We’ve spent nearly a year and a half on this stream talking about how to write better.
Now, it’s time to throw all of it out the window!
During the last stream, we did a prompt where we came up with as many writing rules as possible (such as “show don’t tell, set the scene/tone, use adverbs sparingly).
Then we wrote a story breaking as many of them as possible!
Watch the video here for process, the full list of rules we broke,
and my beautiful rendition of reading our final product.
While writing a story like this may seem weird or a waste of time, there’s actually two important things that it can help with:
#1. It helps free up your creativity. When you give yourself the freedom to write anything, sometimes your brain can come up with ideas that surprise you. So even though our story might end up a little strange, there are a few seeds in there that could be made into an actual story.
#2. We all make the same mistakes in our writing. Even though those mistakes are obvious here, they’re still in our “serious” stories, just harder to see. So if we can identify them here, that will make it easier to idenitfy them in the stories that we really care about.
With that out of the way, here’s the story that we came up with
“The Dingbows will be invading our kingdom tomorrow,” she exclaimed fearfully. This was just a dream but I didn’t know it at the time.
“I know,” she mouthed quietly. “The Dingbows have been the enemy of the kingdom for over 1,000 years. Ever since the birth of the kingdom when my great-great-great-great-grandfather pulled the Orb of Ruling from the Great Abyss and became the first king of the kingdom.”
“I think you missed a ‘great’ there,” she smiled toothily. Even though it was a very serious situation, they both couldn’t help but smile at her small mistake.
“Yes, but there’s no time to worry about details. The Dingbows will be coming to this place where we are — the capital city of the world of Frantartar. We have survived for a hundred generations and we will continue for another hundred under my rule. All that we need to do is use the Ancient Antidallboom Weapon,” she espoused angrily.
“Yes,” she agreed hastily.
“Now, let us march upon the Dingbow’s settlement on the Rangadanga, tributary to the Great Loruve River that runs through our prestigious capital like blood runs through a human heart!”
And that’s when I woke up. Of course.
I lazily turned over in my bed and stared at my mirror hanging on the wall. The girl staring back at me had angry eyes, brown hair, skin that was pale like the polar vortex, and green eyes. She was angry because her dream had just ended when it was just getting to the good part. Of course, that girl was me.
Or maybe she wasn’t me. I wasn’t sure if she was me. Maybe that girl was just the dream-me… Or maybe she was the nightmare-me… Or maybe I was the nightmare-her…
My mom came into my room and yelled at me for sleeping late, even though I wasn’t late. No way could I be pregnant, I didn’t even have a boyfriend. Every day I woke up at the same time and I was just fine. As long as I had ten minutes to grab breakfast from the fridge and make it to my bus, I was fine. I’ve told her this many times, but she just doesn’t understand.
I left my house and walked to the bus stop. There are a lot of houses on the street. They are kind of old. They are also not that big. Some of them are made of brick, others are made of wood. Two of them are blue, three are green, and one is red. There’s also a yellow house that’s yellow like the sun. One of them has a purple chimney.
All of a sudden, I felt sick. Maybe I was pregnant? No, I reminded myself reassuringly. Mom just made day-old sushi last night. Suddenly, I felt better.
I waited at the bus stop for my bus. I was all alone. I was so alone that I could hear my own thoughts like I was thinking them myself. I was feeling really blue. I was as blue as the blue part of the fire. But, you know what they say? The blue part of the fire is actually the hottest. So I started feeling warm. Like a thousand suns burning brightly!
I got on the school bus, but then I changed my mind. I stepped off it defiantly.
“I’m not like other girls,” I thought to myself as I pulled on the strings of my hoodie. No! Today was going to be different.
Suddenly I thought about my ex boyfriend who was on the school’s football team. He was my ex boyfriend but we broke up. He begged me to get back together last night but I said no because I just don’t feel the same way about him like I used to. Then the handsome student council president asked me out immediately after that but I turned him down too. What a bad night yesterday night was!
Then I jumped over the little building in a single bound and flew into the sky. I always liked flying.
Thankfully I didn’t land by the school. I landed in the backyard with a swimming pool. I was still feeling very hot so I decided to change into my swimsuit. I put on my boy’s swimming trunks and looked in the mirror by the pool. My skin was so pale, it was pale like a pail that is white like snow. I covered up my skinny boy chest with my skinny boy arms. I’ve always been embarrassed about how skinny I am, but it was hot outside so I didn’t have a choice.
I quickly moved toward the pool water, but I moved so fast that I accidentally slipped on the slippery siding around it. Serves me right for not listening to all those signs warning me not to run around the pool, I thought to myself as I saw myself fall in slow motion to the hard, concrete ground beneath me.
I almost fell to the ground and slid into the pool and drowned, but right at the last millionth of a milisecond, a passionate lifeguard with a secret and great abs and an attractive French accent saved my life. Instead of falling into the deadly water, I fell into his eyes.
“Be careful, Albinysis!” he bit his lip suavely. “I don’t want to lose you.”
I looked over at him and my eyes made their way down to his lower half. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He was a merman. He was standing on his fin and it was really muscular, rippling like water with a motorboat speeding through it with sinews bulging that made his hard scales shine brightly in the bright sunlight.
My legs that I’d shaved yesterday and that were smooth as seals touched up against his scaly tail, and a thrill ran through me. Scales, I thought lustily. How unique.
But then I remembered I was a boy. My mom always said that boys can’t have boyfriends. But then I remembered that I hated my mom, so maybe everything she told me wasn’t true after all?
I suddenly felt very awkward like I always do and I started waving my arms spazztically like a tube-man outside of the used car sale lot and I fell out of Aquafina’s hands.
Then I remembered the best part about being a boy and having a boyfriend was that he couldn’t get me pregnant because he was sushi and not a boy!
But then before I could call my mom and tell her the good news, suddenly my ex-boyfriend started punching Aquafina. He hit him right in his mer-gills that were sparkling off to the side of his cheeks. He cried out in a beautiful cry, like a unicorn howling at the rainbow, and blue blood slashed from his cheek, the same color as the ocean from which he’d come, and that he would go back to if my ex-boyfriend didn’t stop hurting him!
“Stop it!” I ejaculated to both of them. My boyfriend looked at me. His grey eyes like a storm on a weather man’s map that I used to love, but didn’t anymore, were peering right into my soul.
“No Albinysis. YOU stop! I love you so much, and seeing this other man put his hands on you makes me so mad. I’ve always loved you and I’ll never stop, no matter what.”
“But what about my pale skin? It’s so white. No one can love it.”
“I do. Your skin isn’t pale. It’s like toast that isn’t toasted. And that’s what I have for breakfast every morning. And I want to have you for breakfast too, Albinysis.”
Before Albyinsyis could give his response, I quickly punched the other guy again in the face. Since he was a merman, I knew that I had to fight him outside of the water. If we got in the pool, then I was done for. But outside of it, I stood a chance! I could win back Albinysis’s love. Yes, I’d made some mistakes, but just thinking about his skin that was as white as my grandfather’s hair, made drops of sweat trickle seductively down my chiseled body.
My arm was pushed out of the way by Aquafina, and my cheek was slapped by his scaly hand. I was sent to my knees, as my head was quickly wrapped in his fishy arms. I saw him bring his head backward, and I saw the purple blood that I’d caused dripping down his chin. Soon enough, he was going to slam his fishy face into me, and my head would be crushed into calimari. My eyes were slowly concealed by my eyelids, and a smile crept up my face. At least my last moment would be spent nearby Albyinsyis.
I couldn’t believe it! There were two two hunky, super desirable hunks fighting over me. I felt so sexy. But I knew I wasn’t that kind of boy. So I yelled for them to stop. They froze in place and looked at me with respect.
“I’m sorry, Albyinsyis,” Aquafina apologized sadly. “I got out of control.”
“No! You got WAY out of control. You could’ve hurt my ex-boyfriend! That’s NOT okay.”
It was really hard to say those things to Aquafina. He was such a hunk! Such a tall drink of water I was thirsty for. I wanted to drown in his love. Oh sweet suffocation. Quench me with your kisses! But I needed to be strong and independent.
But before I could say anything, my dad interrupted everything.
“Don’t give me that look,” my dad laughed. “Both of you are weaklings. You can’t ever hope to date my perfect, beautiful, powerful and kind daughter.”
I slammed the door on my dad and apologized to Auqafina and my ex-boyfriend.
“Oh my dog I’m so sorry about my dad, he’s way overprotective.”
They both said it was okay and Aquafina made a joke about taking me and my dad out for sushi and my ex-bopyfriend said that he was glad that my dad was my dad because he was the one I inherited my skin that was pale like the color #FFFFFF in Photoshop from. I was swooning pretty hard at that point.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, my mom suddenly walked past.
“Your in a coma,” she whispered.
That’s when I woke up. I was lying down on my desk in class taking a nap because I’d already learned everything that we were going to learn today. When I woke up the teacher didn’t care because she knew I was smart, and so instead of taking notes like the other kids, I started busying myself with wondering where my soul mate was.
I thought about the dream I’d had about the Dingbows and the Kingdom and I wondered if anyone else had the same dream that I had. Because if they did, that meant we were meant to be together. Shared dreams are like two helicopters talking over wi-fi, only they can hear each other and truly understand what the other is going through. No one could understand what I was going through… unless I could find that one special helicopter out there somewhere.
I started feeling forlorn and morose, so I excused myself to the bathroom. I didn’t need to raise my hand or take a pass because the teacher knows that I experience emotions on a different level than the other students, and it wouldn’t make sense to use a bathroom pass to leave because of that since I wasn’t even really using the bathroom. Although, if you think about it, I was kind of flushing out something else from my body.
I made it to the bathroom for my gender and used it in the typical way. When I finished, I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. Someone I barely recognized stared back at me. They were so plain, with brown hair like fields of potatoes, and green eyes like neon avocados, and skin so white that it looked like snails. Who was this person? Were they really me? I didn’t even know anymore.
But then, just as I was getting ready to finish, I heard someone crying in the stall. Maybe I could help them with my knowledge?
I extemporaneously climbed the bathroom tree and peeked over the stall and saw someone there sitting on the toilet thankfully with their pants still on.
“What’s wong?” I asked them thoughtfully.
“You wouldn’t understand,” they cried back, spilling their emotions into their palms.
“I understand a lot of things. I’m actually already graduated from school. I just still come here because I want to test myself.”
“Wow, that’s really mature of you. Do you know anything about dreams?”
“I know a lot about dreams actually. I know that the void is an abysmal sucking leech draining me of all my beans. I know that every time the dove crows it strikes midnight across the barren plains. I know that the blades of grass cut deepest when you lay upon them in the sunlight. And I know that the sky bares it fangs to those who are left unjaded.”
The person in the stall looked up at me with new eyes. They were so white, almost as white as my skin. That’s when I knew the truth without them even saying anything, but I still wanted to hear it from their lips.
They asked, “Are you Albinysis, the person from my dreams?
“Yes,” I declared definitively. “And your name is Aquafina. And we are soulmates.”
And that’s the story about how I was the first boy to get pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful, strong warrior fish named Ablinfina Aquamarina with skin so pale it glowed in the dark who grew up to be the leader of the army to defeat the evil Dingbows just like the prophecy foretold.
Be sure to check out the video for the reactions to the story!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso