My 10 Most Popular Posts

The number of hits I get on a post on my blog can vary quite a lot. Of course I like it when I get a large number of hits. What is it about my popular posts that makes them so popular?

In addition to my own blog, I post on Blogger and FaceBook. The popularity of my posts are quite different on each of these sites. I picked the top 10 based on my own site, and will mention some popular posts on the other sites.

10. Return to Blogging

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/return-to-blogging/

In this post I talked about restarting my blog. I had stopped because I had to help take care of my wife while she was sick. As such, this was a more personal post than I usually write. It was also the most popular post, by far, on FaceBook.

A closely related post: My Own Conflicts http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-own-conflicts/ was the second most popular on FaceBook.

I don't feel comfortable writing posts that are too personal, but it is also clear that those kinds of posts are usually more popular.

9. I Finally Brought A Long Held Dream to Fruition

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/i-finally-brought-a-long-held-dream-to-fruition/

This is my post to promote my Doc Savage novella: "The 89th Key". http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/

The release of a major piece of work does attract more attention that a progress update. Of course, I need to have something to release in order to do a post like this.

8. New Ideas for Transportation Planning Stories

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/new-ideas-for-transportation-planning-stories/

I've worked on several projects that have transportation planning as a background. While my movie "The Barrier" is still at version 0.6, I wanted to start on a new project. I am glad to see that the topic does still attract some interest. As it was, I got side tracked onto other projects. Maybe I can get back to this next year.

7. The Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot Test Drive

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-lester-dent-master-fiction-plot-test-drive/

I first posted this in December of 2010, so despite being an old post, it still draws new visitors.

Lester Dent was a prolific pulp writer back in the 1930s and 1940s and is best known for writing most of the Doc Savage stories. I came across an article he wrote about what he called his master fiction plot. It is a formula for a action adventure pulp story. I found that it helped me improve my writing.

I've experimented with variations of the formula; mostly by trying to adapt it to other types of stories. Some people denigrate "formula writing", but I find it a valuable tool. Certainly at some stages of writing, it can really get things going. I find that when I don't follow this structure, it becomes very difficult to write.

The popularity of this post reflects the interest that writers have in tools they can use for writing. In the original post I included a link to the article, but the link went dead, so I added a copy of the article to the end of the post, so that it is available to people who find my post.

6. My New Website Theme: As The Goals Change

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-new-website-theme-as-the-goals-change/

Late last year I started to develop a new WordPress theme for my website. I'm not sure why it should be so popular. In the end I abandoned my new theme and picked one of the free themes that are available. I did make a few modifications, and would like to make some more, but this is a low priority for me.

5. "2001: A Space Odyssey"  and H. P. Lovecraft

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/2001-a-space-odyssey-and-h-p-lovecraft/

2001 was and is my favourite movie. I've also had an interest in H.P. Lovecraft. One day I was struck by the idea that there was a connection between the two, so I wrote up my thoughts on it.

I posted this back in April of 2014, so this is another old post that keeps drawing in readers.

4. My Film Equipment Repair Adventure

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-film-equipment-repair-adventure/

I have an old Sankyo Dualux 1000 super 8/ regular 8 projector that belonged to my parents. Unfortunately, the drive belt wore out and broke. I tried to find a replacement belt, but they are expensive. I experimented with using an O-ring and a rubber band.

It seems that a lot of other people have the same projector, and the same problem with the drive belt. I posted this in February 2012 and still get hits on this page frequently.

2. and 3. Experiments With the Trial Version of nawmalMAKE and The New Nawmal: Good News for "The Barrier"

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/experiments-with-the-trial-version-of-nawmalmake/

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-new-nawmal-good-news-for-the-barrier/

I wrote these two posts about NawmalMake. It is a rerelease of the old Xtranormal program that I used to make "The Barrier" and "Make ’ em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way".

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/

I was quite glad to see it rereleased, so I could do a final version of "The Barrier". Unfortunately, the timing isn't good for me, so I haven't been able to take advantage of the new release. I did some tests though.

