"Tom Swiftly" and Puns: The Bad and the Lame

I completed the second draft of "Tom Swiftly and His Incredible Traffic Model". It is an improvement, but there is a problem I haven't decided how to deal with yet.

I'm not sure if Tom Swiftlys are considered puns or not, but I would lump the two together. They are both words at play. As it stands, most lines of the story are either a Tom Swiftly or a pun. Maybe that is a bit of over kill.

The problem I have is that in order to have the story follow a plot, I needed to create some new Tom Swiftlys. I was fortunate in that I was able to find a fair number of pre-existing Tom Swiftlys I could repurpose. However, many of the ones I created were not of the same quality.

Now, bad Tom Swiftlys and bad puns are often what you want. They both provoke the groans that the punster desires. While some of my Tom Swiftlys are bad, many might be better described as lame. I fear that they cannot elicit the groan I aim for. I don't want readers to think "that's awful" and really mean it.

The dilemma for me is what I do about them.

·         I could simply remove the Tom Swiftly and leave the sentence as a straight line to move the story forward. My goal with this story was be to have every sentence be a Tom Swiftly or a pun. I am reluctant to lose too many Tom Swiftlys, even if they are lame.

·         I could just leave them as they are, publish and hope that the readers will accept the occasional clunker. While this keeps up my Tom Swiftly count, I worry that too many clunkers will disappoint readers and drive them away.

·         I could take my time to develop bad Tom Swiftlys to replace the lame ones. When I did the second draft, I was able to eliminate replace some of the lame Tom Swiftlys with bad Tom Swiftlys. This would be the best option,  but would may take a long time and many rewrites before I can publish.

I am not sure how reliable my judgement is when I decide if a Tom Swiftly is bad or lame. Maybe the ones I worry about will work, and the ones I think are bad are really lame.

What I lean toward now is to publish and have readers tell me which are bad and which are lame. Since it is all on-line, I can always do a release 1.1 or 1.2 to address the lameness problem.

I should end this post with a bad Tom Swiftly, but I wasn't able to come up with one.

Note: I wasn't sure the proper way to pluralize Tom Swiftly. In the end I decided to use Tom Swiftlys rather than Tom Swiftlies. Maybe someone who knows for sure can give me some advice.

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

Writer's Block and "Felix"

As I continue to struggle with writer's block, I ask myself, why do I want to write "Felix"? Maybe that will get me restarted.

On one level  a story can be just a story; an exercise in entertainment. But to write a story a writer needs motivation. What is my motivation? In general I see any creative activity as a way for the creator to express their personal philosophy. When I look at the stories and movies I've done, they all reflect ideas or emotions that were important to me. That is even true of projects where I didn't consciously set out to make a point.

What about "Felix"?

My initial inspiration for "Felix" was a desire to rewrite one of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories. At the time I started, I didn't give any thought to what I wanted to say in the story. I believe that if I want to finish this story and make it worth reading, then I need to clarify in my mind what I want the story about.

In many of Lovecraft's stories he tries to evoke a sense that people are just a small and insignificant part of the Universe. His protagonists are horrified by that revelation. It is not that the other beings are evil, but that they simply don't care about humanity.

At the end of "Felix" I have a similar revelation. As I said in an earlier blog post, it is very difficult to hide the climax to a story like this. Since there can be no surprise ending to the story, my focus needs to be on how my protagonists react to the revelation. In the current version of the story I have the two protagonists react in different ways.

The story up until the climax needs to build up the reader's empathy for the protagonists. I need to develop the characters to the point where, while their reactions may be unexpected, the reader can understand why the characters react the way they do.

What I want the reader to think about while they read is how the characters might react to the revelation. Then, after they have read the story, I want them to go on to speculate how they would react in their place. I do want to provoke an emotional response, but I don't believe I would call it fear.

I would like reader to find what I seek; an acceptance of the Universe as it is. So often we get caught up in the travails and frustrations of our day to day existence. I believe that it is easier to find happiness and enjoy life if we see our troubles as not that important in the whole scheme of things.

This seems like a mighty ambitious goal for a little story like mine. I find it rather intimidating to think of it in those terms, which doesn't help much with my writer's block. On the other hand, just because I might not succeed is no reason not to try. A failed attempt may still be worth the effort.

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