Make up a book title, and guess what it might be about.

[MJE]

      I've been meaning to read some of the serials in the Secret Passage but haven't due to my probably quaint (in these days) need to read long or detailed things on paper rather than a screen, so that I want to print out stories like these before trying to get into them (the same is true of serials on this forum); but I don't have a suitable printer at home (only old DOS-based dinosaurs which probably don't even work any more, or might be full of spiders now), and it's kind of difficult for me to organize a way of getting these printed out. I could print them out at my mother's, but when she registers mild shock if I want to actually print out 20 pages, it's kind of difficult to ask if I can print out 200 or more - even though I think the price-per-page would be far less than she is imagining, and I would in any case offer to pay her for the costs of doing so - as far as I can ascertain an exact amount, which is not easy to do anyway. My feeling is we're talking about only a couple of cents per page, though.
     I think marshes or swamps generally are an intriguing, somehow threatening setting - I liked the marsh setting in the climax of "The Mystery of the Vanished Prince, for example. I made up my story on the spot; it wasn't something that had been brewing in my mind for weeks, or anything. I made it a Barney story simply because a title with "Mystery" in it really narrows down to either a Find-Outers mystery or a Barney mystery (if you ignore that it doesn't include an initial "R" in the title), and I didn't think my idea was a Find-Outers-type story, so that left little choice but to make it a Barney mystery.
     That said, however, when people want to come up with ideas for proposed titles, I don't want to insist that they choose the right characters to match the style of title - that might make it a bit difficult in some cases. So if someone had proposed a Famous Five story for a title that included "Mystery" rather than "Five", I wouldn't want to quibble over that. We could assume that further books in series are by other authors, and that maybe some of them decided to broaden the exact format or style of titles for a particular series (although I think they do mostly conform).
     ... if my views on it matter at all, that is, as the person who started this topic.

Regards, Michael.

[Moonraker]

due to my ...need to read long or detailed things on paper rather than a screen

Yes, I too can't read lengthy articles/stories on a computer screen. Fortunately, I can c&p to a Word (or other provider's) Document, then email it to my Kindle. No glare with that, and it appears just like the print on the page of a book.

[Darrell71]

MJE, when will you tell a title? Don't worry just reminding you!

[MJE]

     I did, above - but perhaps it's been obscured by a few subsequent posts, so it's no longer at the bottom. See the very bottom of the previous page of this thread: "The Mystery of the Locked Room".

Regards, Michael.

[Poppy]

The Mystery of the Locked Room:
Fatty and the find-outer's are recovering from flu and the doctor advises them to have a holiday. Mr Goon offers to take them on a holiday for a change as he is going to stay at his old aunt's who lives in 'Sleepy Village' . The five are staying in an old inn and Goon goes to live with his aunt for a week. He promises to keep an eye on the five and to 'shake them down' a bit. The five enjoy staying at the inn but after exploring they notice that room number five is always locked and Mrs Berry who owns the inn seems awkward when they mention it. She makes up the excuse that a ghost haunted it and no-one ever wanted the sleep in there. One day, when the five discover a key left in the door, they begin to explore! The room is fully furnished with beautiful old furniture arranged like a nursery and Bets discovers something strange... Although Mrs Berry claims no-one has slept in that room for months there is no dust to be found anywhere... They keep the key in case they wish to explore again. Mrs Berry would just think the man had lost the key and she would just supply him with a new one. And then in the middle of the night they discover a strange man creeping into the room with a large black sack. The children are dumb-founded... What could be in that sack. Then they hear a baby cry. The man was a kidnapper! Then Mrs Berry must be in league with that man! She was still sending someone to clean the room or there would dust all around! So the five begin to hatch a plan. They must somehow keep the man from kidnapping the children in that room. So Fatty, Larry and Pip stay up one night to keep watch for the man coming into the room again... Mrs Berry followed as well with the cleaner. Fatty locks them all in and runs for the police! Another Mystery solved!

Next story title: The Secret Town

[Fiona1986]

The Secret Town

After flying over the Baronian border in one of Prince Paul's family's new aeroplanes Jack notices a town that doesn't appear on his map. Mike, Peggy and Nora are unperturbed, but Prince Paul is angry and concerned that his neighbouring country has a secret town so close to Baronia. Ranni and Pilescu are persuaded to take the children on a trip across the border where they find there are no road signs for this town, and the locals deny all knowledge of it. The closer they get to the town the stranger the environment becomes, and the harder it becomes for the group to travel. All the signs suggest they should return to Baronia, but Prince Paul is determined to discover the secrets of the town.

