Writing Exercise 1

Writing Exercise from Writing Excuse 10.2

Take two ideas and combine them into one story.

Writing Excuse is a podcast that gives perspective on storytelling and writing, I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago and found their talks both funny and informative so I would recommend it to people that are interested in writing a story but struggles with the process.

Here's a link for the one I used for my exercise.

So I need to combine two ideas into one story… I glanced towards my bookshelf for inspiration and the first two things that popped was “Batman Year One” and “Crisis on Infinite Earth” so my thoughts drifted to Batman and Superman.

What is the idea of Batman? Not so sure, honestly – my first thought was about a man set on revenge against crime. Since he didn’t have any superpowers he needed to rely on his brilliant analytical skills and mental discipline to be as efficient as possible. With money, brains and a drive that could rival the ego of Salvador Dali anything was possible. He may seem like an unstoppable force, but deep down he’s still a broken human crying for his dead parents.

So the first idea is in short “A strong man on the outside but a baby on the inside. Needs to grieve some way about his dead parents”.

 Let’s take a look at Superman.

So Superman, Superman…an almighty alien that wants to be accepted by Earths inhabitants. He tries to do so first by just living incognito and blend in, but all the crime and evil that happens makes him want to help society as best as he can. But in his own ways.

“Alien offers social service and wants to be accepted by humans. It’s good to know that the alien has a different view on morals and social ethics.”

So if we combine these two…

➖➖➖

“What do you think about this?” asked the green big tentacle monster pointing with one of his arms towards the streets.

“Honestly, I’m not so sure you know the definition of what clean means,” sighed James.

“But I double-checked it with Oxfords Dictionary!” wailed the monster and quickly produced said dictionary from one of his extremities. “Look, it says free from dirt, marks or stains!”

“Yes. But. That. Doesn’t. Mean. To. Paint. It. All. BLACK!” said James with increasing volume on each word.

The said street area was all painted in the color of darkness. Covering every nook and cranny from the walking pavement to the sewer drains, heck even the traffic lights looked like giant licorice candies.

“Look, even the crosswalks are black!” screamed James in a higher pitch than before. “What were you thinking Mixxie?”

“It’s Mxe,” said the green monster with its arms coiled around itself in a sour manner. “And of course I would paint it black, those white lines get dirty so easily.”

“They need to be white so the pedestrians know where to cross over,” said James, pronouncing each word like he had gravel in his mouth. “Same with the traffic lights, without the different color lights the cars don’t know when to stop or when to continue.”

Mxe gave James a look with his only eye and sighed.

“Look, I’m sorry. Again,” he said. “But all this…” and flailed with his tentacles “…is so hard!”

James went closer to Mxe and gave one of the tentacles a squeeze of comfort.

“I know,” he said. “I know you are trying your hardest. It’s just that everything is going so fast. My parents dies and I discover that they’ve been hiding you from the world. When I take you to the police to figure out the next step and all hell breaks loose…”

James interrupts himself and looks down on the black ground, face distorted in pinched eyebrows, tight lips and moist eyes.

Mxe gave James a confused look before understanding dawned upon the monster and it quickly gave James soothing hug.

“Haven’t had time to grieve yet, have you?” Mxe asked with a soft voice.

“Everything’s going so fast…”