Story themes

Some key story themes based on categorisation by Briony Coote with amendments.

• Adventure story: a thrilling tale of lost lands and far-away travel. (“Alice in a Strange Land”, “Barracuda Bay”)
• Affliction: A girl is left disabled or suffering from a progressing illness. Either she is determined it will not stand in her way of realising her dream, or she needs to come to terms with it. (“Blind Ballerina”, “Willa on Wheels”)
• Animal story: protagonist either is an animal or a sympathetic girl who rescues/helps an animal. (“Seulah the Seal”)
• Bullying: protagonist is bullied or (occasionally) is a bully herself. (“Badgered Belinda”, “Tears of a Clown”)
• Cinderella (summary page): The heroine is being exploited by parents/guardians/employers. She has a talent/secret which could be her only hope of happiness. However her abusers keep interfering, or exploiting her talent, or both. (“Make-Believe Mandy”, “Cinderella Smith”)
• Companion (summary page): the heroine has a magical or non-human companion who guides her and may also protect her. Typically the companion has their own reasons for being, which may or may not match the protagonist’s desires and aims; but they work together not against each other.
• Deception: the protagonist is willingly or unwillingly involved in a deliberate deception of friends and/or family. (“Gwen’s Stolen Glory”, “Holiday Hideaway”)
• Environmental concerns: the protagonists show a concern for the beauty of planet Earth, either locally in a fight against a road to be built, or globally by admiring flora and fauna. (“Almost Human”, “The Green People”)
• Evil influence/supernatural influence (summary page): The heroine falls under the thraldom of an evil/obsessive spirit, or an evil object/curse. (“Creepy Crawley”, “Gail’s Indian Necklace”, “Slave of the Mirror”, “Spell of the Spinning Wheel”, “The Venetian Looking Glass”)
• Exploited amnesiac: Rogues exploit an amnesiac girl, usually by blackmailing her with false information. (“Slave of the Swan”, “Miss No-Name”)
• Frustrated destiny: The heroine longs to pursue a special talent but her parent/guardian will not allow it. Usually this is due to a family tragedy associated with the same talent. Alternatively, the heroine hardens her heart against it because she thinks it has caused the death of a loved one with the same talent. (“The Goose Girl”, “Minnow”, “Nothing to Sing About”, “The Ghost Dancer”)
• Gag strips: single-page (or even shorter) strips with no ongoing story or plot/character development. (“Alley Cat”, “Do-It-Yourself Dot”, “Penny Crayon”)
• Guilt complex: The heroine makes life difficult for herself because she blames herself (rightly or wrongly) for an accident or misfortune. (“Blind Faith”, “I’ll Make Up For Mary”, “Tricia’s Tragedy”, “Tearaway Trisha”)
• Historical story: set in a specific or generic historical period such as the Middle Ages, Stuart London at the time of the Great Fire, or Victorian London. (“Bridey Below the Breadline”, “Bound For Botany Bay”, “Gertie Grit the Hateful Brit”)
• Humour strip: like the gag strip, this is primarily about generating laughs, but is longer (two or more pages per issue) and has some character development or ongoing story elements. (“Desert Island Daisy”, “Gaye’s Gloomy Ghost”, “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag”, “Tansy of Jubilee Street”, “The Jinx From St Jonah’s”)
• Injustice: a person is wrongly accused of a crime, and the campaign to clear them begins (“Toni on Trial”, “Paula’s Puppets”)
• Looks are deceiving: a pretty face does not reflect the true mind underneath. (“Angela Angel-Face”, “Who’s That In My Mirror?”)
• Modern witch hunt: The heroine is persecuted by backward villagers who still believe in witches. (“Weena the Witch”, “Mark of the Witch!”)
• Perfectionism: someone is obsessed with moral, physical, or intellectual perfectionism, inevitably ending in their downfall. (“Children of Edenford”, “Land of No Tears”, “Wanda Whiter Than White”)
• Pinocchio: An alien/non-human/time traveller tries to assimilate into society and to become just like a real girl. (“Almost Human”, “The Robot Who Cried”)
• Problems with parents: death, divorce, or remarriage has created difficulties between the heroine and one or both parents. (“The Four-Footed Friends”, “Left-Out Linda”, “Ping-Pong Paula”)
• Prophecy: a prophecy indicates a (normally unwelcome) destiny for the protagonist, but generally with uncertainty in outcome such that it is fulfilled in an unexpected manner. (“Destiny Brown”, “The Bow Street Runner”, “Cursed To Be A Coward!”)
• Profession story: a story about being a nurse, vet, or other profession that Jinty readers might be expected to be interested in becoming when they grow up. (“Angela’s Angels”, “Cathy’s Casebook”)
• Quest or Journey story (summary page): a heroine or main character goes on a search involving a significant travel across the country or still yet further (“The Darkening Journey“). May be combined with the Runaway theme (“Somewhere over the Rainbow”, “Song of the Fir Tree“).
• Redemption narrative (summary page): a main character starts out as an unpleasant or difficult person, and through her tribulations in the story is turned into a better person who sees the error of her ways.
• Revenge: the heroine or villain is out for revenge (“Cursed to be a Coward!”, “Mark of the Witch!”)
• Runaways: main characters go on the run to get away from people who threaten their hopes of staying together as a family. Alternatively, the people chasing them may  be abusers or would-be killers, in which case the term ‘fugitive‘ may be more apt. (“Somewhere over the Rainbow”, “Song of the Fir Tree“, “Always Together“)
• School story: primarily set in and about a school. May have elements of anti-authoritarianism. (“Dracula’s Daughter”, “Pam of Pond Hill”)
• Science fiction (summary page): a broadly science-fictional story, with elements such as time travel to the future, robots, aliens, and so forth. (“Almost Human”, “The Human Zoo”, “The Robot Who Cried”)
• Sinister scheme: one or a small group of heroines must battle against the powerful interests behind a sinister plot to control hearts and minds, usually involving some form of hypnotism or brainwashing. A slightly less sinister version might be a form of mystery story. (“Children of Edenford”, “Prisoner of the Bell”, “Village of Fame”)
• Slave story (summary page): a broad story type with many varieties. May be a child slavery racket where a corrupt or mercenary adult keeps a number of children prisoner for their own financial gain, or a harsh workhouse where the imprisonment is legal but the treatment is not, or a case of an individual protagonist being kept as a slave of a cruel adult for non-financial reasons such as revenge. (“Slaves of the Candle”, “Merry at Misery House”, “Slave of the Swan”)
• Sports story (summary page): primarily about a particular sport, to the extent that the reader may learn quite a lot of technical details about the sport as part of the story. To add spice, it will also be combined with other elements such as rivalry, coercion, and so on. (“Curtain of Silence”, “Toni on Trial”, “White Water”)
• Storyteller: The storyteller is a regular who tells spooky stories or stories based around a collection of items. (“Gypsy Rose”)
• Survival: surviving against a catastrophe or becoming a castaway (“Fran of the Floods”, “Girl the World Forgot”)
• Time travel: the protagonist travels through time. (“Land of No Tears”, “Shadow on the Fens”)
• Troublemaker: a nasty girl causes trouble for an unsuspecting girl. The motive is usually jealousy, spite, personal gain, or not wanting to share (“The Kat and Mouse Game”, “7 Steps to the Sisterhood”)
• Wish fulfillment: a heart’s wish granted by an external agency is going to at the least have unexpected consequences, if it doesn’t turn out to be a real unwanted deal with the devil. (“Dance Into Darkness”, “The Zodiac Prince”)
• Witches: real or imagined, played for laughs or spooky, good or evil; the witch as a main plot element is much-used. (“Golden Dolly, Death Dust”, “Pandora’s Box”, “A Spell of Trouble”, “Sue’s Daily Dozen”)