Dream Boy

Melly sometimes fantasizes about a "dream boy" who would be tall enough that she would need to stand on tip-toes to kiss him. Over a sequence of dreams the boy, who she has nicknamed Dream Boy, has invited Melly to run away with him to the Island of the Tall Ones where all the inhabitants are tall like them and where Melly would be welcomed as a queen.

Spoiler Alert: Don't click on the spoiler button below until you've read the July 31st entry, "Messages"

Click here for spoilers!

Dream Boy promises, in a dream, to help Melly obtain clothing in her size. Shortly thereafter, a crate of custom-sized clothing arrives from a company called GlomCorp, with whom Mr. Appleton has been talking about providing Melly with a corporate sponsorship. In the crate is a letter with a message from Dream Boy, written in vanishing ink, stating that the price of GlomCorp's involvement is that Melly and Dream Boy can no longer be together in their dreams--although Dream Boy hopes they are able to meet someday in real life.

Melly is unsure whether the message is a prank, a trick of her mind, or just maybe the real thing. When she goes looking for Dream Boy in her dreams, she does not find him.

This character sheet will update with new information as needed.

Why Are Some Posts Tagged "dreams"?

Each week or two, there will be one post tagged "dreams". This is your cue as a reader that the post reveals something about Melly's dreams. It may be a remembered event from the past, insight into her anxieties, or an expression of her hopes and aspirations. Melly's dreams might even predict the future.


Clicking on the dreams label will bring up only those posts that Melly writes about her dreams.

Mrs. Johansson

Mrs. Johansson is Melly's case worker at the Child Welfare Division of the state's Department of Family Services. She is a stickler for rules and procedures, red tape, and paperwork. She makes life difficult for Melly, perhaps incidentally, or perhaps because she enjoys the power of her position.

Melly initially considers her to be a witch, but she softens a bit as Melly's case becomes less urgent and takes up less of her time. Even so, Melly remains resentful of the fact that Mrs. Johansson has so much say over her life and chooses not to consult Melly on her feelings about the many changes in her life.

This character sheet will be updated as needed.

Who's in the Giant Girl Creative Team?

"Giant Girl Rampages" is conceived and written by a team of four published authors with a combined total of 27 years experience writing for children and young adults. Together we have fifteen novels and non-fiction books to our credit.

We've come together to create an innovative story using web technology, instant-publishing, and real-time storytelling techniques. We call our project a blog-novel and, as far as we can tell, ours is the first ever to be written for specifically middle-graders or teens. We estimate an equal chance of this project either failing spectacularly or succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.

Our publishing houses and literary agents are not involved in this project and, at the moment, have no idea what we're up to. Therefore, we are required to be stealthy and anonymous for at least a while longer.

Mr. and Mrs. Appleton

Mr. and Mrs. Appleton are a nice couple who have taken Melly in after it became known that she was living on her own in the farm adjacent to their orchard. They have a son, Jay, who is about Melly's age.

Mrs. Appleton is short and stout, and younger than Melly's mother was. She enjoys fashion magazines, romance novels, and girly things that she often tries to press on Melly. To her, Melly is the daughter she has always wanted--or will be by the time she gets through with her, as evidence by the decorating scheme she imposed on Melly's shed.

Mr. Appleton is tall and skinny, and younger than Melly's father was. He sometimes seems overly concerned about the costs of keeping Melly, which is understandable given the expense of building her a place to live, providing custom furniture, and supplying her with Melly-sized portions of food. Mr. Appleton embraces any opportunity to make money off Melly, starting with the GlomCorp sponsorship.

This character sheet will be updated as needed.

Why Are Some Posts Tagged "This Changes Everything"?

Each week or two, there will be one post tagged "This Changes Everything". This is your cue as a reader that the post is a special one that represents a major change in Melly's life--her living conditions, her relationships, or her general outlook.

The plot developments and/or character changes depicted will ensure that life will never be the same for Melly ever again.


Clicking on the This Changes Everything label will let you catch up quickly on only the most important posts.

Jay Appleton

Jay is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Appleton, the orchard owners who have taken Melly in after it became known that she was living on her own. Although Jay has lived next door to Melly for their entire lives, the two have never met before due to the isolation Melly's parents imposed on her in order to protect her from the outside world.

Initially Jay seems extremely fearful of Melly and does not talk to her unless forced by his parents. He later hints at knowing a secret about Melly that she doesn't want revealed.

Jay is short in stature and slight of build. Melly estimates that he's five feet tall or shorter, although she confesses to not being the best judge of heights so much smaller than her own.

Jay is about Melly's age and, if she is allowed to attend the public high school, they will be in the same grade.

This character sheet will be updated as needed.

What is Melly's Posting Schedule?

The goal we've set this story is for new blog entries to be posted on most weekdays, sometimes twice. So far the Giant Girl Creative Team has been able to drop a post or two on every weekday since the story started, so hooray for us! If we space on a weekday or two in the future, don't be surprised--those are days when Melly is just too busy to blog.

We're experimenting now with a main daily post that drops at 11AM Central Time, which makes it possible to drop a bonus post a few hours before or afterward. We're not expecting to do more than two posts in any given day.

Also, Melly takes the weekends off and so should you!

Dr. Crisp

Dr. Crisp is a local doctor and school board member who serves as Melly's physician and academic tutor. From Melly's description he appears to be an older gentleman with athletic interests and surprising agility on the basketball court. Dr. Crisp is the one who introduced Melly to basketball and installed the hoop on the side of her shed.

As the story progresses, Dr. Crisp proves to be the most trustworthy and caring adult in Melly's life.

This character sheet will update with new information as needed.

What is a Blog-Novel?

There are lots of blog/novel hybrids out there that could legitimately be called blog-novels. Some are paper-printed novels that imitate the journal-entry format of a blog. Some are traditionally-written novels serialized to the web using blogging software. And some are blog posts collected into print volumes.

Our definition is... A blog-novel is a traditionally-structured work of fiction published online in real time as a standalone blog. This requires all six of the following elements:

1. A blog-novel is traditionally-structured with a clearly-intended beginning, a clearly-intended middle, and (if the story is not still being written or on a clearly-intended hiatus) a clearly-intended ending. Structure is what distinguishes a blog-novel from unstructured blog-fiction and blogs of genuinely unstructured life.
   
   
2. A blog-novel is a work of fiction and would be unmistakably fictional to a casual reader. Disclaimers are provided that the story is fictional, or enough fantastical elements are included to make it totally obvious. This requirement excludes works that are presented as factual, just as memoirs are distinguished from works of fiction, and for the same reason: Readers feel deceived when they take a work as fact and later discover it's not real, and pissing off your readers is just bad form.
   
   
3. A blog-novel is published online. This requirement excludes works in print or other media that merely co-opt the formatting and sensibilities of a blog.
   
   
4. A blog-novel is published in real time with a one-to-one time scale so that time passes between posts at the same rate for the characters as it does for the reader. The story might not necessarily take place in the same year, century, or universe the readers are in, but if a week passes between posts for the reader it should be a week later for the characters as well. And if there's ever a six-month gap between posts, there had better be a darn good in-story explanation!!!
   
   
5. A blog-novel stands alone so that the blog or blogs that make up the narrative contain all the information required for a reader to understand the story. This requirement excludes blog-fiction in which required plot points are given in another medium, such as blogs by fictional TV characters who merely comment on events taking place in their shows. A blog-novel may adapt stories from television shows, movies, manga, comics, and print novels, or may incorporate characters from other sources, as long as the resulting story can be read and enjoyed by an audience unfamiliar with the source material. A blog-novel can also be adapted into another medium without losing its blog-novel status. This definition also excludes blog-fiction used as just one element of an immersive story environment in which vital plot points may be provided by forums, social media, traditional websites, email, or instant message.
   
   
6. A blog-novel is published as a blog: i.e., as a first person narrative from a character or characters who intend to be writing journal entries and who mean for those journal entries to be viewed by the general public. Blogs are linear, serialized, epistolary, and interactive, with the possibility for including multimedia elements.

Blog-novels have their roots in eighteenth century pamphleteering and the serialized publication of fictional works from the eighteenth century to the present day, such as Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67), many of Charles Dickens' novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, and Henry James' The Ambassadors (1903, with each of its twelve parts appearing in The North American Review before being published as a whole that same year).

Melinda "Big Melly" Mills

Melly is very tall. Freakishly impossibly tall. Basketball hoops come up to her hips, and most people are only a bit taller than her knees. She looks down on giraffes, and has to bend down to peek into a second-story window. She's just a bit shy of 18 feet, and nobody else has ever been anywhere near as tall as that.

Worried for her safety, Melly's parents kept her sheltered from public view in the middle acres of their family farm. Melly lived in the barn from age seven on, having outgrown her parents' house, and was content to tend to the dairy cows and read books her mother borrowed for her from the public library.

Ma died when Melly was twelve. Pa passed away in her fifteenth year, and Melly suddenly found herself alone in a world that knew nothing of her existence--until the day she strolled into town and caused a bit of a scene. The name of her blog is taken from that day's newspaper headline: "Giant girl rampages through town".

Melly has been taken in by the Appletons, who own an orchard adjacent to Mills Farm, which makes it convenient for her to continue caring for her beloved cows. She is being tutored by her physician, Dr. Crisp, and expects to attend public school for the first time, starting in the fall.

This character sheet will update with new information as needed.

Is Melly For Real?

"Giant Girl Rampages" is the story of Melly Mills, a fifteen-year-old with a problem fitting in--mainly because she's approaching eighteen feet tall! This story is a work of fiction. It takes place in a world that defies the laws of physics and biology as we understand them. If the story were printed on paper sheets and glued into a cardboard cover we'd know how to react to it, because we're all used to visiting the world of books and returning to our own world without blurring the line between the two.

But instead of being fixed in a static book, Melly's story is unfolding in real time, in first person narrative, in an interactive medium most people use to convey facts or honestly-held opinions--the blog. And a funny thing happens when a story is told through a blog. Readers experience the blog-novel at the same pace as their lives, they gain the ability to communicate with at least one of the characters, and the line between reality and fiction fades away.

In the blog format, Melly's voice seems more immediate, personal, and trustworthy. Is she reliable enough to make the outrageous events of "Giant Girl Rampages" seem like they're really happening? We wouldn't have thought so, but readers have surprised us by treating Melly like a real person despite her impossible height. They give her unsolicited advice in their blog comments, ask questions about her life, and explain how their own experiences relate to hers.

The blog-novel exists in an electronic environment where readers and characters interact, and in that environment Melly Mills is as real as anybody else. She believes in her existence as strongly as anybody else. And if you accuse her of being fictional, be prepared to prove that you're not just a figment of her imagination.