Week 10 19-20/05/16 Thursday-Friday

It is time for me to continue to refine the story for my project. I recalled how my sister would always look for things to do when she is bored. She would mostly stay on her laptop all day and play games or watch videos. My parents would tell her off for being in front of the screen for so long, but they are too busy to monitor her. When I am at home I would try to keep my sister off the computer. This is when she would actually go outside and play. I think this may be an interesting introduction to the comic; kids being too glued to their digital devices seem to be a relevant thing that happens today.

Here is a part of my treatment so far:

In pitch darkness, Nelly sees a pair of white eyes glaring at her. She tries to run but her body is weighing down like lead. She then wakes up as her eyes shoot open. It’s a sunny day outside. Her parents have already made breakfast, and are heading out to go to work. Nelly is playing on her laptop again. Suddenly, a huge spider drops down from the ceiling onto her keyboard. She screams and leaps out of her chair. The spider is unwilling to move, and begins crawling across the keyboard. Nelly is too afraid to do anything. She goes outside and finds her mother picking roses in one of the greenhouses. Nelly asks her mother to help her get rid of the spider. Mother responds to her impatiently, saying that she is too busy working. Nelly then goes to find her father, who is spraying chemicals in another greenhouse. Nelly knows better than to go into a greenhouse that has been sprayed, so she leaves. Without her computer games to entertain her, Nelly seeks other activities to keep herself busy. She lingers and wanders around the farm aimlessly, until she finds a long branch and begins to play pretend. She skips rocks at the stream, catches butterflies, and then goes on to play ball with the farm dog, Rosie. Nelly plays fetch with Rosie, but instead of bringing the ball back, Rosie takes the ball and runs into the old abandoned greenhouse. Nelly chases after Rosie, unaware that she has stumbled into another world.

The comic's theme is how to deal with fear and loneliness. The rough concept now is that there will be two outcomes of the story, one where the protagonist seeks help to face her fear, while the other she runs away from it. Neither one of the outcomes is right or wrong. I hope to let younger readers know that there is nothing wrong about being afraid or frightened, and there are many ways they may react to it. The moral of the story is that everyone is afraid of something, and there is nothing shameful about it.

Here are some more character sketches: