Writing Exercises

Introduction and a Mermaid Teaser

Hello guys! I was writing with my friend @Hatsunation for fun, with random little prompts and ideas, and it gave me the idea of posting this. Partially because I never post so it seems like I do nothing, but also because I re-read these and remembered just how much I like what I wrote.

So this is basically a huge book of ideas of writing exercises to get the brain juices flowing. I've been indulging in this practice much more as of late because most of mine are timed and that helps with my writing all around, and also with all the new contests that I've been joining (where most of the fics are short one-shots that I should be keeping short and sweet. Of course, you've seen my writing style XD XD )

I'm going to start with a little teaser.

The first prompt that my friend told me of is sort of one in two. Basically, it is to take a picture and write a story or description or something about said picture. To make it more interesting, however, we included a time limit of 6 minutes. That generally meant finding a 6 minute song (though it will usually stretch to like 6:32 or something, that's perfectly fine) and making sure that your fic fits within that time limit. So it's actually really simple in theory. The main problem when you start, where an actual idea might be difficult to come by. I advise my own strategy- picking your favorite part of the image and writing about how it might have come to be there (or even how the image itself would have happened.)

Here's one of the images that I used. I found it on google, so no, I don't know who drew it, but I liked it and picked it right out. Enjoy my little snippet of story!

Sometimes people just don't understand. They look at something and say whatever comes to mind without thinking. They hate, denounce, judge, and all without proof, or having even met a person. And when the truth finally comes out, they don't even apologize.

It was things like that that drive her crazy. How most humans have the tendency to criticize instantly. They even had a phrase for it! Don't judge a book by its cover!

Yet that was what they did every day. Every waking second they would observe and make shallow, silly jumps in their puny little minds about what they knew nothing about. People as a result were hurt, with stupid, unnecessary misunderstandings ruling their minds. It made her mad.

So mad, in fact, that one day as she observed a bunch of little worthless men teasing a poor scrap of a girl, she couldn't help but jump onto the boat, killing them one by one. Was it her fault that her temper was so out of control? Probably. But those people deserved it.

When the other mers found out, they were angry. They didn't understand either, of course, but they didn't have the full picture. So she carefully explained, and eventually they sat and nodded along, proud of how she had acted, happy that she had defended that weak, helpless woman.

And so they contacted their cousins all over the sea, spreading the story and revealing their own harsh instances where some imbecile had decided to harm another or judge another for no good reason.

Their call was answered by many. One memorable note was from the Sirens, who had acknowledged this a long time ago and had been offing humans left and right.

"Get rid of the source and you get rid of the problem" they had always said. And at times, the mermaid mused, they were right. The humans had a phrase for that too. Cut the problem at the roots.

So their society turned violent. Where once they were peaceful, playful, even simply ignoring the humans, now they attacked with fervor. They waited the men out, watching their silly little boats and waiting for one of them to say something wrong.

Of course, as of late it had become a bit more "murder them all" as opposed to "help the poor defenseless women against their evil men" but most of the mer's didn't even mind. And since she was the one that started it, the mermaid couldn't refuse when her family asked for her help.

So now she was stuck on this rock, waiting as her father had told her, on a detail to take down a passing ship. Their life in the water had allowed them from long ago the sense of what was where, and these humans, these abominations, were getting their grime everywhere. No wonder the fish scatter.

She couldn't help but think for a moment. She had started this mass murder. They used to kill with purpose. Now they don't. They killed everyone and anyone so long as they were human. And that was wrong. Not every human was bad. Just some.

Her reverie was broken as she felt the ship getting closer. She shrugged off the doubts. She had a job to get done.