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Filled under: Monsters (defeating!), Myths, legends, folklore, Writing | | Trackback
I’ve been worrying about minions recently. I know the baddy for the next book, I’ve been working out his evil plan for a while, but I’ve been struggling with his minions. He’s a loner, you see, the only one of his kind, so he doesn’t have a ready-made band of followers or family like the Faery Queen had her footsoldiers in Wolf Notes or the Sea-through had his bloom of jellyfish in Storm Singing.
I kept thinking that I was getting stuck at an early piece of action in First Aid Four because I couldn’t see the next location (one of the dangers of a location competition – you have to wait until you’ve got the winner to write the next bit.) Now I’ve realised the problem was that I couldn’t see who or what was with the baddie, I couldn’t see who was attacking Helen and Yann. So all I have to do is find out who his army are, then the action can rattle on again.
I need some minions.
I asked the kids I met at the Wigtown Book Festival today if they could suggest any good minions, and got some truly splendid answers including fireproof snails, secret agent rabbits and haggises with fangs, which may not be perfect for a Fabled Beast adventure, but certainly got me thinking.
Mostly thinking about what makes a good minion. Sneaky? Smaller than the boss? Violent but not deadly? Daft? (Or cleverer than the boss? I think either works…) Lots of them, so you can lose a few?
And specifically, what do I want for this book? Probably creatures from Scottish myth and folklore, and preferably ones who haven’t had starring roles in too many other books.
So, if you have a perfect minion’s job description, or if you have any excellent minions you could suggest to carry out my evil plan, do let me know. Otherwise, I’ll just ask a few more kids, or else get in about my collection of Scottish folklore as soon as I get home …
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No ideas, but I do LIKE the word “minion”. And “lackey”. And “side-kick”. For minor characters they do get good labels!
Acolyte has always been my personal favourite, But minion is good. And lackey. A moaning minion? A lackadaisical lackey? You will notice I don’t actually have any sensible suggestions either…
Aha. Lovely labels, from both Joan and Carol. Now I’m thinking about Lachy the Lackey… but still no CREATURES. I might invent some. That’s always fun!
Wasps or mosquitoes or midges I’d say……
Midgies? Possibly the ideal Scottish mini-beast minion! Thanks! (They couldn’t be sidekicks though, could they? Perhaps they could be side-swipes?)
For some reason I always liked the pair in the 101 Dalmatians cartoon. The lanky one was in my mind for Beanface when I wrote ‘Catscape’. Which minions do you get nostalgic about?
You’ve got me thinking about minions in films now. And I think I find faceless minions the scariest. So probably the Storm Troopers in Star Wars. Faceless, characterless, can’t be persuaded, can’t be argued with, just an endless army of them, like soldier ants. I seem to remember being quite freaked when I was wee…
Bats. I’m sure they are lovely in reality but if we are being fanciful here they already wear a functional minion uniform (black, structured, beautiful but in a slightly creepy way) and they define shifty what with how they are invisible until you learn to look out of the corners of your eyes. These would be competent minions though, I don’t see them as the feckless type.
Bats. Yes. What a great idea. And you’re right, they would probably be sensible, reliable minions. Unless you were foolish enough to send them out on a mission with the midgies suggested above. Then the bats would get distracted, and the midgies would get eaten!
In that case the midgies could be on the side of the heroes although maybe I’m going to swap sides because now that I see this broader picture I prefer bats to midgies.