Another sample from Chumpty Dumpty!

Chumpty Dumpty progresses nicely. Chapter five is finished and our hero(es) is out of act one and ready to start the adventure, properly. Here’s a snippet from Chapter five, which features Chumpty explaining his motivation to go on his adventure.

Art, of course, thought the idea was bonkers. “You can’t fight a giant!”

“Why not?” Chumpty asked. The question, he knew, was ridiculous. There were a thousand reasons why not, as Art was soon to say.

“There are a thousand reasons why not! Betty you tell him.”

Betty stood on the opposite side of Chumpty’s room. She had barely spoken after she and Art entered. Mostly she watched him pack his bag, thinking to herself how little he was planning on taking and how unprepared he was for the journey, much less the destination.

“Go ahead.” Chumpty said, turning to her, waiting for her wisdom. She always was the most level-headed of the trio, the one not only to talk them out of their hairbrained ideas, but offer the sensible solution at the same time.

This time, however, she was stumped. “I just worry you’re doing this for the wrong reason.” she said, sighing.

“I’m not. I know exactly why I’m doing this.”

“Alright. Mind sharing it with the rest of us.” Art said. “It’d be nice to know why we’re marching to our doom!”

“What’s this we stuff?” Chumpty asked, looking from Art to Betty. Her expression didn’t change. “I didn’t ask you to come along.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Art said. “Of course we are, though.”

“No.” Chumpty stomped and his face stiffened.

Art raised his hands, quickly giving up. “Fine. I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Good.” Chumpty synched up his bag and froze. He had nothing left to do but leave but he couldn’t bring himself to move. “Do you know what they said?” he asked, his voice quieter than before.

“Who?” Betty asked, suddenly engaged in the conversation. She stepped toward him.

“The doctors. When my dad was still in bed. They told him I wasn’t fit to be King.”

Art’s eyes bulged, shocked at what he heard. “But you say that yourself at least once a day!”

“Yeah but that’s not the point. They also said the Giant might have a shell that could make my dad better.”

“So?”

“So did you see anyone volunteer to fight the Giant?”

“Yeah, you!”

“Exactly! Because no one else did. No one else would. Did you see Lumpty volunteer?”

“I saw Lumpty faint when they said the Giant was back.” Betty said.

“Exactly. So if no one else wants to be hero…if no one else wants to be the King…” Chumpty let his words hang for a moment. Betty and Art looked at each other, knowing what Chumpty was getting at. “…then I’ve got to go on this quest to help my dad, so he can stay the King.”

“Wait, what?” Art blurted.

It was Phillip’s idea to make Art have his own little character arc in the story, going from coward to courageous. Here in the early part of the story, he’s very much happy being the cowardly cow. Betty being the quieter, more contemplative one was also a Phil idea. If memory serves, he wrote almost all of her dialogue and I changed very little of it as we revised the story.

The biggest change between this and the screenplay comes with the specifics of Chumpty’s motivation. Instead of wanting to prove himself worthy to be King, which is a little too cliché, I had the idea to make his quest one to heal his father so his dad could continue being King. It starts Chumpty on a path to be a hero without thinking of himself as one, doing heroic things without seeing himself as a hero.

It’s an idea I think Phillip would have liked and I wish I’d thought of it a decade ago when we first broke the story.