There
once was a dull-looking Tetra and a beautiful colored Betta who both lived in
the same tank.
While
he was swimming, the Tetra saw that the Betta had long beautiful red and blue
fins unlike the short dull fins he had. Although he was jealous of the
beautiful fish, the Betta was the only other fish that he could invite to play
a game with him. So out of boredom the Tetra asked the Betta to play with him.
"Hey, Betta, want to play a game?" asked the Tetra, who
was conjuring up an idea that would make his day more amusing.
The Betta agreed to play with him because he too had nothing to do and was
looking for a way to make the day entertaining.
The Tetra led the Betta all around the tank looking for something
fun to do. After swimming a lap around the tank, he noticed that the water
filter had a slight current that sucked the water inside of it.
Immediately he said, “Follow me! I know what will be fun today,”
and he swam quickly towards the water filter.
The Tetra swam as fast and as close as he could to the filter and
made a sharp turn before the current could catch him. The Betta quickly
followed him but was not able to turn fast enough. His beautiful long fins got
caught in the current and started dragging him closer to the mouth of the
filter. The Tetra laughed as he watched the Betta frantically swimming to
escape being sucked into his impending doom.
“Why did you lead me to such a dangerous area?” asked the Betta, trying to get away from the current.
“I just thought you would like to get a new look since you have
always had those beautiful long fins of yours ever since you were born,”
answered the chuckling Tetra.
After vigorously swimming for a while, the Betta escaped the
dangerous situation. He then glared at the laughing dull fish and swam away.
Not long after that trick, the Betta asked the Tetra to come and look at something cool. This time the Betta led the Tetra to the treasure chest in the middle of
the tank.
“See this chest? It makes fun bubbles and has shiny coins inside,”
explained the Betta to the intrigued Tetra.
Then the chest opened up and bubbles
started flowing up and out of it. The excited Tetra swam right above the chest
and looked closer at the shiny coins it had inside.
“Hey, where did the bubbles go? How come I can’t pick up the
coins?” asked the Tetra.
As soon as the Tetra was inside of the chest, it closed shut, surrounding him in total darkness. The Tetra began bashing around in the chest
trying to get out.
“What happened? Why is it so dark?” shouted the frightened
Tetra.
The Betta said, “Do not play tricks on others unless you can stand
the same treatment yourself. The chest will open again soon enough. You’ll just
have to wait.”
“Noooooooooooo!!!!”
yelled the trapped Tetra.
Author's Note. This
story was based on the fable "The Fox and The Stork" by Aesop. In
this fable the Fox was looking for a way to amuse himself and played a trick on
the Stork. After that trick the Stork played a similar trick on the Fox and
told him, "Do not play tricks on your neighbors unless you can stand the
same treatment yourself." In my version of this story I changed the Fox
and the Stork to the Betta and the Tetra based on my pet fishes I had when I
was a child. The tricks that these two fish played on each other are much more
dangerous than the Fox and the Stork since both fish were put in real danger.
The pictures that I use show readers how the characters and the setting look. The images of the betta and the tetra are a very good depiction of how the
characters in the story look. One of the main reasons why I chose this
story and its characters is because my whole blog site is called “My Fish Mr.
Fishy” and the story relates to the site since the betta I have now is named
Mr. Fishy.
Bibliography
"The Fox and The Stork" by Aesop, from The
Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter (2006). Web source: The Æsop for Children
Great story! I really like how you changed it from Fox and a Stork to the fish. The water filter current and the chest was really cleaver. You also did well portraying the fish characters.
ReplyDeleteYour strongest feature was also how you captured the moral of the story!
My suggestion would be to seperate into more paragraphs. Put the same ideas with the same ideas. You can even make a paragraph a single sentence long! This is both aesthetically pleasing to her reader, and can bring the reader'so attention to a single sentence.
I think you did a really great job on adapting this story with aquarium fish. You were also very creative with the water filter and treasure chest. The images you used helped me form very clear mental pictures during the story and the moral came through clearly.
ReplyDeleteMy only critiques are that you should proofread by reading aloud and try to vary your vocabulary a liitle bit more. In such a short story, you don't want to repeat too many words unneccesarily.
Overall it was a really great story and I enjoyed reading it very much.
From the title of the story I only assumed it was about a fish because it had betta in the title. The way you used situations from Finding Nemo and combined it with your own writing and a fable was very clever. I also liked how you broke the story up with pictures at certain moments. The pictures were useful in understanding and getting of mental picture of the story you were telling.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I would suggest is separating the dialogue from the rest of the text. It helps to highlight the importance of speech and can give more growth to a speaking character. I know that you were using Aesop's fable as a framework but I think if you modernized the character's language along with the setting it would make your story even better!
Overall, I enjoyed your story and I look forward to reading more of your work!
This was a great story! Taking one of Aesop's fables and turning it into your own, with a few hints to Disney Pixar's Finding Nemo was great! By incorporating hints to Finding Nemo, even if you have never read Aesop's fables, you could quickly follow the story and know what the betta fish had wanted to do in the end. My only suggestion to you would be to do a quick proofreading before publishing your blog posts online. Other than that, great job!
