to mangle the story a bit, but it was a story in a story about a girl and a unicorn who were captured by goblins underground. The goblin king wanted to kill the unicorn because the unicorn was the epitome of all things good and light and the goblin king was the epitome of all things evil and nasty. But the girl hides the unicorn in her soul/imagination, and tricks the goblin king into being burned by the unicorn's light and therefore manages to escape. But after that she has to keep the unicorn hidden inside her at all times lest the goblin king find him. At the end of the story she passes him down to her granddaughter, to whom she was telling the story.

So there you have it - I hope it gives you some ideas.


The "losing the pretty bauble in the garden" plot is also rather reminiscent of The Frog Prince, which is rather fitting given that the princess is named Tianna.

My daughter was the one who came up with the name, it didn't even register with me for the Disney link, lol.

It could end with her giving the ring to the snoring monster to help with his fears of the night. Having found that she didn't need it any more.

If the story began in the daytime, the princess might assume that this ogre must be very lazy to still be asleep this late in the day, and she might behave kind of snobbishly as a result. Later she could find out that ogres are just nocturnal, and this is actually a very hard working ogre. When she apologizes for treating him unfairly, he might admit that he did the same thing, assuming she must be a delinquent what with how she was running around making noise at an hour when upstanding, productive members of ogre society are normally sound asleep.

Because it's dark and underground and hard to see, maybe the Princess ends up needing help from a couple of bats she meets?

After all, they're soft and furry and totally misunderstood because they spend so much of every night gobbling up bugs and mosquitoes that might otherwise bite little kids and their mommies! Little brothers taste bad, so it might be OK if they get bit a little, once in a while.

Hm. Maybe she really, really didn't want to go down into that dark, damp tunnel, but the mosquitoes - they're like evil blood-drinking fairies with small swords that prick and itch - chased her down there, hoping the ogre that lives there would eat her up!

Extra points for the Princess getting her father the King to proclaim that no one shall leave pots and things out to collect icky green slimy water that helps the mosquitoes win their battles against the bats.

The crawling end of that bit makes me think of Alice in Wonderland. ... Or Coraline...

So, you lost a magic ring... And there's a giant creature snoring... Perhaps a dragon?

Preciousssssssss...

So the story progresses in bits and pieces, with my daughter adding all kinds of details, like the ring now has 8 stones and each one has its own magic, lol. I think this little tale might never end. Freeform storytelling is fun. Also, quizzing lilbit on details when we start up again is entertaining.

Again, thank you all for the assist, and I will try to get what we have written down to share with you all.

As to specifics, I went with the ogre, trying to get my daughter to name him. Dragon will come later I think. The helpful bats idea is a good one, have to work it in along the way.

Catch you all on the later side.

Wrayth

Hey, just keep taking notes of your daughter's ideas. You know that Axe Cop started essentially that way...

^ - Oh right~!

... 8 Stones... Which ones?

Personally, if I had to work with 8 stones, I'd do Diamond, Obsidian / Jet, for White+Black then the other 6 are Primary + Secondary Colors: Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Topaz / Amber, Amethyst, and... Let's see... That was Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Purple... I need an Orange... I could use Amber as Orange, instead of Yellow... And then the 4 starters are the Elemental 4... For a Steven Universe ref, I'd set Orange as Sardonyx, or Padparadscha.

And no, I didn't think of this just now. I'm working on a color-themed thing, after I do another thing.

... Is expecting some consistency a bit much? *Shrugs* As long as it keeps moving along... Once it's done, consistency can be set.

Malady wrote: ... Is expecting some consistency a bit much? *Shrugs* As long as it keeps moving along... Once it's done, consistency can be set.

Nah. 8 is a good number for symmetry - an octahedron (along with the dodecahedron, and tetrahedron) is one of several shapes favored for crystals that have cubic symmetry. Ironically then, Hod is one of the spheres not on the center pillar of the Tree of Life, and thus somewhat unbalanced.

Kids may be happy thinking of eight-pointed stars, and dice.

^ Wha? ... I meant "consistency" like... Continuity in the story line, like how the 8 stones in the ring are suddenly just there, where, if you were reading this, you'd expect them to be mentioned right when the ring was first discussed, instead of just popping up in a NewPowersAsThePlotDemands fashion.

Cool info though. ... And as we're talking about a story written by a 3 and a 1/2 year old, it's pretty interesting.

Malady wrote: ^ Wha? ... I meant "consistency" like... Continuity in the story line, like how the 8 stones in the ring are suddenly just there, where, if you were reading this, you'd expect them to be mentioned right when the ring was first discussed, instead of just popping up in a NewPowersAsThePlotDemands fashion.

