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@Literatureforthelight we have been unusually prolific with ideas, haven’t we? 😛 I suppose that’s a good problem to have though.

If my memory serves me, we have two main ideas on the table now.

Chimneysweep is sweeping chimneys with the aid of happy fire pixies whom all other chimneysweeps mistreat, when the pixies discover a plot to assassinate (we could even say blow up— connects well with the idea of chimneys) the royal family. The chimneysweep tells but nobody believes him, so with the aid of his fire pixie friends he sneaks into the palace, warns the royal family, and successfully thwarts the evil plan. Royal family is so impressed and grateful they offer him a life of luxury and all the gold and riches and comfort he could ever possibly want. In the end, however, he turns it down for the sake of his pixie friends, who have no other friend in the whole world.

For this one to pack a lot of punch, we’d have to draw a very strong difference between the royal people’s idea of valuable things and the chimneysweep’s. Maybe he’s looked in their windows so often and seen that though they have everything money could possibly buy, they live in fear, stress, and constant mistrust, and chooses instead the hard, thankless life of a chimneysweep warmed by the genuine friendship of the pixies.

Number two:

Genius prodigy child with HUGE imagination (perhaps we could have him be a musician?) befriends ‘a fire pixie’ that no one else can see. Is it a hallucination? A magical creature that reveals itself only to a few? The essence of imagination that blesses those who have it, and is absolute stupidity to those who don’t? No one really knows for sure. Acting on the fire pixie’s warning, our prodigy child slips down the chimney of the king’s bedroom and warns the royal family of a plot against their lives. I think if we do this one we’ll have to have it be something having to do with fire or blowing up stuff— something that somehow allows the ‘pixie’ to sacrifice himself and burn up and go missing in action. The king, still half asleep and half in shock, offers the chimneysweep riches and wealth and anything he wants, but for heaven’s sake how on earth did he know? The chimneysweep is too distraught over the death of his friend to answer. We should draw this moment out and let the sweep and the reader consider the implications— is he going to insist his happy hallucination was real, or is he going to step into the real world and leave his ‘craziness’ behind? But what if it really was a pixie after all? The sweep then turns down the king’s offer and keeps sweeping in the hopes he’ll find his little friend again, and bring him back to life.

Personally I think the second idea is my favorite, but we’re all a democracy here. *dons democratic spectacles* Has that cleared things up somewhat? Did I miss anything?

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