The one big worry I have is that the new company will not be able to make a go of it and the program will no longer be available when I have time to use it. The fact that these two posts are attracting a lot of hits even months after it was posted tells me that there is some interest in the program. This is a positive sign for the future of the program.

1. Conversational Films: A Small Genre

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/conversational-stories/conversational-films-a-small-genre/

One of my favourite films is Linklater's "Before Sunrise". I've had the urge to make something similar. In this post I look at similar movies that would call conversational films. I only identified a few, but I suspect there are some more I am unaware of.

I'm not sure why this post should be so popular. Even though it was posted back in March 2012, it was still my most popular post this year. Maybe there is a desire out there for similar movies.

I wrote my story "The Crying Woman" as the basis for a movie like this, but I haven't followed up on it yet. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/

Honourable Mention: Do Ancient Alien Probes Watch Earth?

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/do-ancient-alien-probes-watch-earth/

While this post did not attract much attention on my site or FaceBook, it was very popular on Blogger. No one made any comments, but I think that may be a good thing. Many of the people who would be interested would be interested in the conspiracy theory aspects of the idea, and would not be very positively disposed to my more sceptical approach to the idea.

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

I Finally Brought A Long Held Dream to Fruition

Long ago I decided I wanted to write a Doc Savage adventure. Now I finally did.

You can download and read it from my website: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/

The 89th Key - A Doc Savage Adventure

A strangely familiar sound brings death rather than reassurance. The quiet contemplation of a charity concert is broken by the sudden violent kidnapping of Warren Evans, a prominent businessman. Doc Savage and his men have only hours to rescue him.

Read the HTML version: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-html-version/

ePub version download page: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-epub-version/

MOBI version download page: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-mobi-version/

PDF version download page: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-pdf-version/

The Story Behind the Story

When I was in high school I wanted to write a novel. I played around with some ideas, but they never went anywhere. At the time I read a lot of Doc Savage books and was quite familiar with the characters. I decided that it would be easier for me to write a book if I wrote it as a Doc Savage story.

So, during the summer between high school and university I started on my own Doc Savage adventure story. That was in 1972 if you must know. I called it "The Smiling Corpse". I managed to write a bit more than one chapter; about 2,200 words altogether. At that point I gave up because I felt that I just wasn't ready.

Over the last few years I have developed my writing somewhat and written some longer stories. I have 3 or 4 novella length stories that I got stuck on. A couple months ago I decided that maybe I had reached the point where I could probably write my own Doc Savage adventure, so I did. I'd used "The Smiling Corpse" title for a different project, so I developed a new plot and title: "The 89th Key".

In part, my objective was to fulfill a long ago ambition, but I also thought it would be good practice for my own writing. I think I did learn a lot from the experience.

I wrote an outline and then started the first draft. I completed the first draft two weeks after I started on the outline. I did a couple more drafts and had the final version done a month later. In the rewrites I fixed grammar, wording and some plot inconsistencies. I didn't make any major changes to the story.

I felt the story turned out pretty good. While I've read quite a few Doc Savage books, my knowledge of the characters and settings falls well short of encyclopaedic. Connoisseurs of Doc Savage may be disappointed.

The book was shorter than I would have liked. It came in at 25,700 words, which makes it a novella. During the original run of Doc Savage, the average length was 38,500 words, but this varied quite a bit. "The Land of Terror" at 56,000 words was the longest. "Fire and Ice" at 25,200 words was the shortest. So, while my story is on the short end of the range, it isn't the shortest.

Legal Issues

While I intended to undertake the project as a writing exercise, I did want to share it with other people. That is a bit of a problem. I looked into what the legal status of a book like this is, and if I could make it available.

In Canada, where I live, the copyright of a book lasts for 50 years after the death of the author. Other countries have that set at 70 years. Lester Dent, who wrote most of the Doc Savage adventures passed away in 1959, which would make the ones he wrote in the public domain in Canada. However, another consideration is that the name Doc Savage is a trademark. Currently, the publisher Condé Nast owns that trademark. I assume this would include integral elements of the stories, such as the other characters.

