Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Writing exercise!

I don't normally make you work for a living, but there's a first time for everything. It's a short snippet, I promise, and I hope it will be funny. No prize, but I will be grading your efforts on criteria such as writing, ideas and humour. Mostly humour, if you want a hint as to how to beat your fellow bloggers. No laugh, no points.

The King of Troll-land is considering purchasing some kind of voice recognition software in order to help him share his brilliance with the world. He was comforted to learn that there is only a 1% error rate.

I was not comforted in the least by this and came up with this demonstration of why 1% matters. Here's an innocuous paragraph of 116 characters or so:

"The great ship towered above, creaking in the wind. Warm steam from the vents caressed his skin as he breathed in the rich smell of its cargo."

Changing just one of those letters – i.e. less than 1% – has the potential to completely change the whole thing. Say, for example, replacing the 'p' of 'ship' with a 't'...

"The great shit towered above, creaking in the wind. Warm steam from the vents caressed his skin as he breathed in the rich smell of its cargo."

I'm so pathetic that I spat tea on my own keyboard when I came up with that.

Amuse me. Write your own para of 100 characters or so (Word can count 'em for you, but I won't hold you to precision) and change only one letter to totally turn the meaning around.

My keyboard awaits your efforts.

11 comments:

Sarah Laurenson said...

One of my favorite lines from ‘Allo ‘Allo is “She has pissed out.”

If you don’t know anything about this series, the man is British and trying to speak French, but his accent/knowledge is awful. I tried coming up with something that worked with this, but my effort was lame. I’ll keep trying – maybe – but it’s my writing time and I must get to it.

jjdebenedictis said...

Shaun thumped the trunk and bellowed to get the driver's attention. The wheels of the car slowed, then stopped. Shaun stalked up to the driver's side window. He grinned at woman's expression of horror when she saw him standing caked in the mud.

Becomes:

Shaun thumped the trunk and bellowed to get the driver's attention. The wheels of the car slowed, then stopped. Shaun stalked up to the driver's side window. He grinned at woman's expression of horror when she saw him standing naked in the mud.

~~~

The demon laughed at the mortal woman's attempted seduction. She had no hope of luring him that way, for he intended to satisfy other appetites tonight. He loosed his hellhounds.

Becomes:

The demon laughed at the mortal woman's attempted seduction. She had no hope of luring him that way, for he intended to satisfy other appetites tonight. He goosed his hellhounds.

McKoala said...

That's the idea! Goblin giggles!

McKoala said...

Sarah, how about setting up a flood situation?

'She must have passed out in the kitchen. He waded down the hallway; the water swirling around his feet. Children's toys bobbed on the yellowish surface and he kept one sleeve pressed over his nose to reduce the smell.'

Becoming...

'She must have pissed out in the kitchen. He waded down the hallway; the water swirling around his feet. Children's toys bobbed on the yellowish surface and he kept one sleeve pressed over his nose to reduce the smell.'

Robin S. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robin S. said...

OK- McK - I'm doing one for you now.

It will, of course, be, um, a tad nasty. I'm just saying.


(This was the comment I just deleted - as that comment had stupid typos - not funny ones.)

Robin S. said...

OK- Here ya go -

He strode into his office in a hurry. He had things to do. He was important, dammit. He had no time to waste.

He was having no more whining out in the cubicles of whiners lined up row by row outside his big glass office door. He’d ordered a special sign to sit on the front edge of his desk, so they’d see what kind of guy he was, how he expected as much from himself as he did from them.

He yanked the sign out of its package, slid it into place on its stand, and smiled as his assistant walked in and saw his sign. It read: The Fuck Stops Here.

Sarah Laurenson said...

Loved these, guys. And thanks, McK. That was a much better take on it than the crap I was coming up with. Had too much dialogue in mine as well.

Blogless Troll said...

Hey, didja here? I'm a king.

These are great. I'll try to come up with one.

McKoala said...

LOL, Robin, knew it would have something to do with, you know what.

Blogless, I'm waiting...

Chris Eldin said...

Sarah, LOL!!! There's a commercial for learning to speak English. Takes place on a boat. One character wants to say "I'm Thinking, I'm Thinking." But it comes out "I'm Sinking, I'm Sinking."
Very funny!

Mckoala, Your example made me spew liquids!