Who doesn’t love a blanket fort?
…maybe when it’s like Labyrinth meets Coraline.

So, I’ve always loved the notion of the “X wishes” story. You’ve got the “learned a lesson” endings, the “didn’t need wishes after all” endings, the “you’re horrible and your wishes are horrible and now you’re paying the price” endings. That’s where this edition of Author Scrapheap comes in.

Endless Blanket Fort

A kid gets a magic lamp wish (through whatever actual object, maybe even a birthday cake) and wishes for the biggest blanket fort anyone could possibly imagine. The wish comes true, but in Monkey’s Paw style, not the way he hoped. The fort is a near-endless labyrinth of blankets, cushions, etc., filled with monsters, traps, and puzzles to overcome.

I envisioned it as something along the lines of Coraline, a tween-targeted horror story, maybe crossed over with The Labyrinth (minus David Bowie, RIP).

This one teeters on the edge of viability. Honestly, if I ever were to decide to write middle-grade fiction, this might be a story-starter to use. First, I’d have to come up with more of a plot and a protagonist and and emotional hook and some sort of life lesson to learn. But really, when I came up with this one, I was just thinking how cool blanket forts were as a kid and how my cat kind of makes them by burrowing under blankets.

Given how much of my catalog is non-kid-friendly (i.e. pretty damn near all of it), branching out into kids’ fiction would probably be something I’d start a pen name for (not everyone is Neil Gaiman to write both Sandman and Coraline using his real name). My adult readers might find it entertaining, if not their cup of tea. But the parents of my younger readers might get out the pitchforks if their kids cross over to Black Ocean.

Best leave the kids’ fiction to the people who do it as their main genre.