Bit of house keeping, if you haven’t seen it yet my comic
book project, The Chronicles of the Tal Nor has a new website,
www.Tal-Nor.com. If you get a chance please check it out. Now strap in, this is a long one.
Over the last several months I've been getting more and more
involved with comic book creator groups on Facebook. They're basically a bunch of people all who want to make comics
and want to support other people that make comics. It's one of the places you go if you're looking for a Letterer or
have a process questions. Speaking of
looking for a Letterer, if you're in the market for a Letterer, I currently
have room in my schedule for a couple of projects. My rate is $10 a page and I've very flexible. Basically I'll keep working on it until
you're happy with what's on the page.
You can find my lettering portfolio
HERE.
Okay enough shameless plugging, back to the topic at
hand. One question I've seen come up
over and over again is how to start out writing a comic book script. What are the actual mechanics that go into
taking an idea and writing it into a script?
The truth is, there is no one way of doing this, because there is no one
way a comic book script looks. They can
range from a simple plot paragraph, a bulled list written on the back of an
envelope or a 280 page epic description of every last detail, emotion and panel
layout with diagrams. Every writer does
it a little bit different and many write differently for different projects.
I know on the surface this seems crazy, why isn't there a
standard? Why is it so different? The answer lies in the audience of the script
and the process of making comics. The
comic book scripts intended audience is only two or three people. It's the Artist doing the illustration, the Editor(sometimes) and the Letterer(sometimes). After the art is finished the dialog almost always need a slight
rewrite, it's just the nature of the beast.
So time, in the case of Stan Lee's work at marvel, the dialog isn't even
written until after the art is done. In
cases like that a second document is created for the Letterer to use to place
the dialog into the art. That one of
the nice things about lettering your own writing, you get one last rewrite.
Because the script is primarily between the artist and the
writer, it only needs to work for those two people. As they work more and more together they can even develop a bit
of a short hand for different types of views and actions. This is why writing a script without knowing
the artist is one of the more difficult things in comics. You need to be able to write it so that any
artist will be able to follow along without too much trouble.
At the end of the day the script is just the starting
point. This the frame work of a conversion
the artist, writer and editor will have about what the book will look like and
how it will read. Just today I received
an email from my editor asking if we could change something about a characters
outfit. She listed out the reasons why
she wanted to make the change. I
thought it was great and actually worked much better than what I had
written. Now when you read the book
later this year, you won't know what I had originally and I will look smarter
than I actually am.
Since every script is different I can't tell you the right
or wrong way to write a comic book.
What I can do is show you how I write a comics book. I'm going to take you step by step of how I
go from having basically nothing to a script that I can hand off to an
artist. If you see something you think
will work for you try it out. If you
see something that doesn't make sense, ask me about it. I love taking about process and how stories
work. For this I'll be using "
I Hate When They Run" a five page comic I wrote introducing the character of
the Rytier Kat Zang. It might be
helpful to read the story first then continue.
Don't worry it's only five pages and you can find it
HERE for free.
THE BIG IDEA
When starting out I just brainstorm what I want to write
about. I try to come up with either an
idea I want to explore to a situation I think would be interesting. Then I pick the characters that will be in
the story. Sometimes I'll start with
the characters first, but either way the next thing I do is flesh out the
characters. I use a character work
sheet to describe any new characters that will be in this story. Existing character will most likely have
some form of the worksheet already done for them. You can download a blank character work sheet
HERE. This document is a handy reference for both
me, the artist and the editor. It
contains all sort of physical, historical and psychological details about the
character.
Once all the characters are fleshed out I'll start thinking
about why I want to tell this story.
What am I hope to accomplish, what are some of the key points I want to
get across to the reader. Basically,
what's this story about, which is different than what happens. These serve as goals and something to keep
in the back of my head. Sometimes I hit
the mark, sometime I miss it and the story turns out to be about something else
once I'm done writing it. For "
I Hate When They Run" I decide I wanted to create a confident introvert who
loves books and uses a bow and arrow. I
wanted the story to show her personality.
I also wanted the story to convey some of what a Rytier in the Tal Nor
does.
THE BIG PLOT POINTS
Now that I know what sort of story I'm writing and who will
be in it, I can get work on what is going to happen in the story. I start this process with a blank piece of
scrap paper. I make a bullet point list
of the things that will happen. When
plotting "
I Hate When They Run" I made the following list of bullet
points
- Reading a book
- Wanted criminal comes in
- Kat confronts him
- He runs
- She chase him
- Shoots him off his horse
- Takes him to the wronged parties
- Deals out justice
- Goes back to her book.
With this list, I'll, and I know this sounds a little silly,
but I'll shut my eyes and try to see the story in my head. Sometimes it will come as little bits of
movies, but more often than not I'll actually sort see the page is my
head. This is where I decided the title
and that I need to start off with the chase.
Once I had that I'd back fill the beginning via flashback. I'll then put down a much more details
plot. It's a list of nearly every
action that will happen in the story.
I take that list and I make little slashes between the
bullet point to represent page brakes.
Sometime I'll move things around a little to make sure that my pacing is
sound and that things are falling on the correct page turn. It helps to make the last few panels on the
odd number pages a little bit of a cliffhanger, so the reader will want to
immediately look at the even page when turning to the next set of pages. It helps keep them for accidentally reading
ahead.
It is at this point I actually start scripting. My scripts use the following format:
PAGE NUMBER (number of panels)
PANEL 1
Description of the panel and the character states of mind.
Nation Box
Text
Character dialog
Text
Then I put a page brake in to the script. This way each page of the comic always
begins on a new page in the script. I
find that make it much easy to read a visualizes. In the description I will not only place what the character is
doing, but why they are doing it and what there state of mind is, what they are
feeling. I try to rarely tell the
artist what the expression on the character face is, but trust them to know
what someone looks like when they are sad but trying not to let anyone know and
falling just short of that goal. The
artist is the expert at what people look like and how an image should be
composed. It's best to get out of the
way and let them do their job.
The rough draft of the script will than sit for a few
days. I like to say that its
marinating. During this time I'll do my
best not to think about the comic and work on something else or nothing at
all. I'll read more and play more video
games. What I'm trying to do is to a
degree forget what I wrote. I want to
be able to come to the script with as fresh eyes as I can.
Now that my mind is a little clearer and eyes are a little
fresher, I reread the script. I like to
print it out and take a red pen to it.
Once I have mark the heck out of the script I'll make those change. I make two or three passes like this
polishing up the action, language and grammar the best I can. After these changes are made I give it to my
Editor
EDITORS, THE UNSUNG HEROES OF COMICS.
The truth of the matter is that if it wasn't for my editor,
this comic would not have been made. And
If I did manage to get it made, it wouldn't be half as good. Rose takes me script and reads it over a few
time, than we sit down together and she rips it to pieces. Anywhere there is inconsistencies, errors or
awkward phrasing she find and lets me know.
She is very nice about, but doesn't pull any punches. If there is anywhere that she has a
questions about, I do a rewrite to try to make it clearer. Only after the editor says its done, do we
have a finished script.
And that my very patience reader is how I write a comic book
script. Thank you for sticking with me
through this long post. This is just
one way of writing a script, but I hope you found it enlighten and useful. Please let me know your process, while this
works for me now, I'm always looking for ways to improve.
Until next time, keep making things.
T.
