Writers are always told to “write what you know.” I worked for 30 years as a transportation planner, so I thought I should write a story set in that milieu. So far I have found that very hard to do.
About six years ago I started on a script idea set in a transportation planning office. Initially I called it The Thompson Proposal, but changed it to Traffic Collision. I got bogged down because I tried to come up with a good McGuffin before I came up with a good story.
I started a satirical story that I called Tom Swift and his Incredible Traffic Model. I have a draft done, but it just doesn’t work. I need to massively rewrite it. I can’t use the name Tom Swift in the title either.
This week I started to write a review of the book Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail – And Why We Believe Them Anyway. Most of my career was spent in forecasting and I found the book resonated with how I felt about the topic. It has been very hard to write. Maybe it is just that it is that I have to go back and think about the work I used to do before I retired. I want to check and double check everything I say, which takes time. Once I get on the Internet it is so easy to get distracted. Besides that, I can’t seem to find a way to say what I want to say. I’ve tried several different approaches, but none has worked so far. I think I’ll leave it for a time.
After I did The Abattoir Project: A Ken Walker Adventure, I decided I could use that as a template to write a transportation planning story. I made good progress on the outline this week. I need to fill in more details about the plot and the characters before I can start to write. This time I focussed on the story before I developed the background. I think I have enough plot ideas for several more stories. We’ll see how it goes.
I want the story to be a realistic portrayal of transportation planning, but part of me would like to throw in a murder mystery and gun fights. It is easier to catch reader’s attention if your protagonist is likely to be shot, than if he might get a stern talking to from his boss.
I want to get back to work on My Most Difficult Case now, so I’m not sure when I’ll get this story done.
Note 2015 May 20: I fixed a broken link.
Dear Mr.Morrison
Very interesting concept.
I support your effort as I am still living through the horror and making my living.
For example the difference between a transportation planner and a modeler. The modeler is the so called black magician with the black pot and A broom. The planner is the audience, clap for the output brought by the modeler to save his job.
My first scene would be to show a modeler in his lab cooking the numbers and adding to the pot people, cars,buses,lanes,rail cars, etc. The Planner supplying all that the modeler asks without a question. The next scene will show a roadway to nowhere with few passengers on buses or a high speed rail to nowhere with 4 passengers. Also add spice by showing a Moran looking elected official defending why we need this?
I have been through both good and bad times with my work. Let me get your input on my idea.
Dr.N.Murthy, T.E.
Hi Dr. Murthy,
Thank you for your comments.
Your suggestion is in a different direction than I want to go with this idea, but since so many others have similar suggestions, I think I should try something along those lines.
I would like to do a story that is set in a world where things are the way I’d like them to be, and not how they actually are. It might be better to do the story as a comedy. Most people I’ve talked to assume it would a comedy.
James