Writing for Comics

WRITING FOR COMICS By

J O E E DKIN Copyright 2006 Compiled (read as copy-pasted) by

S HASHANK D E V S ONDHI From His website ’s section on this topic

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T ABLE OF C ONTENTS

Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 1 .................................. ................. ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ............................ .......... 4 Chapter 2 .................................. ................. ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ............................ .......... 7 The Basics ................................. ................ ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ................................... ............................ .......... 7 Chapter 3 Plot and Story Construction .................................................................................... 19 Chapter 4 Character Development .......................................................................................... 28 Chapter 5 The Page Breakdown ............................................................................................... 41 Chapter 6 Writing the Script .................................................................................................... 51 MORE TO COME--EVENTUALLY................................................................................................ 77

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P REFACE This is a collection of the pages available on Joe Edkin ’s website. There is much more available on his website. The reproduction is honest and as-is. The reason for compiling this is because it is a good write-up on the Marvel process of scripting its comics. Although the comics are of days long gone there is very little that such generic norms may have undergone in light of updating. Thus, as an introduction to a modus operandi I hope that this will aid aspiring comic writers to create the stuff of new age legend. A picture being worth a thousand words, the art of comics have matured substantially and now provide food for more cr eative thought in films and other media. Starting from an industry overview in M. Night Shyamalan ’s Unbreakable to direct plate reproductions like the movie 300 300,, whose scenes draw almost completely from Frank Miller ’s rendition of the epic, comics have redefined the story-telling paradigm and have aided directors and screenwriters in visualizing and developing crisper cinema. In light of this I urge you as a new playwright, read on and explore. For in this book you will see the guidelines for channeling your imagination and creating the stuff of l egends. Godspeed,

The Compiler

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C HAPTER 1 I NTRODUCTION When I attend conventions or a ppear as a guest speaker in schools, one of the questions I'm inevitably asked is, "How can I become a comic book writer?" The first thing I say is, "Learn how to tell a good story. Learn to write." If you can't write an entertaining story, then you won't be able to write entertaining comic book stories. Comic books are a medium with rules and expectations unique unto themselves, but at the heart of every good comic is a good story. The goal of this site is to lead you, the aspiring comic book writer, through the entire creative process of writing for comics. This means I will be starting at the very beginning with a discussion of what makes a good story. Without those basics, then you will never write a good comic book story. From there, I will go into the nuts and bolts of crafting a comic book script, as well as advic e on writing query letters, springboards, and proposals. Let me say a few things up front: 1. As with any art form, there is no ultimate right or wrong way to approach the creation of art. The methods I discuss in the course of this site work for me. I use them every day in my career as a storyteller. This does not mean every other writer works the way I do or shares my philosophy, nor do you have to. You have to find your own style, voice, and path. What I am providing here are guideposts-things that may help you find your way. Take what you can use from this book and discard that which doesn't help you. 2. Do not learn to write comic books from reading comic books only. (Nor should you learn to draw comics f rom comics.) Reading good comics will help you learn elements of form and style, but it is also inherently limiting. You get into the law of diminishing returns, for if you don't have any reference points beyond comics, ever ything you write will be derivative. Read novels. Read newspapers. Read non-fiction. Wa tch foreign films. Go to the theater. Expose yourself to more than what you find on comic book shelves. The more you know about the world around you, the more material you will have with which to build stories. The more storytelling styles you have encountered, the larger your own bag of tricks will be. 3. Learn to write, and in this case, I'm not just talking a bout writing stories. I'm talking about basic grammar. Learn h ow to use language. Learn how to spell and punctuate. Learn how to form a sentence. Learn about literary devices like parallel structure, metaphor, personification, etc. You may have the best, most exciting, unique stories in the world to tell, but if you can't put them down on paper in

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a way that looks professional and can be read, you drastically reduce the chances that an editor will read or buy your work. 4. There is more to the comic book medium than superheroes, and each genre has its own rules and rhythms. You will find that I often use superhero language in discussing basic concepts, but I do this because it is an easy shortcut as the majority of people reading this material has been exposed to the superhero culture through comics, movies, or television. However, even if you don't care for superheroes, the theories and concepts I am illustrating work beyond that particular genre. If I spend a few sentences writing about what motivates Hero Woman or Super Guy and you aren't interested in superheroes, try to get past the veneer to what is actually being said about character motivation. It applies whether your character wants to save the world or to buy a can of soda. 5. Breaking into the comic book industry is hard work, especially for writers. Let's face it: comics are a visual medium. An editor can glance through an artist's portfolio and be able to tell quickly whether the artist understands anatomy, perspective, layout, composition, and storytelling. The same can not be said of a script. It takes time and concentration to be able to determine if a writer understands plot, structure, pacing, character development, dialog, and all the other pieces that form a coherent and interesting story. An editor has to take time to read a sample writing submission, an d most editors are already too busy trying to meet their publication deadlines for the projects they're already editing. They don't have a lot of extra time to read blind submissions. For this reason, it's a lot harder for writers to break into the business than it is for artists. Having said that, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make your dream come true. If you want to write comics, then go for it. There are a number of paths, but be realistic. It is extremely rare when someone with no professional credits will land a prime gig at Marvel or DC or Dark Horse or Image. You are going to have to learn your craft. You are going to have to earn your chops. You are going to have to practice. It is said that an artist has to get through 10,000 bad drawings before they get to the good stuff. Writers have to write a lot of bad material before they get to the good stuff too. The key is to keep writing and keep learning. You will never know it all, and a creator who stops learning limits him or herself and stagnates. One more word of caution: there is no secret, no magic bullet. This website will hopefully provide you with advice about storytelling and the craft of writing comic book scripts, but there are no guarantees. Not only does it take talent and skill, bu t there is a lot of luck involved as well.


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However, with time, perseverance, and good work, you may get your chance. And when you do, don't screw it up! While there may be no magic bullets in terms of landing assignments, you can certainly shoot down a burgeoning career very easily by missing deadlines or turning in work that is sub-par. In the long run, you have to love what you're doing because it's not gonna be easy. Whatever you do, have other occupational skills you can fall back on. Keep your day job! Good luck,

Joe Edkin, Summer 2005


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C HAPTER 2 T H E B ASICS BREAKING RULES Writing is an art. Art is about breaking rules, pushing the envelope, and discovering new ways of seeing things. Writers a s artists should push themselves to break rules to find new and exciting ways to tell their stories. However, before you break the rules, it i s important to know what they are and why they exist. Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules doesn't create art, it creates anarchy. For me, art is communication and writing is an art. We, as artists, are trying to impart something to our audience. Whether it's something complex like a moral or something subtle like a mood, we are sharing a way of seeing something with our audience. Art is a co-operative process. It requires a creator (or creators) and an audience. Art created by the artist in a way that can be translated or understood only by the artist is defined by psychologists as "neurotic" art. Artists can not afford to lose sight of the audience and its needs and/or expectations. We may want to challenge the audience--the best art succeeds on that level--but in the end there still has to be a way in, something that the audience can hold on to that is a basic part of human nature or part of the collective culture. My feeling in terms of comics as art is that both must work in harmony. While the visual elements may take precedence in some cases, those visual have to be built on a solid foundation--the story itself. Pretty pictures are all well and good--I have lots of them hanging in my home-but in comics, the pretty pictures must serve the higher purpose of communicating the story. Comics should combine words and images to create an impact in ways t hat just the words or just the i mages alone can not accomplish. When the writer is doing something really experimental with the storytelling, then it becomes important for the art to be accessible. If the art is experimental, then the script needs to be accessible. If both are experimental to the point of being incomprehensible, we do a disservice to the audience.

