I’ve been digging through the virtual file cabinets stuffed with old “Prince’s New Pet” stuff. I managed to uncover and dust off one of my first outlines. I’ll post it below in one second. Now, you won’t have the advantage of comparing it to the final text, but take my word for it, what you’ll read and see in the forthcoming posts is far from what ended up sandwiched between the final wrap-around cover.
The outline below is from 2007. I had some very different ideas about the story back then. Especially the whole “present sent by a banished uncle” bit. I realized a few drafts later that I didn’t need the Uncle. The pet would touchdown in his balloon powered crate and that would be that. No back story needed.
And so here is the fossilized outline from 2007:
The Prince’s New Pet
The land of Grey. The trees are grey. The birds are grey and sing grey.
The prince is unhappy.
The Castle is stuffy, the people are stuffy.
The prince’s father, King ______ banned all color.
He watches the other children play outside. He is not allowed to play with them. He has a spider for a pet…until it is discovered and thrown into the dungeon.
The Castle prepares for the Prince’s birthday. He is not looking forward to it.
Make up silly and stuffy gifts. There’s a lot of them (a tower of presents) but they don’t interest the prince. He gets bookends and boring books. He gets gray socks and gray shoes that match his 45 pairs of new gray pants. They cake tastes grey if in fact something can taste grey.
His Uncle’s present arrives. The prince’s Uncle was banished from the kingdom. He was happy to leave the land of grey, but missed his nephew. He sent birthday presents every year. And every year the king had the gifts destroyed.
A large box arrives, chained and padlocked shut and accompanied by the Duke’s elite guard.. It’s covered with warning signs. Everyone is aghast at the site of it. The Duchess of Drab faints. Except the prince.
The guards carefully open the box and out pops….
Well, no one really knows. But it is the Prince’s new pet. It’s covered with colors.
The Prince loves his new pet.
The pet runs amuck through the Castle. Crashes through the kitchen, and chews the King’s shoes.
The King locks the Pet in the dungeon. (next to the spider)
The Prince is confined to his room.
The pet escapes the Castle.
The Prince goes after it and meets new friends.
The Duke catches them and is about to through them in the dungeon. The Pet helps them escape and they are chased around the castle.
The King returns and locks up the Duke. The King changes the rules.
The King brings back another Pet.
And there it is. A hastily scribbled seedling for a picture book. Now back to digging through the archives for the next evolution of the book. Cheers till then!
