Some Thoughts about “Billy’s Big Discovery”

Some years ago, I wrote a short story called "Billy's Big Discovery".  Recently I thought about revising and expanding it into a longer story. It was clear right away that there were several problems I would need to overcome if I want to build the story into something longer.

The Story

https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/billys-big-discovery/

The story is about a University professor/scientist who makes his most important discovery on his last day before he retires. This discovery causes to change his mind about a theory he has promoted for his entire career. One of his former students is working on a worldwide crisis. Billy's discovery and the change in the theory provide him with a breakthrough that will help him solve the crisis.

Story Structure

Currently the story consists of a prologue set in Billy's childhood. The rest of story happens on his last day of work as he clears out his office. In the last section, a former student comes to visit and that is when Billy makes his big discovery.

If I expand this story, I'll need to have a different structure. My approach would be to have a series of flashbacks as the various things Billy finds in his office as he packs up bring back memories. I would still end with the visit from the student. I could add a little variety by having other people stop by to say goodbye. I would still like to keep the prologue when Billy is a child rather than as a flashback.

This structure would allow me to explore Billy's character in more detail. It would also allow me to introduce other characters and develop them as well. I could use the flashbacks to create the background to the crisis, theory, and discovery.

Characters

I would like to add a flashback to introduce the student and how Billy got them become a scientist. In my original story, the student is a man, but I'm inclined to make the character a woman. I could have her taking one of his classes as an elective so, her words, she doesn’t have to be a secretary. Billy notices that the class bores her, and he talks to her about it later. He assigns her to do some work on his project. This sparks her interest and starts her on the road to her destiny.

With a longer story I would need to add more characters. This could include a wife, children, and various colleagues. Some of the colleagues would be rivals and some supporters. I think it would be poignant if Billy had a huge conflict with a colleague, and at the end he accepts that this person was right. It would be a more interesting character if he had to overcome personal animosity to accept what his rival had said all along.

Other Issues

Another issue that I implied but did not develop is how Billy has come to terms with a career that never led him to the big discovery he dreamt of making as a young child. This would form the basis for much of the conversation (or rather monologue) between Billy and his student. It would give the title of the story a double meaning.

The Discovery, the Theory, and the Crisis

The core of the story is the discovery that causes Billy to change an opinion that he has professed most of his life. At the time I wrote the story, I couldn't think of a suitable discovery. I struggles with that, but I finally decided that in a short story it really wasn't necessary to have a specific discovery. It might be a bit frustrating for some readers, but it wouldn't really mater to the point I wanted to make with the story.

However, if I develop a longer story, I will really need to have a discovery and a theory that it overturns. The discovery would need to be something that he would not have noticed before. It would be something that would be able to convince him that he was wrong. The discovery would need to something that would help his former student find a solution to a worldwide crisis.

My current feeling is that it would not be an easy to come up with a plausible combination of crisis, theory, and discovery. I don't think a current real-world crisis (climate change or pandemic) would work, because it would be difficult to come up with a believable discovery. It would be a disappointment for readers if they are hoping for a solution that would deal with the real-world issue. It would also be difficult to dream up a combination from nothing.

In any event, I haven't come up with any options worth considering. Without that, I don’t think I can move forward on a revision to the story.

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

An Old Mystery Solved

I have a memory from many years ago. I was watching a TV program some time between 1959 and 1966 when I saw a short sequence of two scenes. That memory has haunted me since then, but I have no idea what it was about. Now I think I know.

The sequence I remember starts when someone opens a doorway and a very bright light shines through the opening. Three women walk into the light and then they close the door. It was followed by a scene where they open the door and the bright light is gone. Some men go through the doorway and bring out the dead bodies of the women.

I’ve often wondered what it was I saw. I don’t remember anything before or after. It didn’t make any sense to me. I used to wonder what it was all about. I assumed that it was some low budget TV program and it was unlikely that I would ever find out where it came from. There were times where I wondered if it was a real memory or maybe something I dreamt.

Recently, because of social distancing I’ve spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos at home. I started to watch an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on YouTube. They were doing “The Mole People”, the 1956 horror film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq6AlUUCgi4  I’d heard of the movie and remember seeing pictures of the mole people. I never had any inclination to watch it, but I wanted something on the TV while I did my exercises for the day.

I only watched about half of the movie at the time. A couple days later I decided to watch the rest of the movie. In the movie there is a slave revolt that threatens to cut off the bad guy’s food supply. The king of the bad guys decides that the only way to save their country is to do a human sacrifice to their goddess Ishtar. https://youtu.be/hq6AlUUCgi4?t=4460 It was a bit weird because the way he expressed it was similar to a report I saw on TV about some politicians down in the US who said they are willing to let other people die of COVID-19 to get the economy restarted. In the movie they used it to portray the bad guys as uncaring and inhumane.