T H E "RIGHT" W A Y As with any artistic pursuit, there is no ultimate right or wrong way to approach writing. Certainly, if you want to write professionally, you must understand the rules of grammar and spelling. You have to use a typewriter or computer/word processor to create your manuscripts. No editor is going to take you seriously if you send him or her a handwritten manuscript riddled with poor spelling and grammar. Proofread your

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work, or better yet, have someone else proofread it for you. Type your manuscripts with 1 inch margins, and preferably double-space the text. Unfortunately, there is no single industry standard for script format, but there are common denominators that I will cover in the chapter on scriptwriting. A readable, professionally presented script is a must if y ou are trying to get work. (But a word of caution--don't send scripts to editors blindly. They don't have time to read unsolicited manuscripts. This is another element that I will be covering in the chapter on selling your work.) Presentation is important, but what about content? Is there a n absolute right or wrong when constructing a story? No. There are a s many different ways to approach writing as there are writers. There are some basic ground rules, but they should be treated as guide posts. Ultimately, you are going to have to find your own way and your own voice. The material presented in this book will give you a foundation upon which you can build.

COLLABORATIVE MEDIA Another important thing to keep in mind about film, television, theater, and comic books is that they are collaborative media. When I write for any of these media, I approach the script as a blueprint--the foundation on which my collaborators will build the story. In any collaborative medium, you must allow your collaborators room to do their jobs. It serves no one if the writer or any other individual becomes a dictator. The more everyone feels they a re allowed to contribute to the final product, the greater a stake the feel they will have in the finished product, and the more effort they will put into it. No one's ego should get in the way of providing the audience with the best possible story. When I write scripts, I give my collaborators everything they will need to tell the story--the plot, characters, motivations, settings, and any thing else that is key to conveying t he story (including any appropriate reference such as photographs or web links). I don't tell filmmakers or comic book pencilers every single camera angle, only the ones that are key to telling the story. Otherwise, I prefer to gi ve my collaborators as much freedom as possible. I also make myself available to collaborators if they have questions or suggestions. I may not always agree with what they want to do, but this is where you have to learn to choose your battles. Sometimes you have to concede one thing to gain another. A good collaboration is built on this give and take.

WHERE D O I BEGIN? When I set out to craft a story, I don't have any single way in which I approach the process. Often I start with the characters, examining who they are and what they care about--this is especially true of licensed


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properties where the characters have history before I come to the table. Other times, I have a neat conflict or moral dilemma to explore. Sometimes I just have a really cool visual in my head around which I can construct a story. I will go into more d etail about where and how to start in the chapter on outlines and page breakdowns. For now, I want to concentrate on some of the basic elements of storytelling.

VISUAL THINKING One of the most important skills an aspiring comic book writer (or a writer working in film, television, and/or the theater) must develop is the ability to think visually. The best comic books are a marriage of text and art. The writer must be able to tell his or her stories in pictures. Let the art carry important character and plot elements. When I work with aspiring filmmakers/videographers, one of the first things I suggest they do is make a silent film in order to learn to tell a story with images alone. After that, then you can begin to worry about adding words to your work. As film a nd video are visual media, if artists can't convey their message with their images, then they are not taking full advantage of their medium. In many ways, I think it would serve aspiring comic book wri ters well to do the same thing. Use a camera--be it still photo, film, or video--and shoot a purely visual story. This will help you in many ways. It will train you to think of your stories in images. It will help y ou conceptualize how much information you can convey in a single image. It will also help you learn how to describe the pictures in your head to an artist. The biggest limitation to storytelling in the comic book medium is spac e. Generally speaking, you are only given so many pages in which to tell your story. If an editor assigns you to write a twelve page story, you can't turn in a script for eleven pages, or thirteen, or any number other than twelve. There is also only so much material that will fit on a page or within a panel. You have to learn how to make the best use of this space by combining words and images to maximum benefit.

T H E THREE PLOTS All right, let's start right off with a disappointing reality. Every story that can be told has been told--probably by a writer better than any of us can ever hope to be. Our job as creators is to reconfigure these hoary old chestnuts, disguising them in such a way that the audience is fooled into thinking they're seeing something new and different. So, what are those three plots? The Mysterious Stranger (Comes to Town) The Quest


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The Genesis Story That's it. I don't care what movie, novel, play, comic book, or what-have-you you point to. When you boil the story down, you will come to one or more of these three basic plots. Yes, this is reductionism to its extreme, but these are not where you end. It's where you begin. Let's consider them one at a time.

The Mysterious Stranger (Comes to Town). Someone or something enters a community. The story built around this plot often f ollows one (or both) of these two questions: What is this stranger's impact on the community? What is the community's impact on the stranger? If it does not follow either of those questions, then the stranger may be used as a lens by which the author reveals the characters a nd/or community in which the stranger finds him or herself.

The Quest. This can be a search for anything: love, the Holy Grail, the identity of the Mysterious Stranger. All mysteries are built around the quest for the solution. You might consider some subcategories to the Quest. My friend, comic artist Howard Simpson, f eels that the quest is too broad and breaks things down further, including such categories as the Chase and the Hunt. Other writers consider Boy Meets Girl a separate classification. While I understand the distinctions being made in each of these examples, I still see them as all b eing quests of one sort or another.

The Genesis Story. How something or someone came to be. In comic book terms, this is the origin story. As far as I'm concerned, that's it. I've never found anything else, but if you have something to suggest, I'd love to hear it. E-mail me with your thoughts and if you come up with new categories that are truly separate from these three, I will be happy to update this page to include them. Think about your favorite stories and you'll see at the heart of them is one or more of these three basic plots. Our job as artists, and writing is an art, is to find a new stories to tell based on these plots. This is where your artistic vision comes into play. We are all individuals, shaped by our experiences. It is our unique perspective on these three stories that will give our work a distinctive voice.

EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT For a story to have any impact, it must instill a sense of emotional investment in the reader. The reader has to care about the characters and what is happening to them. To do that, you need to create characters that are recognizably human--be they aliens, super-heroes, or average schmoes. They must have human concerns ( hopes, dreams,


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fears, etc. etc.)) for the reader to empathize or sympathize with, or at least understand. People are the sum total of their experiences. For characters to seem wellrounded and consistent, the writer has to convey a sense of history for them. It's in this history and c ommon experience that reader identification and thereby emotional investment will occur. We'll cover this in more detail in the chapter on developing characters.

CHANGE When you boil it down, every story is about change. Who has learned something? If something or someone hasn't changed or learned something by the end of the story, then what was the point of the audience reading your story? In the traditional definition of fiction, it is held that your lead character-your protagonist--must change from the beginning of the story to the end. That is the protagonist's journey--the events he or she lives through in the course of the story--should have a transformational effect. If there is no change or growth, it is held, then why should the reader waste their time plowing through your golden prose? In many ways, I do agree with this philosophy. I do think that the characters should learn something by the end of the story and that knowledge should be a catalyst for change, or that the events of the story result in a physical change f or the character--whether it is a physical or situational change. However, this can be very difficult to apply to episodic fiction, especially when dealing with comic book publishers that have a stake in maintaining their status quo. quo . The reality is that most publishers can't can't change change their most popular characters significantly indefinitely . The traditional looks and identities of characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Hulk, and any other character with iconic value (any character that can be recognized regardless of the culture of the person viewing it) are too important to their owners in terms of licensing for bed sheets, action figures, underwear, and other ancillary merchandise. Any of these characters might undergo changes for brief periods of time in order to freshen the franchise and create reader interest, but usually there is a return to the status quo so that the value of the character's traditional image can be exploited. To be honest, characters who have reached truly iconic value have done so by moving into media outside of comics. If the world at large doesn't read the comics in which the characters have been changed, then when faced with the new version, the a verage person won't understand and be


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resistant. (Think Green Lantern. Long time comics fans were horrified at the changes made to Hal Jordan, but to people outside of comics fandom, the response was more likely "Green who?") Companies must have an easily recognized image in order to merchandise it well. (The mai n exception here being action figures, where toy companies thrive on variations on a theme, but in this case, the essence of the character is usually maintained, even if their costume or props are altered.) Mind you, the lack of significant change isn't a hard and fast rule-sometimes publishers will change second tier characters to make them more accessible and interesting to new readers. Jay G arrick to Barry Allen to Wally West as the Flash or Dick Grayson to Jason Todd to Tim Drake as Robin are two good examples of lasting changes secondary characters (okay, maybe not so much with Jason Todd anymore...). Even the upper echelon of publisher's characters may undergo some change. Any long-lived character has to a dapt to the times in order to remain relevant, but the inherent essence of characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and other high-profile properties remain intact even if minor cosmetic changes are brought in periodically to make the property appealing to current tastes. These can be slight alterations to costumes (or the temporary appearance of a radically different look), new people wearing old costumes, new powers, etc. So, if publishers have a stake in maintaining their franchises so that change to the leading characters is temporary or cosmetic at best, then how do you effectively create a sense of evolution or forward momentum in episodic fiction? When it comes to significantly a ltering characters, the permanent changes are usually reserved for the supporting cast. The secondary characters are often fair game for major changes (like death), and sometimes supporting characters are introduced in order to have a character in the context of the story who can change permanently (blow 'em up real good and watch our hero grit his/her/its teeth in angst). There is one other area where change can occur: changing the reader's perception of a character, philosophy, or events by forcing them to reexamine their perceptions via the events of the story. I consider this to be a perfectly valid way of approaching change. If the reader witnesses something at the beginning of a story a nd then, as events unfold, what reader believed to be true is proven false by the end of the story, then you have changed the reader's perception. This can actually be a very powerful way to approach change as it directly affects your audience and makes them active participants in the storytelling. Akira Kurosawa's f ilm Rashomon is a brilliant example of changing the a udience's perception of


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events by examining events from the points of view from four very diff erent characters. The audience is left to piece together what the truth is, each retelling of the story adding more facts a nd changing the viewer's perspective on what they had seen before. (If you haven't seen Rashomon, I strongly suggest you do so. Besides its historical significance and its impact in all areas of storytelling, it is also a movie that relies on images to tell its story. Remember what I said earlier about thinking visually and using pictures to convey your story...)

T H E FIVE W S (AND SOMETIMES H ) In journalism, writers are taught to write to answer the five Ws (and sometimes H). Writers of fiction should also be aware of them. They are: When? Where? Who? What? Why? How?

When and Where? When is your story taking place? Where is it taking place? When time or place is not specified, it is usually assumed to be here and now, especially when dealing with the script form at. Unless you tell your artist (set designer, cinematographer, director, etc etc., ., depending on your medium) exactly when a nd where the story is happening, there's no telling what they might assume--or worse yet, draw.

Who? These are the characters in your story. What? What is happening? This is the plot. W hat do your characters want? This is motivation and it is integral to good character development.

Why? Why are things happening? Why do your characters want what they want? One of the most important questions you have to ask yourself is "Why should the readers care a bout my story?"

How? How do your characters go about getting what they want? How do they react to adversity or success? Every scene, every page, every panel in a comic book story absolutely must address at least one of the questions and help your reader understand the events that are unfolding. Any scene, page, or panel that doesn't accomplish this goal is a "darling" and, as Mark Twain said, we must kill our darlings. They waste time and space and they annoy the audience.


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T H E STORYTELLING TRIANGLE To my mind, there are four basic elements in constructing a story as illustrated by the diagram below.

The Characters , as mentioned previously, are the who. The Plot is the what. What do y our characters want and what happens? It is the simple sequence of ev ents. Jimmy wants to be on time for work. Unfortunately, he wakes up late. Jack makes him breakfast. Jimmy eats breakfast hurriedly, dripping egg yolk on his shirt. Now Jimmy has to change his clothes, making him even later f or work. Jimmy leaves the house in a rush, not looking in both directions before he crosses the street. Jimmy is hit by a bus and dies. That is a plot. That's what happens. The plot is the series of confli cts and resolutions leading to the climax and denouement. These elements will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.

The Story is the where, when, how, and why. Where and when are surface details, but they are important as they determine how the character and society act and react. People in feudal England would not act in the same way that Aborigines in 1800 Australia. The plot described above would have to happen in fairly large, modern city. It could not be transplanted to France, circa 1100.


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How expands on the question of "What do you characters want?" by exploring how they go about achieving their goals. We then ask the question of why should the events of the plot matter to the characters and the readers. Ultimately, the story is the impact of Jimmy's death on Jack, the bus driver, other characters, and most importantly, on the reader. Why should the reader care about Jimmy's death and its ramifications? Therein lies the story.

The Theme or Premise . Every story sets out to prove its theme or premise. In the story outlined above, the premise might be "Remember to set your alarm clock so you don't wake up late." The consequences of not setting your alarm clock are then spelled out. The theme or premise does not have to be overly complex. It can be as simple as "Love conquers all" or "Crime doesn't pay" or "With great power comes great responsibility." It can be much more complex, perhaps trying to prove or disprove the existence of a higher power. It doesn't matter how simple or complex your premise, as long as everything in the context of the tale-the characters, the plot, and the story--all r elate to the theme in some way, shape, or form to your theme. Ultimately, when someone asks what the story is about, they will usually zero in on the theme or premise.

