Do Characters Need “Post Stories”?

All the advice I’ve seen on writing recommend that you develop a “back story” for your characters. The back story is what happens to the character right up until the story starts. This is very valuable to the writer when they create the character.

What occurred to me was that I never heard anyone talk about what I’d call a “post story” which is what happens to the character after the story ends. I suppose that some writers would think that a “post story” would be just a part of the “back story”, but I don’t recall that I ever saw anything along those lines.

It reminds me of the movie Backbeat about the early days of the Beatles. Part of the interest of films like this is that you know what happens to the characters after the story ends.

The story need not be a direct precursor to the “post story” or, for that matter, connected at all. Even though you may not share it with the audience, it would help you to have some idea what happens to your characters after the story ends.
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A rewrite for “The Gladstone Barrier”

I started to rethink my short story The Gladstone Barrier this week. I came up with several ideas that I think I can use to develop it into a longer and, hopefully, better story.

Description

In some of my stories, I do have a lot of description of the people and the locations, but have very little in The Gladstone Barrier. It is very much a plot driven story. I think there a couple of good reasons to add more.

First, I can use it to develop the characters more. How they dress, how they move and how they present themselves all tell you something more about them. I think that my characters need that additional depth.

Second, I can use description to create a mood for each scene. A cramped room and a cosy room are physically the same thing, but the description creates a different feeling for the location that will affect readers in how they interpret what happens.

Bits of Business

I feel I need to add some little “bits of business” for my characters. I mean little things that he does that reveal something of his personality. A neat person will pick up loose papers on a desk and arrange them. A sloppy person won’t. I can use these to make the main character, Arthur Macdonald, easier to identify with. I would want to do the same for the minor characters, but not to same extent, since I want the focus on Arthur.

Along those lines, I want to rewrite the opening scene so that Arthur avoids the collision through his own actions. As it is now I don’t think that is clear. That would make him a stronger character and not just some one who is blowing in the wind.

Ling the Mentor

I intended the character Ling to be Arthur’s mentor. I thought that was clear in the story, but some people commented that I should make her his mentor, so I guess it isn’t that obvious. I would need to expand her role quite a bit.

Some people might think it is odd to have a woman as the mentor. The term mentor refers to a story from Greek mythology. The goddess Athena wanted to help Telemachus find his father Odysseus. She disguised herself as a man named Mentor and encouraged Telemachus to seek out his father. In her guise as Mentor, she travelled with him to provide guidance and advice. So, I think it makes perfect sense. Maybe I can use that parallel in the story.

Technical Details

Some of the comments I had about the story focussed on some technical details that they didn’t think I had right. I want to fix those, which will change the plot somewhat. Currently the boss assigns Arthur to do the priority project on short notice. That doesn’t leave him time to do all the consulting and hoop jumping that the project would normally involve.

For the rewrite, I think it would be better for him to take over the project at the last minute because the person who had done the work can’t complete it for some reason. This would put him in a position where he has to defend decisions that he was never involved with and doesn’t always agree with.

Subplots

I also would like to add a subplot about Arthur and a girlfriend or maybe a wife. This would serve to round out his character. It also occurs to me that it would ensure that readers would realize that his relationship with Ling is not romantic. Maybe I can add other subplots, like a conflict between the priority project and the project he had been doing.

The Danger of Delay

I got quite enthusiastic about the rewrite, but I have so much else on my plate now that I have to put it off until later. I wish I could dive into it while my mind is still churning out ideas. I worry that if I leave it to later, that I will lose the inspiration. That happens some times, but usually I can pick it up.

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Films Submitted to the 20th $100 Film Festival

This week was the dead line for entries into next year’s $100 Film Festival. I submitted my two films just in time. Somedays . . . is a short one-gag film. Contingency runs longer and is an experimental film about the history of the $100 Film Festival. I hope they are accepted.

I still have some work to do before they are ready to screen. I have until March to get that done. Some of the shots I did turned out poorly and I want to reshoot them.

My plan was to do the 16mm films in the same way that I would have done a Super 8 film, but use the work print. I could still go back to a negative cut or transfer if I wanted to later. Now I’m starting the think it might be better to use the CSIF’s optical printer. That would give me a complete negative of the film, so I could do multiple copies.

I’ve never used the optical printer myself, but I went to a workshop on it. I think I can figure it out, although maybe I need to find someone who has to give me some guidance.

