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ABC Stories (or how to waste half an hour)
So sometime when you’re home alone and you don’t have anything to do (and let’s be honest, if you’re reading a blog called Chimpsahoy…it’s a regular occurrence), here’s something neat you can try. It’s right up there with creating a salt-crystal garden or raising sea monkeys. It’s an old writer’s exercise called ABC stories. Here’s how it works:
1) Each letter of the alphabet starts a sentence.
2) It has to be a cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end.
3) You have to use all the letters.
Give it a try. Post your experiments to the comments section. After the leap, you’ll find one of mine, a rip-roaring yarn about a pirate. I’m so alone.
So This One Time on the High Seas…
After plundering the HMS Wimp, the scurvy pirate Wiggins cackled in delight.
Because he had never successfully captured a ship, he was beside himself.
“Courage has won the day, me mangy curs!” he bellowed, waving his cutlass.
Determined to avoid losing a limb, his crew cowered away from his frantic, uncoordinated slashing.
Even the first mate covered his one good eye.
Fresh off his victory, Captain Wiggins set his eyes on more glorious booty.
“Grab your cleanest eye patches, mateys, for we’re setting off toward Fort Impregnable!”
“Holy hoisted hangnails!” cried the cabin boy, wee Scabby Hernandez.
“Inside that fortress awaits certain doom!”
“Jest ye have some faith in ol’ Wiggins, ya cur,” came the captain’s reply (in his finest pirate dialect).
“Kindly take your hopeless negativity elsewhere,” he added.
Long days turned into long nights as they sailed toward the coast.
Manning his post in the crow’s nest early Monday morning, Barnacle Jones threw aside his spyglass and bellowed, “Fortress ahoy!”
“Never give up…” the captain recited (it was his usual speech); however, the crew tuned him out as they prepped the cannons, muskets, and swords.
On the fortress walls, the soldiers braced for impact.
Pirates recklessly piled into boats as cannons roared, mostly at Captain Wiggins’ ship.
“Quiet the dogs with your bayonets!” growled the captain, leaning over the prow and making obscene gestures with his hook.
“Rip them to shreds!” echoed the third mate.
“Squirrels!” cried Crazy Edward, who was unable to locate his lucky battle-nuts (almonds).
Turns out all the boats had holes in them and they began to sink.
Unconvinced of the chances in holey boats, the pirates turned and swam back to the ship, but Captain Wiggins charged forth through bullets and bombs.
Visions of his glorious demise clouded his thoughts.
“When I die, all the famous bandits will be there,” he muttered, half crazed.
“Xylophones will ring through the halls of the Pirate’s Cove as I join Davey Jones in his locker.”
“Yar!” he cried as a well-placed musket-ball tore first through his shirt, then his crinkly picture of Maria the toothless barmaid, and finally through his heart.
Zorro, Lafitte, and ol’ Jack Sparrow himself were pallbearers at the funeral, for while the captain was mostly incompetent, he was a “really good guy”.
Sam September 11th, 2006 12:18 pm
That was euphoric. Thank you.
Greg September 12th, 2006 09:46 am
scabby hernandez and battle-nuts. Great!
sonath September 12th, 2006 23:01 pm
i wanna play pirates just to use the crow’s nest card
Nick September 26th, 2006 14:16 pm
LOVED IT !