T H E THREE MAJOR FORMS O F CONFLICT Without conflict, there is no drama. Without drama, our stories are incredibly dull. Conflict is anything that stands in the way of your characters achieving their goals. Traditionally, there are three types of conflict: Individual vs. Individual This is probably the most straight forward form of conflict, especially when you consider the action/adventure genre. This is the traditional hero vs. villain, although it applies whenever two or more individuals (human or not) stand in each other's ways. Individual vs. Nature This is an individual facing forces of nature or anything outside the control of another individual or him/herself. Individual vs. Self This is probably the most dynamic and dramatic form of conflict. We refer to this as internal conflict. When an individual has to make a choice between two things that he or she values--especially if the things are


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valued equally--then there must be consequences in making the choice. That sense of cost is o ften part of the hero's journey. Internal conflict is something with which every reader can identify. We have all had to make choices in our lives, and every choice has its consequences. Sometimes they're small. Choosing the chocolate cake for dessert means you might not get to have the strawberry mousse. This is not a very big deal in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes the choices we face are lifealtering. If you quit your job, you may not find another one for six months. Is this a chance you can afford to take? Either way, the process of making the decision is inherently dramatic, especially when something important is at stake. For example, Hero Woman may love her mother and father equally. If a life-threatening situation occurs and Hero Woman has time to save only one life, does she choose mom or dad? This is a decision with a huge cost attached. How does she make this choice? What are the ramifications of making the choice? Perhaps Super Guy has learned that his sister is an evil genius responsible for the deaths of millions. Does Super Guy's loyalty to his family or his sense of right and wrong take priority? What are the ramifications of this choice? It is within the ramifications that the story lies. We all have things in which we believe. We all hav e things in ourselves that we like. What happens when we put these things in jeopardy? What happens when we have to question these things? That is the root of internal conflict. If Winifred and Wilbur have grown up believing that killing is wrong and they are put in a situation where they have to kill to save their own lives, how do they live with the taking of life? For that matter, do they choose to sacrifice themselves in order to uphold their ideals? What if they have to kill to save someone else's life? Would they sacrifice their ideals to protect an innocent life? This is the stuff of drama.

FIVE MINOR FORMS O F CONFLICT Over the years, I have encountered five subcategories of conflict that I feel are worth addressing. I feel that they are actually fall into the above categories, but they may straddle some lines. Individual vs. Machine This is the hallmark of Science Fiction. However, the machine is usually something physical, and therefore can qualify as Individual vs. Individual. Individual vs. Supernatural


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This is a case where the conflict straddles lines. If the supernatural is personified or is solid in some way (such as vampires, werewolves, demons), then it qualifies as Individual vs. Individual. If the supernatural is insubstantial in that it has no phy sical presence (ghosts), then it may take on elements of Individual vs. Nature. Individual vs. Disease The disease is an act of nature, but it may also have a physical presence in the way of germs, bacteria, or cancer. This is a case of straddling the lines of nature and individual. Individual vs. Society I find this a particularly intriguing form of conflict as it can actually be seen as a subcategory of all three major forms of conflict. All societies have rules that its members are expected to f ollow. When an individual breaks these rules, then they must pay somehow. In crime stories, society is represented by the legal system, the police officers who investigate the crimes, the courts which d ecide guilt or innocence and set punishment. Sometimes society is represented by vigilantes. The superhero genre is built on this concept where the hero upholds society's ideals. Every individual within a society is taught what its rules are. Sometimes an individual has to make a choice about whether or not to break one o f those rules. If your character grows up being told that stealing is wrong, but then has to steal a loaf of bread in order for he and his family to survive, is that inherently wrong? In this c ase, the rules may have the sense of nature, especially if the individual believes that a vengeful deity will punish him or her for breaking the rules. There is also the sense of internal conflict. If the person contemplating breaking the rules does distinguish between right and wrong, that is the personal cost in making the "wrong" choice? Individual vs. Destiny This is an interesting thought put forth by one of my students when he couldn't remember my other subcategories. I have to say it intrigued me enough to add to my list. Destiny could have the force of nature. It might be something that was internalized through indoctrination and then be an example of Individual vs. Self. Generally speaking, one of the places I often start building a story, especially when I am dealing with a character with a long history, is to define a form of conflict. I like to look at what the character values,


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whether external or internal, and put that in jeopardy. That conflict will then drive the story.


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C HAPTER 3 P LOT AND S TORY C ONSTRUCTION WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY? There are as many answers to that as there are good stories to tell. However, every good story has at its core characters that we care about living through events that we find interesting. Every story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end --although not necessarily in that order. Beginning, middle, end is your classic three act structure. To me, story construction is puzzle solving. I see a story as big picture made up of many small pieces. When a story fails for its readers, it is often because one or more pieces of the puzzle is missing. In the previous chapter, I addressed many of those pieces: story, plot, character, theme/premise, change, emotional investment, conflict, the five Ws (and sometimes H), and when addressing serial fiction, family, the secret, and memory. In this chapter, I will add more pieces to the puzzle, concentrating on elements of plot.

T H E MANTELPIECE RULE The Russian playwright Anton Chekov coined "The Mantelpiece Rule" which states, "If you place a gun above the fireplace in act one, it absolutely must be fired by the final curtain." This means if you take the time to establish that Super Guy can bend steel with his bare hands at the beginning of the story, this is something he should exhibit again by the end of the story, preferably at the climax. Otherwise, there's no need to confuse the issue by establishing something that the reader won't see again. The converse is also true. If you are going to fire a gun in the final act, then you need to establish that it was there prior to its being fired. To me, this is a simple matter of fair play. I am a great believer in playing fair with the audience, meaning that everything the reader needs to understand a story or any given episode in serial fiction should be in said story or episode. Readers love mysteries, but they hate to be mystified. Mysteries are puzzles which have solutions. When you don't play fair with the readers by not giving them all the pieces of the puzzle, you will mystify, anger, and alienate them. If your character is required to possess a special, extra normal ability or knowledge in order to resolve the story, you should establish that it is possible that the character would have that ability or knowledge prior to exhibiting it. If you don't, then you create a deus ex machina, machina , and that is a cheat.

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The term deus ex machina comes to us from Ancient Greek theater. It literally means "God from the machine." In Greek theater, the gods would be lowered over the stage at the climax of the play, and if the story was a comedy, they would make everything better for the charac ters, or if it was a tragedy, they would make the characters' lives worse (usually exacting terrible retribution for whatever sins were committed by the protagonist). The characters had no control over their fat es--resolutions to their dilemmas were delivered from on high. This can be a useful plot device, but if it is used too often, it's a cheat. The audience usually prefers to see the protagonists solve their own problems in a believable way. So, if Hero Woman is required to use her heat vision to resolve the climax of the story, then it is important that you establish that she has heat vision earlier in the story. A clever writer is able to set these elements up in a way that does not draw attention to them immediately. You want to find a way to naturally establish abilities and knowledge without hitting the reader over the head with it. It should be so subtle that the reader may not even realize that you've given them the key to the climax until they see it played out and go, "Of course! It was there all along." It's a very difficult balance to maintain, and it takes a great deal of practice to get to the point where you do it well. In many ways, it becomes a matter of misdirection. You draw the reader's attention to a different point while playing out the key. In the first act, as you establish Hero Woman in action against some two bit thugs as they draw their guns, you might have her use her heat vision to melt the gun barrels, directing the reader's attention to the immediate threat of stopping the gunfire. You don't go out of y our way to draw attention to it, but at the climax, when it's do or die and the only way out is use of her heat vision, the reader knows that she has the power. I would highly recommend reading Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise stories--either collections of the comic strips or the novels--to see a master at work.

