[One Piece] Unintentionally Outwitted
Just been flicking through one of my draft notebooks and found something I'd completely forgotten about.
Nearly two months back I was reading a creative writing book to give me some writing exercises and this one in particular caught my eye:
"Write a descriptive piece of about 300 words WITHOUT USING ANY ADJECTIVES. Then, when you're finished, add in a single adjective."
I was intrigued. The point of this exercise is to train writers not to cram their descriptions purely full of adjectives and the author gave a sucessful example that described a room. Instead, as it was some stupid time in the morning and I just wanted to damn well write, I ended up writing fanfiction and only part-descriptive. ^^; Never mind. Yet again, not my best work but I'm quite pleased that I seemed to have succeeded in the adjective reduction...
Title: Unintentionally Outwitted
Rating: G
Word Count: 289
Character(s): Fukurou (yes, I know, odd choice. But I kind of have this strange plot bunny going on at the moment involving Fukurou, Jyabura, Kumadori, a librarian and a lot of letter writing. Shoot me if this piece makes little sense).
Fukurou was in another one of his moods. He fiddled restlessly with his zip, scowled and squinted at the letter that was gripped between his saucepan-like hands. He’d practically twisted his ankle running away with it before his colleagues noticed him haranguing the postman and now it wasn’t just his ankle that hurt but also his pride. The letter mocked him. He just couldn’t read it. Each character danced down the page, looped into one another and snaked away again in curls of calligraphy. It didn’t look like someone had moved the brush down the page in order to write as much moved the paper underneath the brush and the letter spacing wasn’t handing out the clues either, with verses of poetry dotted here and there like spots on a Dalmatian.
And yet, under the flourishes of brush stroke, he occasionally saw a character he recognised, an island isolated from meaning in a sea of ink. It insulted him. Fukurou could not possibly not know something. Never mind the reputation as Fukurou the Listener of Whispers; (or Fukurou the Sponge as others dubbed him due to the ease in which information could be wrung out of him) it was just the principal of it. It was a fact that couldn’t be allowed to live, to breathe in his face and gleefully inform him that, in his eccentricity, Kumadori had unintentionally outwitted him. Only the imitator of a Sennin would bother writing to his girlfriend in outdated script, using kanji that had fallen out of everyday use and expressing himself in haiku.
Fukurou hoped that by the time he did find out who she was - because he would, that was a given - she would at least outstrip Gyatharin in ugliness.
(In case you were wondering, the lone adjective is "outdated". I didn't quite stick to the task and add it in at the end as the piece wouldn't have made any sense without it).