User blog:StacyFan/Goosebumps Rewrite: Chicken Chicken

So in popareana's Goosebumps videos, he will suggest ways to fix the book, sometimes even totally re-working them and creating Goosebumps fan fiction. I think it's a fun way to be more constructive, suggesting ways to improve as any story can be good regardless of the concept.

While going through these books for some sweet out of context materiel, I've been thinking of ways to improve some of them, even some I already liked to spruce them a tad. So I've decided some of these with you, showing some ideas I have to improve some of these, and take more advtange of the potential even some of the worst ones had.

Are there better things I can do with my time, and better ways to flex my writing than to improve children's books? Yes.

...Well anyway, let's start with everyone's favorite book, Chicken Chicken! The problems with this were not only obvious but actually easy to fix. It was cruel for rather dumb reasons and relies on Vanessa basically becoming the horrible witch everyone thinks she is. So here's how I can take care of that problem:

(Note in some cases I'm just throwing out ideas, this is no way complete and plenty of this may not have worked as well if I was actually writing the full book on a monthly deadline. Also, I don't wanna act like I'm a totally superior writer or anything cuz hey, I'm just a guy on the internet and I've yet o publish a single thing so what do i know, I'm just throwing some ideas out there)

We start out the same, with there being Vanessa who is rumored to possibly be a witch simply due to looking strange and there having been bad things happening to people who prank here, but only those people. No one knows where she came from or how this all started, or even if she's behind those things though.

Crystal and Cole are trying to make friends with two popular kids and one thing they do as initiation to their popular group is have a kid prank Vanessa. Crystal doesn't want to do it since she's not a brat but Cole kind of is although in the middle of doing their prank with the cool kids, they start to feel remorse and give up on joining the cool kids, so they do it themselves and that's when Vanessa runs out.

The cool kids book it, and she only seems Crystal and Cole, thus thinking they did it. She points at them, says the title and boom, chicken curse. Things generally start to play the same, but in this version the parents actually notice this is going on and the kids have to be kept home and get a bunch of treatment. They become outcasts and no one wants to possibly catch whatever they have.

Eventually they confront the cool kids since this is their fault and while at first they don't want to visit Vanessa to own up, it turns out Crystal and Cole can give others the curse by touching them so they are forced to agree and head to her house. They go and before becoming full chickens, they explain that the it was all generally the cool kids idea and they don't deserve this.

Vanessa explains that as a kid she was an outcast just for dressing differently and she mockingly called a witch so eventually she decided to learn witchcraft when she got older, but only to help good people and prove witches aren't bad. But after moving as an, she is either mocked or not trusted and she generally just keeps to herself, even after some pranks, thus meaning those stories were just tall tales.

But seeing Crystal and Cole's pranks set her off, so she decided to curse them to teach them a lesson. While she first thinks Crystal and Cole still deserve it for joining in, hearing that they backed out at the last minute shows them they had already learned their lessons and after the cool kids apologzing, she gets out her spellbook and turns them back to normal, but warms the cool kids that they better learn to be nicer.

Crystal points out that doing this basically made her the evil witch that everyone thought she is, which also made her realize she should reverse the curse. So the kids learn not to mock/ignore people for looking different and Vanessa learns not to go revenge crazy and become what people think you are.

I'd end it around here with the nice lesson and maybe a dumb joke but if we need a twist, here's one: On the way home, one of the cool kids (the other does not approve of what happens next) reveals he learned nothing and still thinks Vanessa is a crazy broad and tries out a spell on the others, but it affects him instead because he accidentally points at himself, the little idiot.

The kids aren't sure what to do...but then just leave, deciding he deserves it. This can be seen as cruel so you can take or leave this.

So that's my idea, sticking with the main concept but making the parents more aware and having a double lesson instead of some weird manners thing. I think works better, although you can possibly remove the cool kids thing if you want (they aren't too vital here), you'd still have the double lesson but the original book did have the prank be started by Cole's friends which how I got the idea to do something kind of like it. and wanted to give them more of a punishment.

But yeah, tell me how you feel about this version and if I'm onto something here, or give me other ways to handle this story. I'm trying to stay close to what Goosebumps can do with this, so you can your dumb spooks while also having a stronger story.

I'd like to do more of these so tell me some books you either would like to see me improve on, or give some of your personal re-writes and such. Or just tel me to never do this again and get a life, that works too.

Bye.