INTERNAL LOGIC Your audience wants to believe that a man can fly. They want to suspend their disbelief. You are the puppet-master of your literary world. You can invent any rules you want, and the audience will buy them as long as you play by your own rules (again, we're playing fair). If you establish that a character has a specific ability or knowledge, and then construct a plot where the character has to forget he or she has said ability or knowledge, you create what we call the "idiot plot" --this is a plot that only works when your characters must act like idiots in order to make the story work. This is a major cheat. It makes your characters look stupid and worse, it insults the intelligence of your readers as you


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assume that they aren't smart enough to realize the h uge plot hole into which your story has sunk. In the example stated above, we s ee Hero Woman use her heat vision to melt the guns of two-bit thugs at the beginning of the story. If, at the end, she is trapped in a bank vault made of steel and a big deal is made of how she might die of asphyxiation--if she doesn't even try to use the heat vision established earlier, then she has become an idiot. (Granted, it might be able to invent a reason for her not to--the radiant heat might harm someone else trapped inside or set fire to the money/documents she's trying to protect, there might be the presence of explosive gases, etc. But if she simply forgets she has heat vision simply to create false tension, both she and by extension, the writer, have become idiots.) It is very important that you set the ground rules of your world and establish the strengths and limitations (both physical and emotional) of your characters and then play by those rules in order to maintain your illusion of reality.

CLASSIC THREE A C T STRUCTURE

ACT ONE--THE BEGINNING In journalistic writing, people are taught that the f irst paragraph of their article must answer the five Ws. The b eginning of your story should address them as well. Where are we? W hen is the story happening? Who are the characters? What is ha ppening? Why should the reader care? In the long run, the last question in the above list is the most important. Why should your readers care? The beginning of your story must pose some kind of emotional investment in the circumstances being portrayed--there must be some element to which they can relate and/or they will want to see played out. Right from the start, you need to pose an intriguing question that will engage the reader and make him or her want to keep reading the story. In your standard 22 page comic book, that question should be posed by the end of the third page, if not sooner. And, before you answer that question, you must pose a second one. If you answer the first question before posing another, then why should the reader keep reading? This is key to emotional investment. In stories where it is assumed that the readers already have some investment in the lead characters (the memory element that is important to all serial fiction), putting those characters in some kind of dilemma is a


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great place to start. However, I would caution you that every comic is someone's first exposure to the characters, so you should not rely too heavily on the reader's supposed foreknowledge of the characters and their conflicts to create the emotional investment. The other key question that you must pose to yourself--if not immediately to the reader as this can be one of the driving questions--is "What do your characters want?" This is what will motivate a ll the action. Therefore, right from the start, the characters must have some goal to achieve. Sometimes, the most exciting way to begin a story is in medias res. res . Yes, it's another one of those concepts that come to us from Greek theater. It literally means "in the middle of things." Starting with the c haracters already in action creates a sense of urgency. Then, as events play out, you can fill in the gaps via conversations, circumstances, or flashbacks that explain how the characters found themselves in the initial dilemma. This was a frequent device used by Stan Lee (and all his collaborators like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, et. al.) al.) during Marvel's heyday. These stories often would start an issue of a comic with the heroes completing an adventure, thereby introducing them, their goals, and their powers, then as that adventure ended, a new one would begin. Every story beings with an inciting incident (sometimes called the catalyst). This is the action that has happened that gets the entire story rolling--the first link in the chain of events. To mix my metaphors, it's the first domino that falls, knocking over all the rest. (And here is where I personally prefer not to use the term catalyst, as to my way of thinking a catalyst can be a person or an action.) In some cases, the inciting incident happens before the story begins. Using a murder mystery for example, the story may begin with the discovery of the body, but it was the murder that sets the mystery into motion. (Or, you could take it even further back and say that the victim's actions may have led to his or her untimely demise.) In this case, the quest for the murderer and/or the reason behind the murder may be the main plot, but that does necessarily have to be true. The brilliant filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock referred to that thing all his characters wanted--be it the solution to the mystery, the secret plans, the jewelry, the mysterious stranger, the inciting incident--as the "MacGuffin", a term he borrowed fro m his friend, writer Angus MacPhail.. The characters' pursuit of the MacGuffin wa s what motivated MacPhail their actions and drove the plot, but the actual, physical MacGuffin was secondary (and sometimes never seen by the audience or found by the characters) to the events. It exists as a plot device that allows the


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audience to see into these characters' lives, hopes, dreams, and weaknesses, the true meat of the story. The first act introduces us to the key players of the story and lays out the core conflict. With the protagonist and the conflict established, we introduce the first major complication of the story, then move on to the second act. All told, the beginning or first act of the story should not take up more than 25% of the entire length of the story, although 25% is pushing the upper limit when your dealing with a lengthy story. Think of it this way: when you're watching a TV show or watching a videotape, if what you're watching doesn't engage your interest in the first few minutes (maybe fifteen or twenty for a feature length movie that you've paid good money to rent), chances are you will change the channel or turn it off. The same is true with a comic book. In a twenty-two page story, if you can't engage the reader's interest in the first three to five pages, it's unlikely you'll ever engage their interest. This is a pa rticularly sensitive issue when it comes to buying the comic. If someone looking at it in a store can't get interested in the first few pages, they're unlikely to buy the comic.

ACT TWO--THE MIDDLE (RISING ACTION) The basic structure to any story is that you set a goal for your protagonist and then put things in the way of the character achieving his or her goal. These obstacles are minor complications and they make up the second act or middle of your story. Each minor complication on the way to the climax of the story should be bigger and fraught with more


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danger/consequences than the last. Often, complications result in reversals-where the tables are turned on the protagonist making it more difficult f or the character to reach his or her goal. This is rising action. If the incidents do not build on top of each other and keep raising the stakes, then the reader will lose interest. This is what provides the story with forward impetus, building a sense o f momentum to the inevitable climax if the story. Each complication has a minor climax. Just as a story builds to its main climax from which the lead cha racters or the audience has learned something, the same is true of the minor climaxes. Following each minor climax, there should be a brief period of falling action. This allows the audience a chance to catch their breath and absorb what they've just witnessed. I look at it this way: the resolution of each minor climax comes with some kind of cost or reversal, and the falling action examines that cost. If you keep building complication upon complication without any resolution, you will leave the audience exhausted, and the subsequent complications and climaxes will have a lesser impact because you have not let them lower their defenses again. There may be times when you want to leave the audience breathless for a while, and that's perfectly valid. You may want to pile a dozen complications on top of each other to build tension, but it becomes important to release that tension at some point or else you'll oversaturate the audience's senses (and this is not senses-shattering in the good way). Once you've done that, nothing you do will have any impact. The collected complications may then overshadow your climax, robbing it of its dramatic impact. The climax of the story i s the biggest complication or the crisis. Everything in your story should lead inevitably to this moment. To me, this is the decision or action that protagonist must make from which there is no turning back--nothing will ever be the same a gain. The second act ends with the climax. Note what I just said above: t he second act ends with the climax. The story does not end with the climax. ACT THREE--THE END Following the climax must come the resolution to the crisis, followed by the denouement where we see why the decision/action mattered, what was learned, and/or what has changed. This is the end of the story. If there was no cost to the final action, if no one has learned something, if


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nothing has changed, then you've cheated your a udience. Why else did they stick around for the entire ride if there was no pay off? There are some examples of stories where the denouement comes before the protagonist takes the climactic action. Nicholas Meyer's marvelous film Time after Time is an excellent example of this. Without giving away the

end of the story, I will say that the lead character understands what the implications of his actions will be just before he takes action. This is perfectly acceptable, although sometimes difficult to pull off and have the audience feel fulfilled by the story. Generally speaking, the audience needs an opportunity to release tension that's been built up by the story along with the main characters with whom they've come to identify. This release of tension is called catharsis (quantified by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in Poetics), and it's an important element to almost every story. There are exceptions to this, as there are to all rules governing art. Sometimes the writer's point is to keep the audience tense so that on completion of the story, the audience is forced to confront their feelings rather than being told what to feel by the writer through his or her characters. This can be a very powerful tool when used well.