Another consideration is the growth in "Fan Fiction." Many people write their own stories based on characters and make them available. There are many Harry Potter fan written stories for example. I found some discussions of the legal status of fan fiction that I think is relevant.

Strictly speaking, fan fiction would be considered a copyright violation. However, some authors and publishers tolerate and sometimes encourage fan fiction. This is because fan fiction can help market the books they sell. This is purely at the discretion of the authors or publishers. I found some Doc Savage fan fiction on the Internet, which suggests to me that it is tolerated by the publisher.

From what I read about what is acceptable in fan fiction the main consideration is that you can't sell it. I am hadn't intended to sell it anyway, so I don't mind this restriction.  Another consideration is how widely available the book is. Generally speaking, most fan fiction gets very little distribution. I don't expect that this book will be widely read.

Of course, should the owners of the Doc Savage trademark  ask me to remove my book from the Internet, I would quite willingly comply. Although, I do think it is to their advantage to allow it to be available.

Since my intention was to have this be a writing exercise, I wouldn't be too upset if I couldn't share it with others.

What's Next

While I am happy how this book turned out, I would like to write a book that I can sell. In earlier blog posts I talked about an idea I call "The Disruptors" which I could do in the same way as this book.

I think the most important lesson I learned when I wrote "The 89th Key" was how important it is to develop your characters. This book is very focussed on the plot, but when you have very distinct characters like in the Doc Savage stories, the writing becomes much easier. The characters give life to the story. Otherwise, you just push them around like a bunch of toy soldiers.

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

Lessons From My Early Writing

This week I reread some of my earliest writing attempts from 40 years ago. I hadn't thought about them until the last few months. Although they were failures for the most part, they taught me some lessons.

In Stephen King's book "On Writing", he says he began to write when he was very young. It took him many years to become successful. I came away with the feeling that since I had not started that early, that it would be harder for me to get into writing.

Recently I found some stories and notes for stories that I had worked on when I was in junior and senior high school. While I did not start as early as Stephen King, I have certainly tried to write for many years.

While most of my writing at school was various types of essays, a couple teachers did give me opportunities to write short fiction. More importantly, I wrote stories outside of my school assignments. I also began to make short movies when I was in high school.

One story that I did finish was "The Sleeper in the Dark", an attempt to emulate Lovecraft. I posted that on my website at: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-sleeper-in-the-dark/

In high school I wanted to write a novel. I remembered that I tried twice, but when I looked at my old papers I found notes for several other attempts. None of these produced more than outlines or a few pages of text.

The first attempt I remember was to do something like "Lord of the Rings". Needless to say, that was a poor choice for a first book. I began with a time line of events, from which I would later extract information for the story. I worked on the time line when I had free time at school.

The problem I ran into was that there was nothing that happened in the time line that lent itself to being  the core of a plot. I started without any idea where the story would go and just drifted. In essence the character just existed, didn't change or develop and nothing important happened to him. I abandoned that project.

The other attempt I remember was a Doc Savage book. Since I had read a number of Doc Savage books, I felt I knew the characters and how the stories went.  I gave the story a title: "The Smiling Corpse".

I found four typed pages, comprising Chapter 1 and part of Chapter 2. When I converted it to a text file, they ran about 2,200 words. I don't remember if I had any kind of out line or notes. I didn't find any kind of notes for the story. I found an outline I did for "The Lost Oasis", although I'm not sure that I did that before or after I wrote "The Smiling Corpse".

When I reread it, I couldn't see where I was going with the story. I say that Doc was off in Hong Kong, but the story was set in New York. One thing that struck me was that the victim/smiling corpse was a poet, who was a friend of Doc's. I wouldn't think many people would associate Doc Savage with poetry.

