Claude Prompt at the end.
“A riptide doesn’t ‘rip’, you dolt.” Maria smacked the back of Dante’s head. “Feed your brain cells, won’t’cha? And no, those muscle-building supplements you slug all day long won’t do the trick.”
Dante rubbed his noggin, a chagrined look on his face. “The brain’s a muscle.” He glanced at his sister. “They say.”
Before tugging on her insulating leggings, Maria popped the medical case open, extracted a syringe and stuck the needle into a bottle of turquoise liquid. She finally registered Dante’s words, turned and gave him a look that said, ‘Are you really that stupid?'”
Her brother leaned away from her waving needle, eyes wide. He asked, “Are you still going through with that, that creepy gene stuff?”
Maria stabbed her inner thigh, wincing as the cold fluid coursed into her muscle. “It’s not creepy. It’s therapy.”
“But it’s making your skin all bluish.”
Maria held her arm up to the summer sun blazing through the windows of the apartment partially subsidized by the Florida Fund for Disadvantaged Families. “I think it’s rather attractive. Besides,” she said, stowing away the medical kit provided by the University’s pharmaceutical branch, “without it, I’d be wheezing and gasping for breath all the time. And I couldn’t perform at the aquarium anymore.”
“You should find another gig. That job stinks.” Dante chuckled at his inside joke.
“Says the loser who can’t pass an algebra class to save his life. Why don’t you finish high school before you start lecturing me on mastering the job market.”
Dante ignored her jibe. “I could score a better gig like that.” He snapped his fingers but they were so waterlogged from swim practice they only made a muffled plop.
“Mm, hmm. Well, you know the drill. Tonight’s your turn to cook. You have summer school math at eleven this morning and I’ll be home by seven.”
“We can eat some of your friends tonight. Dan has some snapper he said we could have. Poké with rice, it is.”
~ ~ ~
“Are you OK, Maria? Your face looks…”
“It’s just the lights down here.”
“Well,” Wayne continued, “I’m uncomfortable with this setup. The other girls complain if we don’t have three air hoses positioned for them to grab.”
“Unless your insurance says you have to have them,” Maria tucked her curls of Latin-dark hair into a ponytail. “I think they kill the suspension of disbelief.”
Wayne, the exhibit manager at the Clearwater Aquarium, grit his teeth. “Not specifically…”
“Tell you what…” Maria had donned her outfit, replete with scallop-shell bikini-top, and sat on the tank’s edge, tail waving languidly in the salty water, “Position two of them off to either side so that their constant bubbles don’t distract anyone.”
With a sigh, Wayne gave a two-finger wave to Zander, the emergency diver, to do as she’d directed.
Zander had been listening raptly to Maria as she maneuvered her way around Wayne, smoothly controlling the discussion. Zander would have listened to Maria cite Wikipedia on the perils of decompression sickness, nodding placidly as she described the Nitrogen bubbles forming in your skin’s capillaries, stretching them, inducing screams of misery.
Zander repositioned the air hoses, all the while anticipating Maria’s next move.
Maria gave Wayne a salute, caught Zander’s eye—I’m going in—and slipped into the cool water of the forty-thousand gallon tank full of Gulf of Mexico fish, crabs, invertebrates, white-tipped reef sharks and one unpredictable hammerhead named Tony.
A recording began and the tank went dark.
She gave a flip of her tail that sent her gliding smoothly into position for The Mermaid’s Lament. The fish scattered while Tony paced a lazy circle to the right.
A video sprang to life on the audience-side of the glass depicting a shipwreck and a girl washed over the side. She floundered until Poseidon intervened and turned her into a mermaid. The lights lifted and there was Maria as Eirene, a daughter of the God of the Sea.
Maria had taken a lung-full of air from the bubbling tube to her left and had swum out to center stage. The recording continued describing Eirene’s failures and fumbling as a new creature of the sea. Maria mimed the actions as the narrator spelled them out. When normally the lead mermaid would have swum over to take a breath, Maria kept going. When Tony lashed out, not unexpectantly, Maria dodged away in a swirl. The thirty or so spectators, mostly moms and daughters, cheered and clapped.
The ten minute show continued, all the while Maria swam, spun, smiled and completed the act without any need to dash to the corner and suck on the air hose.
The tank darkened again and she swam to the surface.
“What the hell was that, Maria?” Wayne said, exasperated. “Every one of the crew kept waiting for you to pass out.”
Behind Wayne, Zander and the other actors voiced concern. “How did you not drown? I would have drown. But you didn’t drown.”
Miriam, mermaid #3, said, “What kind of trick is this, Maria? You expect us to not even breathe? Wayne,” she poked a finger into the big man’s shoulder, “I’m not gonna drown for a lousy one-fifty a day. I need my tubes.”
Wayne patted the air around him. “Alright, everyone. Maria has been training, right Maria? She just took a gawd-awful big breath and somehow finished the show with… Out… Um, taking another one.” He shook his head. “But next time she’s gonna follow the script and breathe when she’s supposed to breathe.” He gave Maria a hard stare. “OK, now. Let’s get ready for Dead Man’s Tale.”
Maria partially unzipped her suit and walked down the back hall to the lunch room. There she bought a Coke and sat, her fishy tail folded around her feet like an iridescent jellyfish.
“Are you not gonna tell them?” A raspy woman’s voice said from just outside the room. The woman entered and Maria swallowed abruptly.
She recovered and said, “Uh, hey there, Professor. Never thought I’d see you down here slummin’ it with the sideshow.”
Professor Amelia Nestra pulled out a plastic chair and sat, her hands clasped thoughtfully in her lap. She leaned forward with a serious look. “I saw the show. You’re gonna have to tell them. Your growing ability is not normal. If you don’t tell them so that they can prepare and ensure that neither you nor anyone else gets injured, I will.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will. I just wanted to figure out my endurance, first.”