DRIVING T H E NARRATIVE As you write your story, make sure there is always a compelling reason for the audience to keep reading. There should always be an unanswered question or an unresolved dilemma that drives the narrative. I made it a point to explain that after every minor complication there needs to be falling action, but you don't want to fall into a cadence where you introduce a problem, solve it, introduce another problem, solve t hat problem, introduce a third problem, resolve it, and so on. It makes it easy for a reader to stop reading o nce you've posed the solution to the immediate question. Think of it this way: what makes a novel a "page turner?" Generally, it's because the author ends each scene and/or chapter with a new question or unresolved action (think complication), making it difficult to put down the book. At the beginning of your story, y ou might want to pose several questions. That way, as the story progresses and you answer some of the questions, there are still some left hanging. As you move along and answer some questions, the answers may pose new questions. The climax and denouement is when you answer the last of the questions or resolve all of the conflicts. If you do so prior to the climax, what's the point of the audience sticking around?


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In a long story or in serial fiction, we often use subplots to help maintain reader interest. As the main plot may be in falling action, the subplot may be rising. This keep's the reader's interest piqued. As Hero Woman recovers from her most recent battle with Villain Person, Terrible Despot's plans may be coming to fruition across town. Below y ou will find two examples of story structure. SINGLE INSTALLMENT STORY

EPISODE IN SERIAL FICTION

QUESTION 1

QUESTION 1

QUESTION 2

QUESTION 2

ANSWER 1

ANSWER 1

QUESTION 3

QUESTION 3

ANSWER 3

ANSWER 3

SUBPLOT QUESTION 1

SUBPLOT QUESTION 1

QUESTION 4

QUESTION 4

QUESTION 5

QUESTION 5

SUBPLOT QUESTION 2

SUBPLOT QUESTION 2

QUESTION 6

QUESTION 6

ANSWER 4

ANSWER 4

ANSWER 6

ANSWER 6

CLIMACTIC QUESTION

CLIMACTIC QUESTION

ANSWER 2

ANSWER 2

ANSWER 5

ANSWER 5

CLIMACTIC ANSWERS RESOLVE

MAIN PLOT CLIMACTIC ANSWER

MAIN PLOT AND SUBPLOT

SUBPLOT ANSWER 1 or SUBPLOT QUESTION THREE leading into the next installment...

In a single-installment story, you want the climaxes of the main plot and the sub-plot(s) to intersect, coincide, or interrelate on some level, if not physically, then thematically. By the end of your story, all of your questions should be answered. The exception to that is if you wish to leave one or two questions that the audience has to answer for


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themselves. This can make for intriguing storytelling, but you should at least resolve something for them--preferably the main conflict/dilemma. In serial/episodic fiction, each installment should have hanging questions that will cause the audience to want to come back for the next chapter. I strongly believe that every installment should resolve or reveal something; have its own beginning, middle, and end; and its own climax and denouement. Given the state of the comic book market these days, you want to give the consumers the feeling that they got something for the price of their admission.

Regardless of whether you are writing a stand alone story or a single installment of episodic fiction, your subplot's minor complications and climaxes should never overshadow the climax of y our main story. The main plot must have the most intensity in terms of complications and consequences and should hold the majority of space in terms of pages. We'll discuss structure in more detail as to how it applies to writing a comic book script in a later chapter, but before we get to that point, we should discuss what is at the heart all good stories: characters... n o i t c u r t s n o C y r o t 3 S r d e t n p a a t o h l C P

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C HAPTER 4 C HARACTER D EVELOPMENT "THE CHARACTERS TOOK CONTROL OF THE STORY" Every now and again you will hear a writer talk about a story where his or her characters took on a life o f their own and dictated the way the story would play itself out. In the past when I heard statements like that, I would consider it a sign of sloppy writing, believing the writer lost control of the plot and wandered off on tangents. While I am still very much a structuralist, I have mellowed in my feelings on the matter up to a point. I've written material where I had something I needed the characters to do, but discovered it couldn't work without betraying the character and had to reconceive what I was doing. I still find the general attitude to be dangerous, especially when writing for comics where there are usually very rigid limitations on space, but there is a valid consideration here to be made. Characters should be so vivid in the minds of the writer and the audience that we can sense when the characters are acting in a way that doesn't make sense. (Remember the "idiot plot?") A writer must know his or her cha racters so well that it will be obvious when he or she is trying to make the characters to do something that is contrary to their nature. Any time you f orce a character to do something that defies everything that has been revealed about the cha racter to that point, you are doing a disservice to the character, the audience, and yourself. There is one time where the characters taking control can truly be a good thing--when it forces the writer to rethink his or her plot to make sure it makes sense. Plot and structure are important, make no mistake, but your characters should not be sacrificed in order to force a plot to work. As with everything else in life, the writer must strive for a balance between plot and character. If you come to a point in your story where the plot requires someone to act out of character, then you have to make a decision: do you change the plot or do you alter the character? Something will have to give, or else you will drain your story of its reality. For the writer to reach the level where his or her character can take on a life of their own takes time, p ractice, and careful planning...

WHAT MAKES INTERESTING CHARACTERS? When we read a story or watch a movie, if we don't like the characters or relate to them in some way, we quickly lose interest. Without interesting and compelling characters, all the fight scenes and special effects in the world won't save your story from being uninvolving. Shock and awe are

t n e m p o l e v e D 4 r r e t e t c p a r a a h h C C

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appealing in the short term, but what makes people come back to your stories again and again are the characters. So, what does make for interesting characters? Believability and complexity. You want to make all of your characters--even the robots and aliens-recognizably human, with qualities to which the humans reading y our story can relate. Let's face it, we humans are an inherently contradictory bunch. We may say we love our fellow man, but there are exceptions, like that creep who cut you off in traffic or that next door neighbor who never turned down the stereo (especially when playing that awful polka music!). We all have hopes and dreams, as well as unreasoning fears and blind spots. We are complex, and it's that complexity that renders a character compelling. By embracing the common things that make us all human and instilling them into your characters, you will a chieve audience identification which is the heart and soul of effective storytelling. Every character should have a specific purpose in the context of your story. This is where I usually begin in terms of building a character. What is this character's role to fulfill: hero, villain, protagonist, antagonist, best friend, wise sage, cannon fodder? The primary action the character must take is the foundation of the character. From there, ask yourself a series of questions that spell out motivation, physical attributes, and integration.

