From Idea to Script, The T. Perran Mitchell Way

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.