ReplyDeleteI remember reading the original story in one of the early weeks and I enjoyed your retelling! Having two fish stuck with each other gives perfect opportunity for mayhem. I really like the tension felt by the Tetra in relation to the Betta's beauty and it gives us an insight into the fact his game he suggests will probably not be a friendly one. It's great that the Betta was able to escape unharmed and pay it back in kind. The working in of the original moral read really well!
ReplyDeleteMy suggestions are not many. I would suggest maybe some extra attention to the beginning of the story. The repetition boredom and play/playing a game is a little distracting, but could be fixed by switching them with similar words or different descriptions or sentence structures. Don't forget that words after a quotation mark should be capitalised. That's really all I have for you, but I look forward to seeing future installments in your portfolio!
Hello, Urian! I love that you took creatures just about everyone is familiar with and used them in your story! I had pet fish growing up, and I can totally see them being bored enough to seek entertainment anywhere they could find it. Your retelling seemed to go right along with the original story, but you did a great job of making it your own! You also had a really good balance between dialogue and description, and the transitions flowed really well. I really like the images you picked out, as well! Finding Nemo is awesome.
ReplyDeleteThere really aren’t too many things I would change about your narrative. Everything was really stylistically pleasing, and there were only a few small grammatical errors. There should be a comma between laughing and dull (between the two nemo pictures). Other than that, there are only a couple of other things I would change, and they were all personal preference. Nice work!
This was a fun read! I honestly had no idea what a Tetra was until I read your story. So thank you for teaching me something new. I see that you took the comments from previous people and applied them to your story. The story was easy to read and flowed well. I noticed that the story is a good length too. It's not very wordy, but the story is told quite well with its shorter length. There isn't too much for me to say because I can see that you went back and have been revising and editing. Good story!!
ReplyDeleteYour story and the moral behind it is great! I like how you put the picture of finding Nemo because it takes me back to have Nemo and the rest of the fish tried to get out of the tank risking Nemo’s life. In the same away the things the fish did were pretty risky as well. I like really enjoyed the moral of the story because it is similar to the golden rule, which is treating others the way you want to be treated. It was very neat how you changed the characters to fit your whole blog site title. I really like your background as well because it goes with the whole theme of the fish and the blog title. Overall I believe you did a very good job on the story and you were very creative in changing the story up. Good job! Can’t wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteHi Urian!
ReplyDeleteI had fun reading this sweet and ornery fish tale! (Ha ! Fishtail !) I love the background that you chose for this portfolio. The fish theme is lively and fun. I normally don't really like stories with animals, but this is an exception. I could 100% see these scenarios happening with fish. They always take turns bullying each other, because, what else are they going to do? You did a great job of capturing me as a reader and getting me involved with rooting for the fish antics. It was like watching cartoons from my childhood ! The repetition of the words nothing to do, actually gave me the visual of a fish swimming laps in a tank, driving itself mad repeating it has nothing to do. I like the way you expressed the idea. The images you chose for the story are wonderful. It shows us the real side of what fish you are referring to as well as the fun and playful side of the story with the tank equipment. Overall I enjoyed your story, well done.
Nice job on your retelling! I especially enjoyed the similarity to Finding Nemo. I’m a sucker for Disney movies. I have not read the original story but it looks like you did a good job of maintaining the original message. I didn’t notice any grammatical errors, however, in the beginning there was some repetitive sentences. The mention of playing a game was repeated three times in a row in just three sentences. I would try to trim this section down a bit to make this section less of a distraction. Other than this I don’t have any suggestions!
ReplyDeleteThe appearance of the blog is very fitting for your fish theme. You did a really nice job of making sure that every aspect from the water background to the different uses of blue, exemplifies this.
Great job! I look forward to seeing the stories you write throughout the rest of the semester.
Hello there Urian!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I'd like to compliment the overall theme of your page and portfolio. I think it is interesting how you did a portfolio, but it kind of reminds me of a storybook and it could have been one as well. I think your background, fonts, and image selection eally emphasize your theme and it made reading your story even more fun!
I thought you did a really good job with the dialogue. I think it's something I want to incorporate into my own stories more often because I love reading everyone else's storytelling when they have lots of chatter between the characters. It seemed to me like your grammar was pretty good with all the dialogue, which is hard to do so more power to you! I loved that you put lots of images in your story, not just one. It makes it more of a picture book and it's really fun and easy to read. I love the pictures from Finding Nemo too. It's my favorite movie and I definitely imagine your fish tank being like the one from the movie. Keep up the good work!
Hi! I am from the Indian Epics class, so I am unfamiliar with the story you were referring to. But, I absolutely loved your story! As I was skimming your portfolio trying to decide on what story to read, I think I noticed a theme for your stories. I think fish is a great theme to work with! You're story was very playful and truly a joy to read. I had a lot of fun reading this and I am sure you had a lot of fun writing it! I liked your font size and background choice, this made your story easier to read. I also did not notice grammar mistakes. You're writing looks to be in excellent condition so great job! Your pictures were a wonderful addition to your story. They made the story more whimsical. I especially enjoyed the Finding Nemo pictures. Overall, this was a great story and I hope to read more of your stories! Great job!
ReplyDelete