First Draft of Bright Freedom Done

I finished the conversion of my script Bright Freedom into a story this week. It came in at a little over 17,500 words, which is supposed to be the boundary between a novelette and a novella. It runs 47 pages.

I gave it a quick scan and it was clear that I have a lot more work to do on it. I plan to leave it for a while, and then start a rewrite. I expect I’ll need to do quite a few rewrites.

I think I do have a problem with some of my writing, where I have essentially the same thing happens over and over. I managed to cut out some of that in this story as I rewrote it, but I still need to do some more.

Another mistake I made with this story is that the subplots are too big and left the main story line somewhat thin. I did some analysis of the story and the main story makes up about 70 per cent of the total words, while one subplot is 25 percent and the other about 5 per cent. That isn’t as bad as I thought. The main plot is actually two stories that are so intertwined that I really can’t separate them. I think that is why I felt like my subplots took up too much space. I plan to build up the main plot line more and cut some stuff out of the subplots.

In several scenes, I have the characters talk to each other on the phone. In some cases, I think this makes sense. In others, I think I should change the scene into a face to face meeting.

I noticed that scenes that I thought about quite a bit read much better. The scenes where I didn’t, come across as pretty limp. When I rewrite I think I should just do one scene at a time, and reread it at least a day before to get my mind focussed on it.

Another issue is that I’ve put in descriptions of what the character does while they talk or pause. I did that to break up the dialog, and avoid “he said” and “she said” descriptions. All too often, I have their gestures repeat. I think a lot of that has to come out. I also want to come up with a wider range of gestures, expressions, and actions. I want them to reveal what the characters are thinking, and what they are feeling.

Pierre Berton said that you should read something good before you start to write. I’ve been reading about H. P. Lovecraft, which is a very different kind of material from what I’m trying to do. I need to read a story more like what I’m writing. I can’t really think of any. It’s a little hard to describe what the story is, so it is hard to ask people for suggestions.

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Bright Freedom Update 2012 July 22

I started to work on my revised Sharkbiter video, but then I decided to concentrate on Bright Freedom instead. The project started as a film script a couple years ago, so I am converting the script into a novella. I got another 5,600 words done. One more session and I am done the first draft. I hope.

It will need a lot more work before I have something I feel I can publish. I do need to do some more background research. It should be easier to identify what I need to find out if I have a draft of the story.

I just read The Joy of Writing by Pierre Berton. Although it is mostly about writing non-fiction, it got me to think differently about this story.

Berton’s rule number 16 is to always describe the people. My characters are fictional, but, in the past, I have sought out images that I can use to visualize them. I picked someone to be Bright Freedom. I won’t say who I picked, but she just jumped into my mind as soon as I started to ponder who I could use. I haven’t given as much thought to the other characters as I wrote, so it is harder to visualize them.

I think I have too many characters and maybe too many subplots. I eliminated one character so far. She only had one scene and was mentioned a couple of times in other scenes, so it wasn’t hard to cut her out. I did lose a scene I liked though.

I have several characters that only play a small part, so I think it may make sense to merge them into other characters. I think I’ll need to build up some of the characters so they contribute more to the story.

I have five plot lines now and thought I might add another. In a previous, failed, script I ran into a problem where I added so many side stories, that people who read the outline thought one of the subplots was the main plot. As an exercise, I thought that I might try to split off all of the subplots into separate stories. That should help me focus on the core story. I plan to reintegrate the subplots later.

The core of the story is composed of two of the plot lines and can’t be separated because they are so intertwined with each other. One of the subplots is almost nonexistent now, but I think I can integrate it into the main story line. The other subplots are really to show the internal conflict that Bright faces because what she does and says in those stories contrasts with what she does and says in the main story.

After I have this first draft done, I will leave it for a while. I already have ideas for additional scenes. There are structural changes I’d like to make. I can see that I’ll need at least one more draft to take care of those additions. Then I want to do a draft where I flesh out the story with descriptive detail. I’ll likely need to do another draft to clean up the wording.

I want to get some input from people when I reach that point. In particular, since the main character is a woman, I want to see how women feel about what I’ve done. If you're a woman and would like to help, please let me know.

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Orville Sharkbiter and the Viral Video

I did a little research on viral videos and came across several articles on the subject. I’ve listed these at the bottom. I am a bit sceptical about articles of this nature, but I did draw a couple of ideas I think may be useful. To try them out, I’m redoing my Orville Sharkbiter Interview video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-9y-Bf6abU

Viral videos need to be short

I think that something in the range of one to two minutes would be OK. Some people seem to think under a minute would be better. I’ve long thought that you really need to keep your films and videos to the point. Now that I want to work in a longer form, I’ve let myself drift away from that.