I dropped this project because I didn't think that the dialogue I wrote was very good. I felt I needed to have a much better understanding of the characters if I was to see any improvement.

I liked the title "The Smiling Corpse" and reused it for a short movie I made a few years later. It was silent, so didn't have any dialogue.

Out of curiosity, I did a search on the title "The Smiling Corpse" and turned up several different books and a short movie with that title. One book was a detective story published in 1935 by Philip Wylie. Wylie co-wrote "When Worlds Collide". The main characters in the book are well know writers, so I think it was something of a satire.

I gave up on writing a novel for a few years. Then in the early 1980s I tried a story I called "Conan the Accountant". In some ways it was a repeat of my experience with "The Smiling Corpse". I didn't develop an outline, or plan, for the story and it drifted away from the original idea. I found 11 typed pages, with close to 5,700 words in total. I can't remember why I dropped that one, but when I reread it, I cringed at some of what I wrote.

In the 1990s I dropped the idea of writing to focus on film making. For some reason I film easier to do. Partly that was because the films I did were shorter, but I think that I am just more comfortable with film as a way to express myself.

In the last few years I have started to make more use of outlines and story plans in my writing. I feel that has helped me move beyond some of the problems that stopped me years ago. I really feel it is important to have a very strong idea how the story ends before you start to write. Too many of my ideas have failed because I had no idea how to end them.

I haven't come up with an approach I can use to create better dialogue and characters, but I think that my skills have improved. It is easy to get over confident, and I know that when I do, my writing suffers.

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

My Goals for 2014

A couple of weeks ago I looked back at what I did in 2013. In this post, I will talk about what I want to get done in 2014. Some projects never seem to end. I would like to hear what projects you think I should focus on.

Felix

My first priority this year will be to rewrite Felix, my Lovecraft inspired science fiction story. I finished a first draft of Felix early in 2013. Since then, I focussed on The Barrier. Even so, I thought about Felix from time to time.

I've come up with some ideas about how to develop it further. Some sections I think I will just toss out and rewrite from scratch. The dialogue needs work. One thought I had was to use Xtranormal/State to work with the dialogue. I found that it was a big help when I wrote The Barrier.

The Barrier

I had some vague idea that I might remake The Barrier as a live action movie sometime in the future. I wanted to leave it as it is for a while and cogitate on the feedback I would get.

I haven't had a lot of feedback so far, and it is hard to fully absorb the feedback I did get quickly. Nonetheless, I am left with the sense that the movie has potential, although maybe not enough to justify the cost of a full-blown movie.

The feedback I had from transportation planners was positive, but mixed results from other people. It may be that my market may be limited to transportation planners. I want to get some more feedback from people outside the transportation field.

Right now my thought is to make some major changes to the animated version of the movie, and make that the final version. There is an issue with the legal status of Xtranormal, so I would need to redo the whole movie with a different system if I did major changes. Maybe I can do some improvements with less drastic changes

Some of the ideas I had:

• redo the character voices with real actors,
• add music to the sound track (although I have no idea what might work), and
• change the order of the scenes

I am inclined to do some experiments with real voices and different types of music.

Replace Xtranormal

I found Xtranormal to be a useful tool, and I am disappointed that it is no longer available. I want to find something to replace it. There are several options I want to look into: http://plotagon.com, http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/, http://stateplus2.hackernewbies.com/, and http://www.reallusion.com/products.aspx. I might be able to find some other ones to look at too.

My Most Difficult Case

This has become a permanent feature of my to-do list. I would like to get this project behind me. I'm not even sure just what I still have left to do. I hope I can keep it to some minor fix-ups.

Bright Freedom

I have a first draft of this story, but it has been a year and a half since I last worked on it. From time to time I have ideas to add to this story. I converted it from a movie script to a novelette. Now, after my experience with The Barrier, I wonder if I should make it into a movie again. Like with Felix, I think I could use something like Xtranormal to help me rewrite the dialogue.

