"Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" Posted

My new story "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" is now on-line for people to read. CAUTION: Story contains bad puns. Proceed at your own risk.

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/tom-swiftly-and-his-incredible-traffic-model/

"Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model" is a sample of transportation planning humour. Puns and Tom Swiftlies count as humour don't they?

The story tells the tale of a transportation planner and his team as they struggle to convince the city council to accept their proposal.

The original idea actually came to me almost 20 years ago. I tried and abandoned several different approaches before I found the right one. I worked on that approach off and on for six years. Finally, in October this year, I decided to give it one big push and get it done. I feel it is now ready for release into the wild.

Let me know if you think I over did the puns a bit.

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

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/

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

Swift Progress

I made some progress on my short story: "Tom Swiftly and his Incredible Traffic Model". I broke it up into seven sections and I have four done now. I might get a first draft done next week, although it looks like it will be busy. There were a few lines I wasn't happy with, but I decided to skip past them for now. I'll try to fix them in the rewrite.

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

A New (Old) Transportation Planning Story

About 20 years ago I got an idea for a story about transportation planning. I've started and abandoned it several times. I think I'm finally on a track to get it done.

The initial inspiration for the story came from the book "The Wealthy Barber" by David Chilton. After several attempts, the story I have in mind now bears little resemblance to that book. I did use some of the ideas I developed in my movie "The Barrier".

The "story" will consist mainly of (hopefully) funny one liners. The plot is pretty rudimentary. There in lies the problem. With out a decent story line, it is very hard to place the jokes in any kind of order.

I read an article once about how to write comedy. The writer said that you write an interesting story, and only then do you go back and make it funny. I didn't do it that way, and I see now why that approach makes sense.

I developed the current approach back in 2010. While I generated a lot of one liners, I wasn't able to cobble them together. Last August I took a step back and developed a proper outline for the story. I still found it difficult to move forward with. It just seemed too intimidating.

This week I took another stab at it. I decided that I would break up the story into smaller sections and then work on each section one at a time. I thought that would make it less intimidating.

I got the first section done. After an initial slow start, it started to flow a bit easier. It could use some cleaning up, but over all I'm satisfied with it. I intended to move on to the next section right away, but then I got distracted by other things.

I'll try to get back on top of it next week.

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

A Science Fiction Story

As part of my “keeping focused on one project at a time”, I started work on another story. That means I am “actively” involved with several projects: Bright Freedom, My Most Difficult Case, Contingency, The Sharkbiter Interview, and promotion of my films on YouTube and Vimeo. I have managed to avoid all the ideas I had for articles.

I used to read nothing but science fiction, but I haven’t tried to write any since high school, other than that one I came up with about seven years ago. One morning while still in bed I started to think about that story. I’ve changed my approach to writing since then, and I started to think how I’d do it now. One thought led to another, and I had to get up and write down all my ideas. Later I worked up an outline.

I think it wouldn’t be too hard to write now, but I really should put it on the shelf and get some of my other projects done. Well at least one anyway. Some elements of story are a bit weak, so letting it simmer for a while could produce something better.

The science fictional elements don’t show up until later in the story, so I’m reluctant to reveal much because I don’t want to give away the surprises. It touches on a controversial topic as well. I don’t like to get people upset. It was inspired by a real event.

I’m torn now because my new ideas that would make it a serious story, while my original ideas made it funny. Maybe I should write two versions of the story. What kind of story are people more likely to read, a serious story or a funny story?

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

Transportation Planning Humour

I wanted to put together a collection of transportation planning jokes, but I haven’t come across many. In fact, the only one I know of was one I wrote about 20 to 25 years ago.

Back then, our department faced some very difficult problems, which had resulted in the replacement of the manager. The new manager asked me to prepare a report about how new models might help to fix the problems. As I wrote my report, I came up with a way to explain what I wanted to say in a humorous manner, so after I finished the report, I wrote a short memo based on those ideas.

The memo is long gone, but this is what I remember of it:

We need to have three new models.

First, we needed a model that would help us address operational problems with our transit system. We would call this the Transit Operations Model, or TOM.

Second, we needed a model that would help us evaluate development applications faster. We would call this the Development Impact Calculation Kit, or DICK.

Third, we needed a model that would help us review the roadway plans on an annual basis. We would call this the Highway And Road Review Yearly, or HARRY.

In summary, with the help of every TOM, DICK and HARRY we can overcome our problems.

I was a little unsure if I should actually give it to the manager. The humour is a little lame, but I thought he would like it. I felt relieved that when I gave it to him, he liked it. He liked it so much that he showed it to several other people.

Unfortunately for me, some of the others were not so amused. I don’t regret that I did it though.

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