The Orville Sharkbiter Interview runs just over nine minutes. I cut it up into seven parts. The shortest will end up around one and a half minutes, while the longest will be about two and half minutes.

Say what the video is about in the first 5 seconds

Because it is so easy for someone to switch to another video on the internet, you need to do something to keep them watching right at the start.

All my videos start with a title sequence. The front title for Sharkbiter runs 10 seconds and the end title runs even longer. I cut all the titles shorter. Then I put a brief blurb before the front title to hint at what will happen in the video.

I’ve done all seven videos now, but want to review them before I post. I expect I will need to make changes. Some of the blurbs are not very good.

List of viral video articles

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-14/strategy/30278478_1_viral-video-funny-videos-fun-video

http://merriamassociates.com/2010/01/web-video-six-keys-to-writing-scripts-for-video/

http://www.webtrafficroi.com/how-to-create-viral-videos/

http://insightfuldevelopment.com/6-ways-to-make-your-video-go-viral/

http://mashable.com/2010/10/19/viral-video-science/

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A Science Fiction Story

As part of my “keeping focused on one project at a time”, I started work on another story. That means I am “actively” involved with several projects: Bright Freedom, My Most Difficult Case, Contingency, The Sharkbiter Interview, and promotion of my films on YouTube and Vimeo. I have managed to avoid all the ideas I had for articles.

I used to read nothing but science fiction, but I haven’t tried to write any since high school, other than that one I came up with about seven years ago. One morning while still in bed I started to think about that story. I’ve changed my approach to writing since then, and I started to think how I’d do it now. One thought led to another, and I had to get up and write down all my ideas. Later I worked up an outline.

I think it wouldn’t be too hard to write now, but I really should put it on the shelf and get some of my other projects done. Well at least one anyway. Some elements of story are a bit weak, so letting it simmer for a while could produce something better.

The science fictional elements don’t show up until later in the story, so I’m reluctant to reveal much because I don’t want to give away the surprises. It touches on a controversial topic as well. I don’t like to get people upset. It was inspired by a real event.

I’m torn now because my new ideas that would make it a serious story, while my original ideas made it funny. Maybe I should write two versions of the story. What kind of story are people more likely to read, a serious story or a funny story?

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

You Can Now Watch “My Next Film” On-line

I just posted one of my more successful films, My Next Film on YouTube.

You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAPOadsMxW0 or on my site at: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-next-film/

In the film, Patrick Aull talks about his last film.

It debuted at the 10th annual $100 Film Festival in Calgary 2001 November 17, where it received an Honourable Mention in the Best of Alberta category.

The Calgary International Film Festival screened it in 2005.

It appeared on the Movieola Cable Channel, and they still show it from time to time: http://www.movieola.ca/search.php?searchBy=0&keyword=My+Next+Film

Please have a look at it.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

The Fenian Raids of 1866 and the Creation of Canada

The Fenian raids played an important role in the creation of Canada, but now, 146 years later, how many people in Canada have even heard of them? I vaguely remember one brief mention of them in my history classes.

After I became aware of the raids, I felt that there was a story that I’d like to see more widely known. At the time I wasn’t able to find much information on the raids. Last week I tried again and found more information.

The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_raids has a reasonable overview of the raids. It doesn’t have much depth though.

My current interest was provoked when I stumbled upon the recent book Delusion: The True Story of Victorian Superspy Henri Le Caron. Henri Le Caron (aka Thomas Miller Beach) was a spy for the British and Canadians. An interview with the author, Peter Edwards, is available on-line: Peter Edwards interview. I plan to read this book.

Henri Le Caron’s work was critical to the survival of Canada. Without his information and his efforts to sabotage of the Fenians, their raids would have been much more dangerous than they were. Most of the Fenians were veterans of the American Civil War, while the Canadians were mostly untrained volunteers.

I found some other books about Le Caron.

Twenty-five years in the secret service : the recollections of a spy is an autobiography that you can download as an e-book.

The Spy Who Came in from the Coalfield - A British Spy in Illinois by Joseph Clark is an article from the Journal Of Illinois History. You can download it as a pdf.

Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron by J.A.Cole

Short biographies on-line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Billis_Beach and

http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=5953.

I found some books about other aspects of the Fenian raids.

Troublous times in Canada; a history of the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870 by John A. MacDonald. This is not the Prime Minister of Canada. You can download this as an e-book.

Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky is history of one of the major battles with the Fenians.

A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe is a fictional work that involves the Battle of Ridgeway.

I haven’t decided if I will pursue this idea any further. I do want to learn more about the subject though. I am open for suggestions, if you have any.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog