NaNoWriMo sjjh 2007

The Doll continent is surrounded by a sea of deep blue satin waves. Dolls are mostly female although there are some “malic” dolls. They’re like bee drones. Dolls are made in factories. The continent is industrialised but pristine and perfect. Or maybe the malic dolls operate the doll-making factories?

The Haunted House is a sprawling place, like Castle Gormenghast. Inside, voices from other dimensions are overheard constantly. Occasionally ghostly images of beings from other dimensions, some wearing protective suits like astronauts are glimpsed. There are sheet ghosts too, as well as attics, spiral staircases, and scarey closed doors that you don’t know what’s behind.

There is a continent inhabitted by stuffed animal toys. They don’t eat and have no cities or leaders. They also have no property unless it is part of them, like clothes that are sewn on. They are always friendly. Stuffed animal toys are born in pyjama cases with zips.

Dolls

Some dolls have moving arms. Some have moving legs. Some have moving eyes. Some have all three, some only have moving eyes or are completely static. The static dolls are the most intelligent and can do magic, like make themselves fly. Those that have all three movig could be big but stupid, like worker ants or soldier ants.

Dolls communicate telepathically or by having a string in their back pulled. Their communiqué is a doll with a ring and string in its back that you pull to hear the message.

When the MC and BC land on the doll continent they are attacked. One of the defensive force is a huge baby doll, with a wet nappy. It carries a smaller non-walking doll which is intelligent.

Dolls like to stand around in static patterns or arrangements. They change pattern when you’re not looking.

Haunted House

There is a permananet cyclone above the haunted house. This causes some kind of necessary energy to be sucked up from the house and distributed into the atmosphere of Nightmare World.

The ghosts in the haunted house are not of dead inhabitants of Nightmare World. Instead they are beings from other dimensions, maybe only haflway into the Nightmare World dimension.

I’ve been thinking about what might live on the different continents in the nightmare world of Clown Down. They should all be things that might frighten children. So far:
Clowns
Dolls
Motorised toys
Wrinkly old people
The dark
Monsters
Insects
Haunted houses

There might only be one haunted house in the whole world. It seems like a good place for a climactic battle.

The Bad Clowns live on an island. Still don’t know what makes them bad. Mabe they are murderers or criminals. Based on some surfing, it sems that a bad clown in the real world is one that humiliates children or plays nasty tricks on them. There was a story from a good clown who, if she sees that a child is afraid of clowns, acts just as afraid. I suppose a bad clown would make themselves more frightening. There was another story about a bad clown who got a child all excited about a balloon he was going to give the child then allowed the balloon to deflate as he handed it over.

The Clown Mayor has a puppet, like a staff of office but it also does his talking, when he’s making official pronouncements. Or the ruling council are all puppets and the mayor is a ventriloquist.

Another clown weapon is a gun from which a flag with “bang” written on it unfurls.

Apparently in the High Fantasy sub-genre. Clowns are real. There is a world where everybody is a clown. In this world Clown Physics and Clown Biology etc apply so that the reality is like a continuous slapstick clown act. Everything is exaggerated.

For example, breakfast could be a huge plate of bacon and eggs and a gigantic cup of coffee, maybe as big as a person’s head. But the huge coffee cup might only contain a drop of cofee. The utensils might be tiny, like too tiny to hold, or bendy so that they cannot be used. The clown having breakfast will find this out and have to find a way round it. Like if it’s bendy cutlery, perhaps he picks up a rasher of crispy bacon and uses it to cut up the cutlery which he then eats.

Although, maybe, the clowns think they are the only inhabitants of the world they are just on one continent. The Clown continent is surrounded by a custard sea. Other continents are inhabitted by other things that frighten children, or something. There’s a continent of dolls, another of teddy bears, etc. If you were to fly from the Clown continent to another you’d see the yellow colour bleed away and the sea would gradually become something appropriate to the new continent.

When a clown dies his or her eyes turn to crosses and their tongue lolls out. The clown’s friends feel exaggerated grief and water jets from their eyes.

A clown’s pet could be a full-size lion that he feeds from a huge sack of cat munchies.

Clown sex is ribald slapstick. Like the “two ladies, one man” song in the film Cabaret.

There are Bad Clowns living on the fringes of society. Don’t know what makes them bad yet.

Clown weapons could be ping-pong ball guns, custard pies, big black spherical “anarchist bombs” with fizzing fuses.