Five climb Scafell Pike.

[Darrell71]

Nooooo.. I was going to reply, but then I had to get up in the middle of it all and go for some work.... but then when I came back hours later, I had logged out automatically, and so lost my whole long post. I give up now. I have no desire to write for half an hour my looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong story.

[Poppy]

You could have clicked save on the bottom of your post and then your post would have been saved and you could have gone back to it... Sorry to hear about your story being lost, I bet it was great anyway!

Five Climb Scafell Pike
The Famous Five are off on a hike up Scafell Pike and little do they know what adventure they are running into! Uncle Quentin has a scientist staying over and Aunt Fanny has advised the children to stay out of his way while he worked on his new experiment. So the children (and Timmy) decided to go off on a hike to Scafell Pike. They begin to climb it with tents on their shoulder's and back packs bulging with food and blankets. When it comes to the first night the children hear a strange noise, like machinery being worked or something but Julian blames it on tiredness and says they had had a long day and they were just tired. So, contented with this explanation the five peacefully drift off to sleep to wake again at midnight at the same noise. The five hunt around to see what could be making it and Julian decides that they will investigate in the morning so off they go to sleep once again! In the morning there are no clues left of the strange noise but the plain grass and ordinary trees. They begin to think it might all have been a bad dream but Julian wasn't to sure. They begin climbing again. Secretly, Julian hearing the same mechanic noises. It went on for a few days exactly the same. A few days passed and the five eventually reached the top. Julian and Dick begin searching round again trying the solve the mystery of the strange noises to make an interesting discovery. A big rock lay in the middle of the grassy land. It was large and covered quite a bit patch of space. With a mighty heave Julian and Dick pulled it up to uncover a large hole in the ground. There was a hole and a rocky floor below. Julian jumps down and finds a long passage. He comes to the end to find some stairs. Up these... he finds a large flat floor covered in cars, cars of all sorts all very expensive looking. A secret receiving place for stolen cars! A man near by spots him and takes him by the arm and leads him to a van. He bundles him in there and shouts after him: thats where I puts the naughty interfering boys! Dick was fortunately not spotted by the man and as soon as he wasn't looking, got in the van after him. Come on! He says to Julian. Lets get out of here while we can! But the van begins to move and the boys are driven down one of the rocky passages. Julian tells Dick to hide in some sacks at the back of the van so only Julian is seen and maybe Dick could run for help. The van seemed to be going quicker, they were going down hill! Finally the van stops and Julian is thrown out into a little room the door slammed and locked behind him. Dick slips out unseen, spotting some light at the bottom of the passage. The van drives off. Dick discovers a door at the end and opens it. It lead out at the bottom of the hill. He runs into the next town and tells the police. Alls well at last and the men get arrested and taken to jail...

Next one: The Dungeon of Adventure...

[Icecream342]

THe FF have gone exploring in a new set of caves, when... BAM! The path gave in and they found themselves in a secret passage way, lined with tea lights.


Then they get so lost the previsions of ginger beer and biscuits end and they think they are going to die, when.... THey find the way to a food mall and stock up

Next: The midnight feast that went wrong...

[MJE]

     Hmmm... not sure what "tea lights" are. And this really doesn't seem to fit, Icecream - dungeons are quite a bit more specific than just any underground tunnel or cave. And how are they going to find a food mall in an underground tunnel, anyway? Isn't some sort of adventure meant to happen there, too?

Regards, Michael.

[Fiona1986]

Tea lights are small candles, maybe an inch and a half in diameter and less than an inch high, they usually come encased in a thin metal case. They're very cheap and you can buy them in bags of 50 or 100 etc. You can use them on their own or inside a decorative lantern or in a fragranced oil burner.

[Daisy]

I can't remember what we used to call them, but in my mis-spent youth I actually used one to read a book under the bedclothes after "lights out". My mother never found out. I did get a torch after a while which was rather safer!

[Moonraker]

I would have thought that when you were young, Daisy, it would have been bell, book and candle!

[Dinah Cunningham]

I have to agree with Michael about it not really fitting with the title. I know it is easyer to say "it's not good" than to come up with something on my own...

I hope you're not angry Icecream.

[Daisy]

I would have thought that when you were young, Daisy, it would have been bell, book and candle!

No, just book and candle thank you Nigel.