First Draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" Done

I surprised myself this week. I actually finished the first draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" just like I said I would.

It came in at just a bit over 2,000 words. That makes it one of my non-formulaic short stories. That could change after a few more drafts.

Most lines are either  a Tom Swiftly or a pun. I want to have another go at the non-pun lines and see if I can bring them into line. Some of the puns and Tom Swiftlies are pretty bad, so I want to see if I can come up with improvements there.

I don't normally make much use of a thesaurus in my writing, but this time I used it quite a lot. A short time ago I saw an interview with John Cleese where he talked about how they wrote the Parrot Sketch. He said they used a thesaurus for that one, so I was inspired to try it on this story.

I am worried that I may have overdone the Tom Swiftlies. I think I have more than 200 now. Most of the time, when people read Tom Swiftlies, they only do a dozen or so at a time. Will people burn out after a hundred or so?

One article I read about comedy writing recommended that you write a good story first, then go back and make it funny. I tried to do that with this story. It has some similarities to "The Barrier". As it stands, the story is kind of thin, but I think it is enough of a story to make the humour work. I'm sure people will be more than happy to correct my impression.

See "The Barrier" at: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

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