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| “I’m ready to hear a fractured fairy tale!” |
Time for some more writing fun!!!
Here’s a new writing exercise. You’re going to write a fractured fairy tale!!!
Ready to get started? Here’s the activity.
You’ll get started by going to a random name generator. The one that I chose is at get some randomly chosen names!!!
With this random name generator, you can choose the types of name that you get. You have the choice of common names, average names, or rare names. I chose “rare names” for this writing exercise. You’ll get a list of ten randomly chosen names. These will be first and last names and they are both male and female names. Oh, and when you write your story, you don’t have to use all of the names.
Here is my list of ten randomly chosen names:
Random names
- Elwood Hollingsworth
- Marisa Stull
- Hedwig Trevino
- Cassondra Laporte
- Eda Eaves
- Lachelle Yeager
- Annmarie Poore
- Roxana Crump
- Jena Cruse
- Shiela Fagan
My next step will be to choose the fairy tale and to decide how the main character will act and talk. This main character is the narrator so I need to give her (or him) a voice.
The fairy tale that I am choosing for this exercise is The Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf and my main character will speak in Valley Girl. Since Valley Girl-ese was popular in the 1980s, I went to the internet for a brush up on Valley Girl. Isn’t the internet like totally awesome, dudes and dudettes?
I found this website:
I am now ready for my last step before creating my… um… masterpiece… a random generator for the first line. I’m hoping for something very random to make the fractured fairy tale truly fractured.
Here is the random first line generator website:
I’m going to write for at least ten minutes, starting with:
Eda Eaves went to the toilet and on her way back, opened the wrong door. There, Eda saw, leering at her, was Elwood Hollingsworth. He was standing on the back porch, smoking a cigar and just staring at the house. Everyone knew Elwood as the Big Bad Wolf. It was true that he had big teeth in need of dental work and that he did seem a little wolfy and that, on occasion, he was known to howl for no valid reason whatsoever. But, what the heck? Big Bad Wolf? Elwood didn’t deserve such a lofty title.
Hollingsworth looked at Eda, blew a puff of stinky smoke, and, almost lost in a haze of cigar smoke, said in a blah voice, “I’m gonna huff and I’m gonna puff, and I’m gonna blow this house down.” Eda was sure that Hollingsworth didn’t have enough air to blow the house down, even if the house was made of straw.
“Like, dude,” Eda said. “Your bogus comment just barfs me out?”
“Huh?” responded Hollingsworth. He tossed the cigar into the grass, where it began to smolder.
“Like, dude,” Eda began because that was how she always began her sentences. “Put out that cigar before you burn the house down!” Her voice was so commanding that Hollingsworth obeyed without question. That only delayed the blowing down the house bit for a few minutes. As soon as he canceled the fire hazard, he repeated, “I’m gonna huff and I’m gonna puff, and I’m gonna blow this house down!”
Eda went to let her parents know that the house was about to be blown down. They didn’t really believe her but Eda’s mother wasn’t in the mood to cook dinner. Eda’s parents went to a restaurant, and they told her that they would drive her to her friend Annmarie Poore’s house. They liked Annmarie because she was a good little piggie and everyone likes good little piggies. Hollingsworth liked good little piggies. Unfortunately, he liked them better as roast pork, which could be a problem for the little piggies.
Before long, the house was vacated. Hollingsworth wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He simply stood at the back porch, repeating his statement about blowing the house down.
Finally, he did blow the house down because straw isn’t too sturdy. Since the piggies were gone, all that Hollingsworth found were leftover unidentifiable food and a pear. He gobbled everything up but what he really wanted was a meal of delicious roast pork and applesauce.
Before long, Eda was at Annmarie’s house. Annmarie lived in a house made of sticks. It was a pretty house but a bit drafty. Eda was hungry because she didn’t have dinner and her parents went out to a fancy restaurant and told her to go visit her friend, Annmarie.
“Like dudette,” Eda said, “That was so bogus? The house got blown down by the moron who thinks he’s a big bad wolf?” Even when Eda was making a statement, it sounded as if she were asking a question.
Unfortunately, just as Eda and Annmarie and Annmarie’s parents were about to start eating their delicious dinner of vegetable soup and freshly baked bread, Hollingsworth blew the house down. As sticks rained down on the heads of Eda, Annmarie, and Annmarie’s parents, they ran, leaving their dinner behind. When Hollingsworth entered the collapsed house, he found the soup and bread, which he gobbled down. He was obviously more piggish than the piggies. But there was no roast pork for Hollingsworth.
Eda, Annmarie, and Annmarie’s parents ran until they were gasping and out of breath. Fortunately, the people whom they decided to visit, cousins of Annmarie’s family, Marissa Stull and Hedwig Trevino, lived in a brick house. Eda, Annmarie, and Annmarie’s parents were very pleased that this house was so sturdy, especially because their own houses had collapsed and were no longer structurally sound.
Marissa invited the refugees in and offered them dinner.
“Like dudette,” Eda said. “It’s time to chill? This is so totally the bomb?”
“There’s a bomb?” asked Hedwig, who didn’t understand a word that Eda said.
Dinner consisted of vegetable stew, homemade bread and fresh butter, and tea. Everyone had to wait a while for the stew to get hot enough to eat.
Eda expressed her opinion of Hollingsworth.
“Like, gag me with a spoon?” she began.
“Are you sure that you want that?” Hedwig said as she got a spoon out from the utensil drawer.
“Like, that guy is a total dweeb?” Eda said. “He’s always acting like he’s gonna have a cow? He’s the worst dipstick ever?”
Just then, something loud banged on the kitchen window. Marissa opened the window a little bit and saw Hollingsworth standing outside.
“I’m gonna huff and I’m gonna puff, and I’m gonna blow this house down.”
“Go for it,” Marissa said. “But when you get tired, you can come in and act civilized and eat a proper dinner with us.”
“Roast pork,” Hollingsworth said, spit dribbling off of his fangs.
“No,” said Marissa. “We are vegetarians. It is obviously time for you to become a vegetarian, too.”
“No! I want roast pork!” Hollingsworth began warming up to blow down the house. He huffed and he puffed and nothing happened. Before long, he had completely hyperventilated and nearly keeled over.
“I really should quit smoking,” Hollingsworth muttered. “I am awfully hungry. Maybe there is something to being a vegetarian.”
He knocked on the front door like a regular guest and was admitted to the house. He ate a delicious meal and didn’t even miss the roast pork. When he volunteered to rebuild the straw house and the stick house, Eda said, “Like dude, that’s so gnarly.”
Hollingsworth did make good on his word and he became a good neighbor who never blew down another house although, occasionally, he could be heard howling at the moon.
The end
I love using random name generators. There are a lot of great ones.
What a fun take on The Three Little Pigs! And nice touch with the Valley Girl speak, LOL. Thanks for sharing!