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Exercise Wednesday: Single Entendre

The name of the song in the video isĀ Bad Things; its hook, “I wanna do bad things with you.”

The meaning of the bad things in the video is pretty clear. But let’s pretend for a minute the video isn’t sung by a fetching guy like Jace Everett to an attractive young brunette. Let’s pretend that the song was sung by the cartoon character Tommy Pickles (a toddler) to his pals Chuckie, Phil, and Lil. What bad things would they do?

Or let’s pretend that the singer is your uncle, the one who always adds excitement to family gatherings with his practical jokes. (Remember that time he replaced the black olives in the salad with black jelly beans? At the family thing after Aunt Mary’s funeral? What a pill.)

In today’s writing prompt, someone’s gonna wanna do bad things with your character. Except they aren’t going to be between-the-sheets bad things. What’s your character’s response? Does she go along? Does he resist? What happens next?

Time limit: 30 minutes

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Chris Hamilton is the current FWA Executive Vice President and the Project Manager for the Florida Writers Conference. He is a three-time RPLA finalist and has been featured in two FWA collections. He opines periodically about things of minimal importance at his personal blog.