Oh. That's a matter of different learning and information processing styles too. Does it matter to the story or the intended audience that the ring has precisely 4 red stones and 4 white stones, set in 14k gold, alternating red/white red/white from the twelve o'clock position looking down the finger? Or is the important information that it was pretty and gold too?

To my mother, even as an adult, they would have been pretty red rocks and pretty white rocks.
To me, even as a kid, it would have been very important whether the red rocks were garnet or rhodochrosite, vs. milky quartz or opal.

Maybe the number of rocks won't become important until much later: should a child be expected to keep every little detail in their head for days on end? Some can, some can't.

Sometimes the number of things can change to teach something the Old People reading the book already know. One stone on Sunday, five on Market Day...

Malady wrote: Cool info though. ... And as we're talking about a story written by a 3 and a 1/2 year old, it's pretty interesting.

Shapes and numbers and how they fit together! Pictures and cutouts! The child doesn't need to know that years and years and years from now it might be on a crystallography or materials engineering exam.

Okay... I guess with the rest of my talk, it's still unclear? Edit: Whoops, no, it seems you sorta got it??

Like, if it wasn't a kid writing this, I'd expect, at a bare minimum-ish, the initial description of the ring to be something like: "There was a gold ring of Light decorated with eight stones"

So at least the fact that it's not a plain gold ring, as I assumed at the very beginning, is known to the reader.

The specific type of stone wouldn't matter as much for mentioning, unless, like how I'd write, the type would matter a lot, 'Cause, for example, Rubies and Sapphires are quite Fire and Water-typed, I think.

Malady, Yes, I know consistency is out the window, lol. I am trying to get at least an outline written of what's happened so far, but work keeps getting in the way.

Once I get things written out I will hopefully get the details sorted so that it is a complete story rather than the bits and pieces my daughter and I are coming up with when I get the chance to actually put her to bed. And no I did not take offence to the criticism. This project is advancing at the whims of a little girl and the demands of the job so please bear that in mind.

On the subject of the ring I was originally going to have it set with a clear stone... probably quartz, maybe a small diamond, or maybe a pearl... she threw that out the window with her very pointed "No, Daddy. The ring has eight stones." So yeah revisions will be happening, lol. And once I get her to tell me what color the stones are maybe she and I will figure out what they all do.

Small tangent, If rubies are flame, what are garnets? The garnets I've seen are usually much redder than most rubies.

Thank you all for the input it is appreciated.

Wrayth

Well, I was thinking this was just a thing that you wanted to show us, like: "Hey, I made up this story for my daughter, and I thought you guys would find it interesting!"

Not that it's gonna be a whole project, or something, but maybe it's evolved into that...

Actually, the whole "Tell a person a story that is then sold", is the origin of Alice in Wonderland. Huh.

Wrayth wrote:
Small tangent, If rubies are flame, what are garnets? The garnets I've seen are usually much redder than most rubies.

Thank you all for the input it is appreciated.

Wrayth

Garnet actually means seed like, because they look like pomegranate seeds. So you can say that they are life..

Domoviye wrote:

Wrayth wrote:
Small tangent, If rubies are flame, what are garnets? The garnets I've seen are usually much redder than most rubies.

Thank you all for the input it is appreciated.

Wrayth

Garnet actually means seed like, because they look like pomegranate seeds. So you can say that they are life..

That's if you stick with pyrope, which most people are familiar with, and can be a very intense red.

Grossular can be a lovely grass green (yellowish-green here and in some ceramics glazes often comes from chromium). Uvarovite is also a pretty green. As a trace element in corundum (which can be clear), chromium gets you red , or something bluer if iron and/or titanium are around. Back to garnets, spessartite is nice if you like orange.

Rock crystal, quartz, etc.: The mineral is as common as sand, but there's no improving on gem grade

Rarer, but beryl, ermerald, aquamarine (same thing different colors), goshenite if you can get it (clear) is more scratch-resistant than quartz, less than clear corundum (watch faces anyone?)

In case anyone was wondering, I do like rocks and minerals.

Actually, Malady, my thoughts were somewhere along the lines of "Hey the folks at the forum would get a kick out of this, and maybe they will have some ideas to push my muse to keep with this." Selling this didn't really cross my mind, though the "it would be cool if this became popular" did happen. And I never knew that about Mr. Carol's works.

Null, I like stone and rocks too, but never got to that level of detail. Thanks for the info.

I think that Oz was originally am oral story as well, as was Winnie-the-Pooh.

To stick with the "life" theme for garnets, blood is also a deep red. That's a little but darker, though.