The Synopsis Treasury (18 page)

Bruce Coville

Bruce Coville is the author of over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international best seller
My Teacher Is an Alien
, the popular Unicorn Chronicles series, and the modern classic
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher
. He has been, at various times, a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman.

A noted speaker and storyteller, Coville has been commissioned four times by the Syracuse Symphony to create original stories to perform in concert with the orchestra. He is also the founder of FULL CAST AUDIO, an award-winning audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening. His books have won children’s choice awards in over a dozen states, including Vermont, Connecticut, Nevada, and California. If you’d like to know more about Bruce and his work, you can find him on the web at www.brucecoville.com.

The Ghost Saw Red

This was a pitch letter to a new editor who was taking over on a series for which I had already written three books.

It carries on in a format I had started with the first book in the series … the conceit is that the letter is not from me, but from the main character, Nina Tanleven (nickname: “Nine”), who is speaking directly to the editor.

The reason I chose to do it this way is that Nine is a pre-teen girl. Since the story was to be told in the first person, I felt I needed to demonstrate I could capture her voice. So I wrote the proposal for the first book in the series as a letter that Nine was sending to the editor at my suggestion.

The editor told me that she didn’t usually care for that kind of gimmicky proposal. On the other hand, it convinced her that I could indeed carry off Nine’s voice, and she gave me a contract. So it must have worked, and I continued to write the proposals for each subsequent book in the same style.

—Bruce Coville

Dear Karen,

I still have to get used to the idea that I have to write this letter to you instead of Danelle McCafferty, since she was the one I had gotten used to working with. But Bruce tells me that you are really nice, too, so I suppose it will probably work out just fine.

The reason I’m writing is that Bruce told me you want to publish another one of my adventures. Actually, Chris and I have had a lot of things happen since the things I told about in
THE GHOST IN THE BIG BRASS BED
. I mean, life around here has been getting weirder and weirder. I just hadn’t written to anyone about it because Bantam didn’t seem that interested anymore. But since you asked …

Shortly after the stuff I told about in the last book, I got a letter from a woman in Syracuse who wanted me and Chris to help her with a haunting. My father wasn’t sure how to take this. Part of him wants all this ghost stuff to be over with.

Part of him is jealous because he never gets to see the ghosts himself. And I think part of him is relieved because he figures that I may have found a career for myself, although the last time things got so dangerous that he is having second thoughts about this. I keep telling him it must be my destiny to help these poor tormented souls, but I don’t think he takes that too seriously.

Anyway, I got this letter from Martha Hayes, who works at Syracuse Stage, about this ghost they have been seeing there, a woman in red. She said she had read about Chris’s and my adventures in the paper, and she wondered if I could help them with this ghost. It wasn’t really causing any trouble, but she figured maybe we put her soul at peace.

So Chris and I went over to meet with them. It was great to be back in a theater—especially a professional one. And what was really cool was the way everyone treated us. When our adventures first started we sort of had to investigate on the q.t., because no one took us seriously. But we were actually starting to develop a reputation now. Also, I think theater people take this kind of thing more seriously than most folks.

Anyway, the ghost was starting to show up more often, which was puzzling, and part of why they called us.

This was our first professional investigation, and we got to talk to people, ask them about when they had seen the ghost, and so on.

But when it got right down to it, what we had to do was see the ghost ourselves.

Which, of course, was when all the trouble started.

We went into the theater late at night. We went to the right place.

And we saw the ghost.

And a whole lot else …

I Was a Sixth Grade Alien

The previous proposal was for a single book. What follows here is a proposal for a full series, written in a format I use for pitching new ideas.

The structure is usually this:

First, an explanation of the core concept and the world the characters will be moving in.

Second, brief descriptions of the main characters that I have in mind and how they will play off each other.

Third: suggestions of several possible plots, to show that the idea has legs and is worthy of multiple books.

This particular proposal started as something I wrote for a television producer. No studios bit, and he sort of forgot to pay me for it, so the material reverted to me. When my editor asked for an idea for a new series, I brushed this off and sent it to her. Coincidentally, I was approached by another television producer at about the same time, and the series was bought for print and television in two separate sales. I did 12 books, and the series ran for two years on Fox Family.

—Bruce Coville

The Basics

What would happen if the first alien kid to land on Earth was sent to your school—not in secret, but with the kind of open fanfare of, say, Chelsea Clinton going to Stanford?

That’s the opening premise for SIXTH GRADE ALIEN, a wildly funny series of classroom based stories that will be told with a touch of slapstick, a fair amount of low humor, and (every once in a while, and mostly by accident) a little bit of insight into the human condition.

The suggested format:

• Monthly or bi-monthly
  
• 20-25,000 word stories
  
• (116 page book format)
  
• 5-10 full page black and white illustrations
  

The Set-Up

As many people suspect, aliens have been monitoring earth for some time. The reason is simple: they are waiting for us to be mature enough to enter the larger world, to become part of the greater galaxy.

Last year the rulers of the galaxy decided it was time to make limited contact. Diplomatic relations were established. Earth sent an ambassador to the stars—and the planet Hevi-Hevi sent an ambassador to earth.

The new ambassador, generally considered to be one of the five most important beings on the planet, has distinct and unusual ideas about how things should be done.

For example, he insists that his child, Pleskit, be enrolled in a public school. As he said to the people who tried to convince him to send Pleskit to a private school: “If this school is not good enough for all children, how can it be good enough for any of them?”