MOTIVATION Every human is the sum total of his or her experiences. Every time we respond to something, we are drawing on all our previous experiences. When we encounter something outside of our experiences, that is when we feel fear or anxiety. As you think through your characters, you have to be part writer/creator and part therapist. You have to understand the goals a nd fears of your characters that drive them to take action. You have to be able to understand each character's motivations. You don't have to like or approve of their motives or actions, but you absolutely have to understand where they come from. There are three key questions with which you can work that will help you build a foundation for strong characterization. The questions come from the work of pio neering psychologist Carl Jung.

Who are you? In Jungian psychotherapy, the therapist asks the client, "Wh o are you?" Generally, the first answer someone gives to this question is their name, but what does a name really tell you about a person (unless they a


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character in a Charles Dickens or Ian Fleming story, which most of us are not)? The therapist once again asks, "Who are you?" The patient is not allowed to use the same answer. The purpose of this process is to show the patient that they have many identities--some are thrust upon us by circumstance, some are chosen. We all play different roles in our life: son or daughter, mother, father, lover, best friend, student, teacher, employee, etc. The goal of the questioning is to strip a way all the different roles until the client can find out the Who they really are, without the expectations or limitations thrust upon us by circumstance. In the superhero genre, we deal with mask-wearing characters. It is worth keeping in mind that we all wear masks all the time. We have our social mask, the face/expression that we wear in order to maintain polite society. We have the faces we wear with our families, lovers, children, employers, annoying drivers, postal workers, etc etc.. The more tired we are, the harder it is to maintain the social mask, and the more our true feelings and thoughts begin to show, and the closer others get to seeing our true selves. When designing a mask-wearing character, you must consider why the character wears a mask. Is he our she hiding something or revealing something? Is the mask the true face or the face the character hides behind? Does the mask give the character freedom to d o things he or she might never consider when not wearing the mask? Which is the true identity--the mask or the face behind the mask? What is the message that the masked character is trying to send to the people who see the mask? These are important questions in terms of characterization a nd can also be the starting point for interesting stories. Remember that nobody is ever one thing all the time, hence the many faces/masks we wear. The more facets you give your characters, the more storytelling potential you will have and the more interesting your characters will be. In serial fic tion, there should always be something more to learn about your character: new skills, new pockets of information, new surprises (that should be logical extensions of what is already established) that will keep your readers intrigued and wanting to learn more.

What do you want? This is the question--the motivation(s)--that drives all human activity. The deeper we go into asking who we are, the truer our wants should be. For example, as someone's employee, you may want to be on time for work, but as someone's lover, you may wish to spend all day in bed. These two desires may have equal value in your mind, but if you can't have both, a decision has to be made and with it comes consequences. Sometimes


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one role has to take priority over another--as much as you may wish to lounge in bed, the fact that you have bills to pay may force your role as employee to take precedence. How will this affect y our relationship? The fact that we have different roles to fulfill makes for complexity, and each role may have diff erent needs and responsibilities. Here is where we get back to internal conflict, an excellent source of drama. A subsequent question to "What do you want?" is "Why do you want it?" Answering this question in terms of creating characters makes for believable motivation. Our roles and goals are o ften defined by our experiences, and there is often a cause a nd effect relationship. A person who grew up in a broken family might go to extremes to make sure that the same doesn't happen for his or her children. A child who p ut his or her hand on a hot burner usually learns to respect fire. Once you understand what your characters want and why they want these things, it will become easier to write them consistently.

Why are you here? Once you have answered the questions of "who are you" and "what do you want," the last question is "Why are you here?" In real life, this is a metaphysical question. When it comes to writing, it is a practical question. Every character in your story must be there for a reason. Sometimes they move the plot forward by taking decisive action or providing important information. Sometimes they are there to give your lead characters someone to whom they can speak (a very important role as it helps avoid interminable monologues or lengthy thought ba lloons). Sometimes they are there for thematic purpose, to help prove y our premise. Whatever the reason, they have to b e present to serve an important purpose, or they shouldn't be there at all.

CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES As we develop our characters, we have to ask ourselves what role they provide in the context of the story. W ith that in mind, it is useful to build a biography. Although the material you create for the biography may never be shared directly with the reader, it will be helpful for you a s author to understand what drives your cha racters. The more you know about their histories, the more realistically you'll be able to portray their reactions in any given situation. Often we start with the externals--what does the character look like? How old? How tall? What gender? What race? What body type? Hair color? Eye color? How do they dress? What is their educational background? Socio-economic background? Are they an introvert or an extrovert, happy or depressed, easy-going or tense? Etc. These are


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questions that are driven by individual, personality, self-image, family, geography, and time period. Then there are the internals--their desires and motivations--built around "Who are they?"; "What do they want?"; and "Why are they here?" Where were they before they first appeared on the page? The history that precedes the character's appearance in a story is the character's backstory. Where did they grow up? What were their families like? What kind of childhoods did they have? What are the significant events that shaped how they relate to the world? What are your characters' hopes and dreams? What are their fears and blind spots? What are their likes and dislikes? These are things that every reader can relate to--maybe not the specifics, but they are elements of the common human experience. How does your character speak and move? Slowly and deliberately? Fast and impetuously? How does the character relate to other people? Shy? Forthright? Again, ask yourself why they act in these ways. Build that into the character bio. Give your characters interesting personality traits: do they have a propensity for rocky road ice cream? Blind jazz musicians from New Orleans? Do they trill their r's? G ive them some defining traits that will make them unique and interesting. It's a good idea to have some idea where those traits came from in the first place. All of these elements will dictate how the cha racter acts and reacts. In studying all human behavior, we come to the question of nature vs. nurture. How much behavior is genetically predetermined and how much is learned is something that can be debated at length. In the long run, for writers, it doesn't matter one way or the other as long as you know why your characters respond the way they do. You created them, so you have the option of setting whatever rules you wish. I will caution you about one thing: when you are dealing with serial fiction, it is a good idea to leave yourself some wiggle room in the character biographies. If you have planned out every minute of any character's life, then there may be no room for surprises or improvisation. Leave some gaps in the timeline so that you have room to introduce new elements as time progresses. Several years ago, I co-wrote a stage adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The first thing I did was to write the character biographies. These were a page or less long, but they created the blueprints I needed in order to work out the details of the plot. I started by reading the source


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material and pulling as much information as I could out of Robert Louis Stevenson's original story. As there is no way the story could be adapted to the stage without making significant changes to structure, I a pproached the job as a matter of interpretation than strict adaptation. The director/co-writer had already conceived a number of original characters for the production. What I did was to take all of these characters and figure out how they related to the theme of the story and to each other. I wrote a biography for each, explaining who and where they were in their lives up to the moment that the curtain rose. I laid out what each character wanted and why, how they related to the other characters physically or thematically, and what role they played in the overall theme of the story. I treated the biographies as living documents. As I developed the outline of the plot and began to write the actual script, I sometimes had to rethink the characters in order to move t he story along. That's perfectly acceptable. Don't treat the biographies as written in stone. Up until the story is in print or produced, you can alter anything you want or need in order to construct the best possible piece of entertainment. How much of the backstory do you share with the editor, artist, and/or audience? As much as you need to in order to convey the story at hand. The editor needs the most information so that he or she can help make sure you haven't left any important questions unanswered. The artist will need enough information to convey the character you have in mind, but I purposely try to leave some elements sketchy so that the artist can have input into the look and feel of the character. My general rule of thumb is that the more important the character is to the story, particularly their physical attributes, the more description I give. I let the artist have fr ee hand with the secondary characters. When it comes to the reader, I try to give the audience enough information so that they can understand the conflicts and the characters' stakes in the course of the action, but I try not to overwhelm them with unnecessary detail. Leaving a few well chosen holes in the character bio (a nd sometimes the story, but not in the plot) can give your a udience the chance to become active participants in the story being told by allowing them to exercise their own imaginations to fill in small gaps.

