Conversation Stories 2012 February 20

My story The Crying Woman is what I call a “conversation story”. I plan to do what I’ve done with my transportation planning stories and write a series of articles and blog posts to explore that concept more thoroughly.

Other than write The Crying Woman and set up the conversation stories webpage, I haven’t produced much. However, I have given it a lot of thought. I have an article partly drafted, but it may be a while before I publish it yet. With my film Contingency still not quite ready, I can put too much time into anything else. At least not for a few weeks yet.

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

What I Found in My Notebook

A couple of years ago I started to keep a notebook of the ideas I had for my films and writing. It isn’t an original idea. In several writing courses I took, they suggested I do that.

The other day I pulled it out to look up some notes I wrote last week for an idea I had for an article. As I flipped through the pages I came across some notes I wrote about a film idea I had last August. I had completely forgotten about it. That surprised me.

The story is a variation of the idea I had for The Crying Woman. Like The Crying Woman, the story is about a chance meeting between two people. Where and how they meet is different. The two characters are different. What they want is different. Overall, I think it is a darker story, but it has a happy ending. It also has a message that I feel strongly about.

When I reread my notes, I found the story compelling enough to want to work on it some more. Right now, I have a couple of projects that I want to complete, so I can’t go back to it right now. I have notes for a couple of other stories I want to do.

The big advantage of keeping a notebook is that you don’t lose any of the ideas you have. You never know when they will prove useful. On the other hand, I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney where he said that he felt that if you couldn’t remember it later, then it wasn’t that good an idea. That may be the case with him, but I think I can use all the help I can get.

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

New Stories in the Works: “The Gladstone Barrier” and “The Crying Woman”

The Gladstone Barrier

I was stalled on my second “transportation engineer” story for a while now. This week I managed to get started again. I am about half way through the first draft now. It seems to be harder to write than the one I did before. In part it is because I’m trying to put more depth into the story. It also draws more from my personal experience and it does affect my emotions when I work on it.

I’ve come up with a new title for it. It was called The Priority Project, but now I want to call it The Gladstone Barrier. I didn’t like the first title so I picked the name of the project at the center of the controversy. After I picked it, I noticed that it has a double meaning that hints at some other aspects of the story.

I started to use some ideas that I got from Writing Dialogue. I think the dialogue does flow better. The Emotion Thesaurus was a big help to me on how to suggest what characters felt.

The Crying Woman

This is the idea for film that I’ve dabbled with for about 18 months now. Someone suggested that I make a film like Before Sunrise, which follows two strangers as they walk and talk through a night in Vienna. I like the film, but I wasn’t sure I could write a script in that style. After all, Richard Linklater felt he needed a collaborator to help him write it.

The story begins with a woman on the elevator. She is alone and cries as the elevator goes down. The door opens and a man gets on. While the woman tries to hide her tears, the man notices and asks her if she is OK. The encounter leads to a long conversation between them. The woman is afraid to reveal the reason for her tears, but desires a sympathetic ear. The man wants to support her, but he too has some secrets that he wants to keep. His motives are complicated.

I think the best approach is to have the film be at least partially improvised by the actors. Since I have never tried that, I am unsure how to proceed. I’ve decided to turn the idea into a short story. Later, I could use it as a basis for the film.

This week I started on an outline. It needs to be filled in some more. I want to go over the notes I prepared earlier for the film and incorporate them into the outline.

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