Before I take it too much further, I really should get some one to read it and get a better sense of how people react to it. I need to do more research to ensure that it comes across as realistic. With the other projects I have in mind, I don't expect that I will get far with Bright Freedom this year.

Creative Experiments

I think I need to put aside some time to experiment with writing and movie making ideas. I didn't do much of that in 2013 because I was so focussed on The Barrier.

I did a little experiment last week. I just finished reading Will Murray's Writing in Bronze about Doc Savage. It inspired me to come up with my own Doc Savage story.

I tried to write a Doc Savage story once before; back between high school and university. I think I only got a couple of pages done before I gave up. I did use the book title later: The Smiling Corpse. I think I still have it sitting in a box in my basement.

I got about two pages done on this new idea, which I call The 89th Key. Unlike the last time, I did work on an outline. I think that my failure last time was because I didn't develop and outline.

There are some Doc Savage fan fiction sites, so I could find people to read it when it is done. I'm not sure I want to do any more work on the story now. Maybe later I will get re-inspired. I read a lot of Doc Savage in High School, but I haven't read much lately, so I am not as familiar with the style now.

I think trying little projects like this will help me be more creative in my major projects.

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

Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter, and Formula Writing

I read all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars books back when I was in junior high and senior high school. After I read them, I kept them for many years (30 years plus). I had all the Tarzan books too. It was only a few years ago that I got rid of them all.

When John Carter (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/) came out, I got the yen to reread them. As I often say, I only get rid of things that I want to use later. I didn’t want to buy new copies to read and while some of them were available from the library, I didn’t really want to sign them out. The early books are in the public domain now and I could download them from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ , but I was too lazy, so I downloaded the audio versions of three books from http://librivox.org/.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but from what I’ve read it sounds like they mashed together the first three books. The main villain in the movie doesn’t show up until the second book. Some of the changes appear to make in easier for modern audiences to identify with the characters.

Of course, part of my reason why I reread the books was to see if I could gain a better understanding of how to put together a story. The Princess of Mars was the first novel that Burroughs wrote. I suspect that he studied other works before he did this story. In one article about him, they note that he used of a variety of charts when he wrote. The use of charts says to me that he had a formula he followed in his stories.

Some others have noted that the first three Mars books have pretty much the same plot, with John Carter in search of Dejah Thoris. The details of the search vary, but the goal remains the same.

Last year I studied the formula used by Lester Dent, who wrote the Doc Savage books. I could see some similarities with Burroughs’ work. Dent says you need to have the hero get into a fight every 1,500 words. In Princess of Mars, the hero gets into trouble about every 2,600 words, although this varies from one chapter to the next. It isn’t always a fight. In one case, it is a rejection from Dejah Thoris.

I have a few of observations about the book. First is that the hero has a clear goal (Dejah Thoris) throughout most of the book. While in pursuit of that goal, he runs into one crisis after another. Even while he struggles through each crisis, he thinks constantly about Dejah Thoris. Many times he gets frustrated because a crisis diverts him from his main goal.

The second point is that each chapter ends with the onset of the next problem the hero must overcome. After he has just triumphed over one foe, the next one taps him on the shoulder. The poor guy hardly gets a chance to breathe. I’ve read elsewhere that this is a well-known technique to make a book a page-turner. The hero can take a break in the middle of a crisis, but never after a crisis has passed.

The third is how lucky the hero is. For example: Dejah Thoris just happens to be in the air fleet that the Tharks attack. Dejah Thoris just happens to be on the ship that gets shot down. Dejah Thoris just happens to be the only survivor. Just by accident he is always in the right place at the right time. I didn’t notice this when I first read the story long ago, and didn’t notice it this time until I thought over the stories later. It reminded me of an incident I had in a script I wrote. The incident was a direct description of something that happened to me several times. Several readers criticised it as implausible. Maybe implausibility isn’t quite as important a problem as some people think.

The projects I have are nothing like the interplanetary adventure/love story that Burroughs wrote, but I can see how I can use some of his techniques in my stories.

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