Yes, it’s true. I changed my novel idea last minute, but this one is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!!! I saw this in the dares thread, to base a novel on a board game. And as you can guess by my recent “NaNoWriMo research” posts, I chose Candy Land. I only wrote 361 words after midnight and before bed, but I need to marinate on the possibilities before my brain will be able to start piecing together a plot. In the meantime, here’s the teaser from my NaNoWriMo profile, the whole 361 word prologue/beginning of chapter 1.

“What do you mean we’re in Candy Land?” Liana asked. “That’s not real.”

“Look around,” Jarrell said. The grass looked as bright as a cartoon, and they seemed to be in a grove of plum trees. Looking closely, Liana realized that instead of bark, the trunks were made out of gingerbread. Bluebirds sang in the branches, and yellow butterflies danced around, coming close to the children and then shying away. “It sure looks like the Gingerbread Plum Trees to me.”

“But…” Liana looked around. “How did we get here?” She tried to find a door, a portal. Anything that would help her understand what was going on. She turned back to Jarrell, who had picked a plum and was bringing it to his mouth. “Jarrell, stop that!” His hand stopped midair, mouth open and ready for a bite. “We don’t know if that’s safe. Maybe it’s, like, cardboard or something.”

“Come on,” he whined. “Touch the grass, it’s real. Smell this.” He shoved the plum in her face. “Doesn’t that smell real?” Ignoring her protests, he bit into the plum. He chewed, and the juice ran down his chin. It was the most delicious plum he had ever tasted. It was as if the vibrant color somehow translated into the flavor.

Seeing that her brother hadn’t died, at least not instantaneously, Liana decided to try a piece of the fruit. For the moment, she didn’t care how they had arrived, or what it would take to get home. She reached for a perfectly ripe plum and plucked it gently from a low branch. She looked at it, sniffed it, then tentatively took a small bite. Jarrell laughed as Liana’s eyes widened with delight. She quickly devoured her snack and reached for another.

If the siblings hadn’t been so busy stealing plums, they might have seen a connection between the themselves and Hansel and Gretel, and they might have paused to consider the consequences of their actions. Or perhaps they would have remembered how Lord Licorice had quite frightened them when they were a bit younger. Instead, they enjoyed their forbidden fruit, oblivious that they were now thieves in a foreign land.

Source: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/tessd1891/novels/escape-from-candy-land