VISUAL PROMPT
by Ricarda Wegmann @ deviantart.com/yumenoki
Write a children's story inspired by this image. Think about the language and themes used for younger audiences (you can add a hidden adult theme if you like!)
What In The Shark?
“Alright everyone! Remember to always stay with your assigned marine buddy!”
Ms. Borough seemed a bit overwhelmed as she reminded us for the second time to stay with our class trip buddies.
But how could she think that bringing us to ‘Aquamarine Pond’ not make us go crazy with excitement?
We’ve been planning this class trip since two months now! For two whole months she had the entire class drooling over this trip, and now that we’re here she wants us to take it easy?
Tracy had been dying to see the big fish tank.
Marcus wanted to try shaking hands or tentacles with an octopus.
Benny wanted to pet the starfish and squeeze a jellyfish.
And me? I just wanna see the sharks.
I like sharks, though I wonder how it would be to brush that many teeth.
Did you know that sharks must always keep swimming?
My older brother Maxwell has a cool poster in his room of the movie ‘Jaws’. I can’t wait to be old enough to watch that movie. It is going to be cool!
My aunt Nora let me watch an undersea documentary about sharks. I’m not supposed to let mother know I watched it.
“Your mother would hang me out to dry if she only knew.”, aunt Nora said
How could mother hang aunt Nora out to dry?
Aunt Nora won’t explain to me what that means. “You’ll see if my sis ever finds out.” She added.
Did you know that sharks don’t have bones? I think they have cartridges. Yeah, cartridges! Cool huh?
Sharks are cool. Today I wore my ‘shark days’ T-shirt. It’s one of my favourite T-shirts.
I even brought my polaroid camera to take pictures.
These photos are gonna look so good when I add them to my Jaws scrapbook.
“Ahhh!!! It stung me!! Ms. Borough, the jellyfish stung me!!”
Benny’s screaming had scared me and I think the shark I was looking at heard him too.
Now Ms. Borough is going to start that high squeaky sound she always does when something goes wrong.
“Let’s take a break now get some lunch, and get Benny’s hand dressed and decide whether or not we should continue this trip.”
Great. Now I think that Ms. Borough won’t want us continuing the trip.
I don’t know why is Benny making such a loud scream, had he been bitten by a shark, he wouldn’t have had the chance to scream.
I hope they have something cool at the food court. Maybe shark shaped sandwiches?
Did I mention before that I like sharks?
Ha ok I really like this story I love the main character and Benny oh my goodness I saw that coming; I knew he was going to get stung when he mentioned wanting to squeeze a jellyfish. Jellyfish tend to sting.
I really liked the purposeful miswording like the line “I think they have cartridges” loved that.
I noticed a spot that sounded weird the 9th line “we’ve been planning this class trip since two month now” maybe there’s a pause (punctuation) that can be mentioned somehow; so it reads like they can’t remember what month but suddenly recalls “two months now”. But it could just be grammar of an excited child.
Also reading it a couple times the line where Benny screams looks like it’s apart of the previous sentence and is a bit confusing.
The flow overall was great I could picture kids rounding up into their groups and talking about what exhibits they want to see then arriving at the creatures mesmerized.
Was the main character talking to their field trip buddy? That’s what I assumed just curious not a complaint or anything. Great story.
I appreciate the commentary and POVs expressed. I wrote the short, thinking of that 90s show ‘Malcolm in the Middle’.
So it wasn’t the character talking to a field trip buddy, but more to an audience.
I tried writing the story to sound as juvenile as possible, so the reader could get a real look into the character’s life from their own vantage point.
I truly appreciate the feedback and I’m open to any ideas or criticism in regard to improvement. 🙂