Anyway, they came to the scene where they were going to do the sacrifice. As soon as it started, I noticed they were going to sacrifice three women, which got me thinking about the scene I saw all those years ago. https://youtu.be/hq6AlUUCgi4?t=4613

When it came to the actual sacrifice, it was so close to what I remember that it had to be what I saw. It wasn’t exactly as I remembered, but it was close enough that I’m sure the differences are due to over 50 years of a slowly fading memory. I didn’t recognize anything else from the movie, so I must have just seen that one scene.

At least I don’t need to wonder what I saw anymore. I can rest easy now, except for nightmares about human sacrifices.

When I made the image for this post, I added some details to the TV. When I resized the image before uploading it, most of the detail was lost. At least I had some fun doing the image.

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

“The Interrogation” Update 2020 April 7

Progress on "The Interrogation" has stalled a bit, after some productivity. However, I did complete another round of revisions to the outline since my last update: https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-interrogation-update-2020-february-9/

Feedback

I read the outline I wrote at a couple of meetings of my script writer’s group. The response was generally positive, although they did point out some issues with what I had so far. Everyone had some advice, which was helpful to me.

I compiled a list of the suggestions I had as a first step toward the revisions. While I worked on that I came up with some ideas of my own. This formed the objectives I had for the revision.

Revisions

•         I added more detail to the character descriptions in the outline. This included behaviour, attitudes, physical descriptions and clothes. One of the suggestions I had about the outline was that this kind of information was missing from the outline. I had created some of this information earlier, but kept it separate from the outline.

•         Some characters made what look like stupid decisions. I tried to come up with ways to make those decisions appear more reasonable to the characters.

•         I gave each of the minor characters a distinctive personality, although none of them are very complex.

•         I gave some of the characters new names. The original ones were kind of on the silly side, which doesn't fit well with the tone of the story.

•         The solution that my protagonists come up with feels like it was just a random guess that turned out to be right. I tried to make it the result of a methodical process.

•         I had a couple of long scenes that I decided to break up into multiple scenes. In one case that was to indicate time gaps. In the other case it was because the location was changing, although in a very minor way.

•         Many of what I considered minor scenes had very sparse descriptions. I expanded the descriptions for most of those scenes. I would like to develop them into more important scenes.

•         I had two major interrogation scenes, but one was much longer than the other. I tried to move some of the action from the longer one to the shorter one.

•         I added some minor red herrings and barriers to some scenes to give them more substance.

•         I realised I had a plot hole where the villain recognizes the main protagonist without any prior contact. I added a scene to explain why he was able to recognize her.

•         I added to a couple of scenes to make it clear that the captured terrorist does not know where or when the attack will be. He does know something that allows the protagonists to identify the time and place, even though he doesn't realize the importance.

•         In addition to the main conflict between the bad guys and the good guys, I had hinted that there was conflict within these two groups. In my revisions I tried to develop those conflicts in more detail.

•         In an earlier version I made the terrorist group a group of white supremacists. In this round of revisions, I added a brief scene to identify that good guys as the Anti-Terrorism Joint Task Force (ATJTF). I see it as a team made up of people from different organizations. I would like to come up with a name that has a better acronym.

Summary of Progress

In this round of revisions, I went from 15 scenes to 21. The rule of thumb I heard was that scenes generally run 2 to 3 minutes. That would make this script run 42 to 63 minutes. That is too long for a short, and too short for a feature.

For now, I won't let myself get too concerned about the script falling into an unsaleable range. I don't see what I could cut out, and I don't want to add in any unrelated filler. It also strikes me that some of the scenes could end up running much longer than 2 to 3 minutes. I won't have a real grasp on this until I get a draft of the script done. I would hope that by then I would have a better understanding of the characters, which could spark ideas to expand the story.

What Next?

Now that I am stuck at home and practicing social distancing, I thought I’d be more productive. I’ve found that checking the COVID 19 news every couple of hours, is not conducive to rapid progress on my story.

I ran into a bit of a snag when my laptop decided to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. I had to delete most of my programs before it would upgrade. This included Scrivener, which I used to write the outline. I've preferred to write using my laptop rather than my desktop. The desktop is in a room on the north side of my house, and I like to work in a room on the south side, where I get some very welcome sunshine in these dark days of social distancing.

I decided to take a bit of a break from the project. I am debating whether I should dive into writing a first draft of the script or, if I should do more work on the outline and character descriptions. I do feel impatient to "get going" and write the script.

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