The CSIF is closed until January, so I have some time to plan where I go from here


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Book Review, “Somedays . . .” and “Contingency”

I made progress on three projects this week.

I published a pseudo book review. It is an idea I’ve been toying with since I began work on Line of Taxis. The story is about a guy I call Orville Sharkbiter. When I did Line of Taxis, I changed his name to Orville Stark-Lieder. You can hear him mentioned at the end of the film on the radio. I would describe him as “the boss from hell”. I’ve had some good feedback on it so far.

http://authspot.com/short-stories/book-review-sharkbiter-the-secret-to-success/  or http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog/?page_id=761

I got the film I shot back for my $100 Film Festival film this week. I was disappointed with how some shots turned out, so I want to reshoot them. The dead line for submission is this coming Thursday, so I’ll have to live with what I have now.

I actually have two films now. Somedays . . . is a very short gag film that plays around with the SMPTE Universal Leader. I had the idea several years ago, but I didn’t want to make it because I thought it would be difficult. I came up with an easier way to do it, so it wasn’t much extra work to shoot it on the same roll I shot for Contingency.

Contingency has evolved a lot since I started to work on it. Originally it was meant to be a sort of history of the $100 Film Festival, in part modelled after Man with a Camera. Now it is more about how things didn’t have to happen the way they did. I keep getting new ideas for the film, which is a good sign. Although, with only a few days left before the deadline, I need to stop at some point.

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Back to Writing: Scraping off the Rust

I haven’t got the film I shot for Contingency back yet, so this week I worked on some other projects. I have two articles and a short/fake article on the go. One article is about how to listen and the other is about chaos theory, complexity theory, and economics. The story is about a character I created called Orville Sharkbiter, who is the worst possible boss you could ever have.

I’ve had the ideas for a long time and had extensive notes. However, when I tried to work on them this week I found it very difficult to write. I think it is partly that I got out of the habit of writing. The other problem is that I tried to write them as if they were blog posts, which is a very different style.

I left them for a day and then tried a different approach. The listening article came together fairly well, but I ran out of steam at the end. I think I can finish it off in another session. I did better with the Orville Sharkbiter story and got a good first draft done. I’ll leave that for a day or so and then polish it.

I experimented with eBook publishing a little more. The place where I sell my book, Lulu.com, has an eBook converter you can use when you publish with them. I couldn’t get the eBook to look quite the way I wanted to, but I can work on it some more.

It also turned out that Lulu had converted an earlier version of my book into an eBook and it is for sale on iTunes. (http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/walk-in-the-snow/id470953296?mt=11) Not only that, but I actually had a sale through iTunes. I made enough to buy a Tim Horton’s donut! If I can sell 999,999 more, I’ll make a million dollars.
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$100 Film Festival Film Update – 2011 November 13

My film is closer to completion now. I’ve even given it a title: Contingency. Not really that original, but descriptive none the less.

My original plan was to include some shots of me editing some film on at Steenbeck at the CSIF. They are moving at the end of the month, so the time was tight. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get in touch with the guy I wanted to help me, so I came up with a plan B.

I will used some outcuts from my earlier films. That is one reason I picked the new title. I think this forced improvisation will make for a better film. I pulled out some of my old Line of Taxis files to see what I have that I can use. It looks promising. I documented my more recent films quite well. Some of my older films are not, so I am not sure what I have.

I shot another roll of film with a few more images I wanted and some titles. I wanted to include shots from my earlier Super 8 movies and I don’t have 16mm blowups I can use. I do have digital versions of those films, so I shot short bits of them off the computer screen.

I included two films that I did before the $100 Film Festival. The Smiling Corpse was a film I did back in 1974. In many ways, it was the original inspiration for the Festival. I copied two “cool” shots from the film. I can only include one of them though. The other film I used was Extra Special Care, which I did as a student project at SAIT in 1989. It was another example of the type of film I had in mind for the festival.

While I was at it, I short another short short film I call Somedays I just Can’t Get Started. If it turned out OK, I’ll submit it to the $100 Film Festival too.

I mailed the film to the lab Friday. I have some “Exposed Film” tape that I use to wrap the exposed film, but I couldn’t find it. Until, of course, after I’d gone and used some other tape. I still have quite a lot of tape and I don’t think I will find much use for it now.

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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.

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