Pleskit’s father makes people nervous.

Pleskit does, too.

Maybe it’s his X-ray eyes.

The Approach

The stories are presented from the alien’s point of view, as Pleskit tells us what he is thinking and feeling about this weird new world that he has been dragged into.

Alternately, the stories could be told by Tim Tompkins, the first earth kid who reaches out to make friends with the alien, and the one who helps him try to cope with our weirdnesses.

When Pleskit gets in big trouble (which is often) or has a Big Question about the world, he goes to see his Dad for advice. (Sometimes, of course, he is simply summoned, soso advice can be delivered.) It’s a little like when Beaver Cleaver used to go to see his Dad, except, of course, in this case Dad is an alien, with a truly weird office (his desk toys will be a hoot) and an alien point of view.

To counterbalance this with a dose of the normal, Pleskit often spends the night with his best friend, Tim, who is a pretty typical earth kid, with a typically messy and interesting room. Their bunk bed conversations can span the galaxy as Pleskit tells Tim about the world Out There—and probe the human heart, as Tim tries to explain his dreams and desires to his alien friend.

The Characters

Pleskit Meenom—a young alien trying to deal with all the things that most kids have to cope with (he doesn’t fit in, his father is a dork, no one understands him) only on a vast and grand scale. He has a hard time communicating because half his vocabulary consists of smells and noises made by cracking his joints. He is brilliant in math and science (and boy, does he have fun in the school’s chemistry set!) but has difficulty with world history (“You people did what?” ) and some of the subtleties of the language, which he likes to play with. He is also a gifted mimic, and can imitate virtually anyone he meets.

The degree of weirdness in his looks is negotiable. I vote for green and short, with maybe some extra arms or eyes.

Meenom Ventrah—Pleskit’s father, an alien of great wisdom and dignity, sly humor, and a slightly too laissez faire attitude when it comes to his son’s well-being. Meenom is heavily involved with negotiating interplanetary trading deals, trying to keep the rulers of the galaxy from blowing up the Earth out of sheer frustration at our backwardness, and trying to talk sense into assorted world leaders. (His conversations with Pleskit are apt to be interrupted by incoming phone calls from either the President of the United States or the Grand Comptroller of the Galaxy.)

Ms. Snooky Weintraub—Pleskit’s homeroom teacher; young (this is her third year in the classroom), intelligent, dedicated, a little too earnest, and a major babe. She is honored, excited, and terrified by having Pleskit in her class. At first she is too solicitous of him. She gets over this after a while, but it will still crop up now and then, providing an occasional diplomatic problem for Pleskit, who has enough problems without having to be considered a “teacher’s pet.” (Or “the teacher’s pet alien”, a phrase that has considerably more sting.)

Robert McNally—Pleskit’s bodyguard, assigned to him by the government despite Meenom Ventrah’s objections. (“What kind of a civilization is this, anyway?” he demands, though the question is strictly rhetorical.) The wise-cracking McNally provides another outsider in the class, a hint of romance for Ms. Weintraub, an obstacle for Pleskit and his friends whenever they want to do something on their own, and one more thing that makes Pleskit feel different from the others. Fortunately, McNally is a mensch, and will every once in a while look the other way to give Pleskit a bit of freedom—which also lets him be genuinely wounded when Pleskit slips away or takes advantage of his good nature.

Tim Tompkins—the one kid in Pleskit’s class who always believed that aliens were trying to contact us. He is your basic good kid, though common sense is not his strong point. Naturally, Tim gravitates toward Pleskit. The biggest obstacle in their relationship is his sheer eagerness, which sometimes makes it seem as if he is spending time with Pleskit not because he likes him, but because he is so hot for all things alien. This can provide comedy, tension, and some touching scenes between the two boys.

Mina Tompkins—Tim’s mom, a single working woman who does not suffer fools lightly. She is a good source of cookies, consolation, and common sense, all of which Pleskit will need on a regular basis.

And, of course, we’ll have the usual classroom component of jocks, stars, misfits, geeks, loners, and just plain normal kids. (Normal kids—how’s that for an alien concept!)

Pleskit also has one or more pets, which are both adorable and bizarre, and will be desired by all who see them.

The antagonists …

Windy Jenkins—the class bully, not in the physical sense, but in the psychological sense. Windy can’t resist probing for Pleskit’s weak spots, trying to get a rise out of him, fomenting rumors, trying to get the others to turn against the alien.

But Windy is nothing compared to Bertram Hargis—leader of a group of yahoos who have watched too many bad science fiction movies, and believe the only good alien is a dead alien. The guy wouldn’t be so dangerous if he wasn’t a United States Senator. He is an Earth-firster, dedicated to the destruction of the alien mission, and too dumb to see that that could lead to the destruction of earth itself.

Some sample story ideas …

Runaway Alien

On the first day of school, Pleskit and his bodyguard arrive with great fanfare, amid a carnival-like atmosphere of reporters and cameras. The other kids are both fascinated and frightened of this strange newcomer. Pleskit, desperately homesick and wanting nothing more than to be accepted, makes one misstep after another, and manages to alienate (sorry, couldn’t help myself) the entire class. When he runs away, the odds look good for an interstellar diplomatic catastrophe—until Tim Tompkins manages to find him and reach past their differences to create a bond of friendship.

Don’t Fry My Veeblax