“After you finish the treatment, and with awareness of activity level, you’ll be able to stay submerged, in well oxygenated water, well…”
“Indefinitely?”
The professor nodded.
“Wow, a real mermaid. I bet even Hans would be impressed.
21. A professional mermaid performer discovers she’s actually turning into a real mermaid (Aquatic fantasy)
I tuned Claude to be an asshole-editor…
Grammar and Spelling – You’re Better Than This
“won’tcha?” – Pick a dialect and stick with it. This folksy contraction clashes with Maria’s otherwise sharp dialogue.
“Maria she tucked her curls” – Did you even read this back? Delete “she” before submitting amateur-hour mistakes.
“Zanders eye” – Third-grade error. Possessive apostrophe. Learn it.
“not expectantly” – This isn’t a typo; this is you not knowing the difference between “expectantly” and “unexpectedly.” One means Tony was waiting hopefully. The other means Tony struck without warning. Learn vocabulary.
“breathe when she’s supposed to breath” – You used the correct form in the first instance, then failed in the second. Verb = breathe. Noun = breath. Memorize it.
“Why kind of trick” – Typo that spellcheck won’t catch. Proofread.
Awkwardness – Where Your Prose Goes to Die
Opening dialogue: “A riptide doesn’t ‘rip’, you dolt.” – This is your hook? A pedantic correction about etymology that no one cares about? You’re starting with a character explaining something the reader doesn’t understand about a conversation we weren’t part of. Weak.
“Feed some brain cells, won’tcha?” – What does this even mean? Feed them what? To whom? This sounds like you thought it was clever but it’s just confusing.
“gave him a face, are you really that stupid?” – “Gave him a face” is limp writing. “Shot him a look,” “glared,” “rolled her eyes” – anything but this vague gesture. And the comma splice into untagged dialogue is a structural mess.
“snumped” – Creative, but cute coinages need context. This one lands with a thud because we’re trying to figure out what sound wet fingers make instead of following the scene.
“That weird tourist smile always meant he was about to hear the money bells goin’ all wacky in alarm mode” – What the hell is a “tourist smile”? Is Wayne smiling? Is Maria smiling at tourists? And the money bells metaphor is tortured. You’re mixing registers (tourist smile, money bells, goin’) and creating confusion instead of clarity.
“her fishy tail folded around her feet like a filleted marlin” – You want us to picture her tail folded delicately, so you compare it to… a gutted fish? A filleted marlin is flat, dead, and splayed open. This simile murders your image.
“slummin’ it with the sideshow” – The professor wouldn’t talk like this. She’s formal in every other line. Consistency, please.
Consistency – Your Characters Have Amnesia
Maria’s blue skin: Dante mentions it. Then it vanishes. She’s performing in a skimpy shell bra and no one comments on her turning blue? Either this is visible and noteworthy, or it’s not. You can’t introduce a physical transformation and then forget about it.
Zander materializes from the void: “Zander had been listening raptly” – Who? The emergency diver you mentioned once? Give us a line earlier establishing him as a character before expecting us to care that he’s mooning over Maria.
Wayne’s characterization is incoherent: He’s worried about insurance, then he’s worried about money, then he’s exasperated but permissive, then he’s giving “hard stares.” Pick an emotional through-line for this man.
The apartment is “partially subsidized by the Florida Fund for Disadvantaged Families” – This is a twenty-word clause jammed into a description of sunlight. It stops the narrative dead. If their poverty matters, weave it in. If it doesn’t, cut it.
Timeline chaos: Maria will be “home by seven” but we have no idea when this conversation happens or when the show is. The next scene could be ten minutes later or five hours later.
Style – You’re Writing Three Different Stories
Your opening is contemporary sibling banter. Then it shifts into workplace drama with technical staging details. Then it becomes science fiction with a mysterious professor. None of these transitions are smooth.
The gene therapy reveal: This should be your hook, but you bury it in the third paragraph after an argument about riptides and brain supplements. Rip out that meandering opening and start with Maria injecting herself with the turquoise liquid. Make us wonder what it is before explaining.
Show descriptions are autopsy reports: “The ten minute show continued, all the while Maria swam, spun, smiled and completed the act” – This is you summarizing instead of showing. If the show doesn’t matter, cut it. If it does matter, show us a moment that reveals character or advances plot.
Dialogue tags are on life support: “Maria she tucked,” “Maria said, exasperated,” “A raspy woman’s voice said” – Weak, repetitive, amateur. Use action beats. Show us who’s speaking through what they do, not through constant attribution.
The Real Problems
You don’t trust your premise: Gene therapy that turns a woman into a functional mermaid is fascinating. But you’re so busy with workplace politics and sibling dynamics that you forget to make the transformation feel wondrous or dangerous or even interesting.
Your protagonist has no agency: Maria gets gene therapy, performs, gets scolded, sits down, gets scolded again. She reacts to everyone else. What does she want?
The stakes are invisible: So Maria can hold her breath. So what? Who cares? Why should we? The professor’s warning that Maria needs to tell her coworkers falls flat because we don’t see why it matters.
“I bet even Hans would be impressed” – Who the fuck is Hans? Don’t drop names as supposed payoffs when we’ve never heard of these people. This is Fiction Writing 101: every element should be earned.
What Works (Briefly)
The medical case with turquoise liquid is good visual storytelling. The aquarium setting has potential. Maria’s snark toward Dante feels real.
Everything else needs work.
Fix: Cut your opening. Start with injection or underwater. Establish stakes. Make Maria want something. Show us why being a mermaid matters beyond party tricks at an aquarium. And for God’s sake, proofread.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
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