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