NWC #11- "Bad
writing" DUE Nov 12th at 8am
Challenge: Write as badly
as you can. No, worse. Cliches. Bad dialogue. Predictable behaviors and plot
lines. Exposition? Obvious.
Giggle as you do this. Or
hate-type your anger out at the page. Write the way no body should ever write.
Warning, sometimes this
trech-ercise accidentally results in brilliance. If that happens, let it keep
flowing out of you. Don't try to control it.
Don't try to help it or
preserve it. This isn't you writing! This is opening yourself up to the
possibility of being terrible- because once you do that you're also open to
unexpected brilliance.
Bonus- include an animal
or child on stage.
THAT'S MY FETUS!
BETTY
and BOB.
Their
living room.
BOB
As
you know, Betty, you and I have been married to each other for seven years.
BETTY
Yes,
Bob, my husband. I am aware of that.
BOB
Seven
long years.
BETTY
Wouldn't
have seemed so long if they'd been good years, would they, Bob?
BOB
Yes,
Betty, it's been tough.
BETTY
By
tough, do you mean the abortion you've never forgiven me for?
BOB
Now,
Betty, what did I tell you about ending a sentence in a preposition?
BETTY
I'm
sorry, Grammar Nazi. I meant, of course,
the abortion for which you've never forgiven me.
BOB
It's
not a choice, it's a child, Betty.
BETTY
Well,
it wasn't your child, Bob, and if I'd let it live, probably even someone as
stupid and selfish as you would have figured out the baby looks nothing like
you.
BOB
Who
would it look like, Betty? Perhaps
Pablo, our groundskeeper?
BETTY
You
should know, Bob. You slept with him,
too.
BOB
Bisexuals
are so confusing.
BETTY
You
should know, Bob. Why didn't you screw
your secretary like any normal man?
Heck, I'd fuck her. Oh wait, I
did. I borrowed one of the dildos you
and Pablo were temporarily not shoving up your bungholes together and gave that
minimum wage slave the ride of her life.
BOB
Her
short life.
BETTY
Not
as short as my baby's.
BOB
Why
did my secretary kill herself?
BETTY
Aside
from the fact she was working for you, you mean?
BOB
Yes,
aside from that.
BETTY
She's
a woman in America, Bob. Do the math.
BOB
Misogyny
killed my secretary?
BETTY
No. Her Protestantism did. Protestants are pussies. They can't cope with the supernatural.
BOB
I
love that TV show.
BETTY
Of
course you do. It features four
attractive men who are all in love with each other and REALLY tortured about
it. But I meant the actual supernatural,
Bob.
BOB
Oh,
you mean like the fact that the spirit of your aborted fetus still haunts our
house?
BETTY
Yes,
Bob. Exactly.
Betty's aborted FETUS starts dragging itself across
the stage with the bloody stumps that would have become its arms and legs.
BOB
There
is it now. Hi, baby!
FETUS
Fuck
off, Bob. You're not my daddy.
BOB
I
still love you. All life is precious.
FETUS
Stuff
it, you useless old fuck. Go sodomize
the gardener.
BOB
He's
a groundskeeper.
FETUS
You
still pay him more for servicing your shriveled dick that you do for trimming
the hedges, so I don't think he much cares what you call him. And I don't feel like reinforcing your sense
of superiority by adopting your pretentious vocabulary, so, you know, eat me.
BOB
I
wish I'd gotten a chance to know you.
FETUS
You'll
have plenty of time. I'll be haunting
your ass the rest of your life.
BOB
I
meant, really know you. As a baby.
FETUS
Life
begins at conception. I am a baby. Was a baby.
Will forever be a murdered baby dragging my bloody carcass around your
house and ruining your hardwood floors.
BOB
It's
what we deserve.
BETTY
You
see, we can have a conversation with the spirit of an aborted fetus and not
lose our minds. We're Catholics. We still believe in exorcism. We expect the devil, the actual devil, not a
fictional construct, to come to our front door and knock. We see our entire lives as a struggle against
a real enemy, actual evil in the flesh.
And of course we believe in saints and angels. It's a pity the vast majority of decent
churchgoing folk don't believe in things like ending poverty or hunger or
healing the sick or visiting those in prison.
Things that, you know, might actuall;y help. Keep us from being bored. Fucking the help.
FETUS
Aborting
fetuses.
BETTY
Exactly. What if we actually did good instead of
insisting we ARE good without any proof to back it up.
FETUS
I
enjoyed driving your secretary insane, Bob.
Now she's in hell, with all the other suicides. And me, and all the aborted fetuses. And one day you, too, will join us, burning
in the eternal flames.
BETTY
Your
theology is troubling, dead baby.
FETUS
You
should be troubled, you adulterous murdering bitch.
BETTY
Finally
someone sees me for who I truly am.
FETUS
I
have a name.
BETTY
What
is it?
FETUS
Fuck
you! You'll never know.
BOB
That
seems like an awfully long name.
FETUS
Now
I know why you fucked the gardener and the secretary.
BOB
Groundskeeper
and executive assistant.
FETUS
Fuck
your vocabulary of privilege, non-daddy.
BETTY
Why
will I never know your name, dead baby?
FETUS
Because
God gave me my name. And God will never
speak to you again.
BETTY
But
we'll be together again in hell.
FETUS
And
I will make your life here on earth a living hell until then.
BETTY
I'm
already married to Bob. There's not much
more you can do to me.
BOB tries to clean the
floor.
BOB
Where
does all this blood come from? How do
you keep bleeding?
FETUS
It's
my blood, mixed with the blood of Christ, and all the Christian martyrs and
saints, condemning you with the bright red stain of retribution and God's
unforgiving justice.
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