NAMING YOUR CHARACTERS One of the hardest things for me is coming up with names for my characters. You want something that sounds right for the race, time, and underlying concept for the character. It should be memorable. It should be pronounceable. It should be original. That's a tall order, especially if


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you're trying to come up with a "code" name for a costumed character. Where can you get ideas for names? For average, every day civilian characters, one of the best resources is a metropolitan telephone directory. Of course, you never take anyone's full name. Treat it as one from column A and one from column B. I find phone books particularly useful for ethnic names. You could go the Charles Dickens or Chester Gould route and try to invent names that reflect the inner nature of the characters. This can be an interesting device, but it's a difficult balance between effective and artificial. The name should at least sound vaguely realistic (unless you are dealing with a world where artifice is the rule). Code names are much harder because it f eels like all the good ones ha ve already been protected by copyright and trademark. It's hard to come up with cool new superhero or villain names, especially for title characters. There are some places I regularly turn for inspiration: The Dictionary and the Thesaurus--I sometimes just browse the dictionary, reading random entries, for inspiration. Animal names, words from science, and synonyms can be good places to start. Foreign Language Dictionaries--these can be particularly useful for stories with international casts like The X-Men. Books on Mythology and Folklore--these can give you inspiration for character names and stories. Books on Science--these are very useful for writing superhero stories and Science Fiction. One thing to be careful about, which I touched on at the beginning of this section is to make your c haracters' names pronounceable, particularly if the name is also the title of your comic book. If the name/title can't be pronounced, it's hard f or a customer to ask his or her retailer for the book. I created a character while working on Quicksilver . She was one of Magneto's Acolytes, a short, gray-skinned, horned, winged French woman. I named her Gargouille, the French word for "gargoyle" which she was designed to resemble. Neither my editor Mark Bernardo nor my co-writer John Ostrander ever got the pronunciation correct, their versions ranging from gar-gool gar-gool to to gar-ghoulie gar-ghoulie.. Oops. If the people working on the book can't pronounce the name, then it's ha rd to expect the audience to do so. (For the record, the pronunciation is gargooey .) .)

T H E FATAL FLAW


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Nobody is perfect. Building a fatal flaw (or flaws) into your characters makes them more human. For a hero, the flaw is something that they fight against that will make them appear more heroic. In a tragedy, it is a character's fatal flaw that will ultimately lead t o his or her downfall. Fatal flaws can be physical: a short leg, literal blindness, an allergy, kryptonite. These elements limit your characters and make them fallible. The flaw can be emotional/psychological: a short temper, a traumatic family history, irrational fears. Again, these are things that will hold you character back and make them more interesting. In heroic fiction, the fatal flaw is the part of your protagonist's character that he or she must fight against and overcome. This makes them appear all the more heroic and a ll the more human. Taking it a step further into the realm of the super-heroic, you want to develop characters that have inherent weaknesses so that they don't become omnipotent--it's hard to develop sufficient threats and challenges if your character is god-like in nature.

STEREOTYPES A N D DIVERSITY In today's politically correct society, "diversity" and "multiculturalism" have become watchwords. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on the goal and skill of the writer. I am a strong believer in diversity when developing a cast of a story. The more diverse a cast, the more perspectives represented by a cast, the more possibility for conflict and therefore, drama. Even the best of friends don't always see eye to eye on things, and that can lead to interesting story possibilities. As I have stated previously, it is important that all of the cha racters have some connection to each other or to the plot, either physically (family, work, circumstance, etc. etc.)) or thematically (similar hopes or dreams, but different methods to achieve their goals, etc.). etc. ). When new characters are introduced in serial fi ction, they usually have some connection to another member of the cast, either by blood or circumstance that allows the characters and the audience relate to them. (They also usually have some kind of secret as discussed in previous chapters.) Without the connection, the audience usually is slow to accept the characters, and sometimes they are never a ccepted or are flat out resented. Generally speaking, the closer to the main (tent pole) characters the new characters are, the sooner they will be accepted, as long as they aren't forced on the audience. It takes time for an audience to care about a character, and it is something that shouldn't be rushed. Audiences generally resent new characters that take time away from the


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characters they've come to care about if they haven't had a chance to get to know and take an interest in the new characters. An interesting example of the alienation factor is the Fox TV show Malcolm in the Middle. As good and funny as the show is, the scenes of the oldest

brother at military school (or whatever far -flung location they've sent him for each season) are usually so disconnected from the proceedings at home that they feel intrusive. I often wished they would drop that element. He is so far removed from the rest of the family/show that I don't even remember his name. There must be a reason why the character exists. Don't let all of your characters be exactly the same as each other. That will get boring. Mix up your cast by age, gender, race, religious background--not only does it open up story possibilities, it also makes your story accessible to the la rgest possible audience. Given the shrinking nature of the comic book audience, the more y ou can do to pull in readers, the better off you a re. The flip side to this argument is that if you bring in diverse characters simply for the sake of di versity with no real thought to the reason why this character exists within the context of the story, then you are doing your audience a disservice. I have written projects where the publisher or licensor has dictated that there must be four lead characters: two boys, two girls, one White, one Black, one Hispanic, one Asian. Sometimes one must have a physical (dare I use this politically charged term?) handicap. While I agree it's important to be inclusive in our ca sts of characters, don't ever let it become a template. It may not be logical when writing your American Civil War dra ma that there be an Asian best friend or a Southern Belle in a wheelchair. The cast must make sense within the world you are portraying. Be very careful when employing stereotypes. In Greek drama where stereotypes were originally created and employed, they had a very specific meaning and served an important function --they were a form of shorthand, a character with a universally understood costume/mask/make-up design that allowed the audience to immediately to recognize the role the character fulfilled in the course of the drama: king, slave, hero, etc etc.. Today, the concept of stereotype has taken on a very different and very negative meaning. Stereotypes sometimes have at their core some element of truth, but the danger is when you use that "truth" to apply to all members of a group of people. If for some reason you are going to employ a stereotype within the course of your story for whatever reason, it's a good idea to balance it in some way, shape, or form--either by giving the stereotypical character additional depth or having another character of t he same


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race/creed/color that works against the stereotype so that the audience can't claim you see a group of people in a singular, offensive way.

PEOPLE A R E PEOPLE When you are writing about characters that have very different backgrounds than yourself, it's very important that y ou do your research so that you can convey the characters in a believable fashion. While it may be acceptable in some cases simply to change the skin color of a secondary character in order to add diversity to your cast, that may not work as well if the character plays a major role in the plot. You have to be able to convey different races, religions, genders with believability. I t's very important that any artist expose him or herself to as many different types of people and situations as possible--and preferably not through works of fiction! The more you know and understand, the more you can write about. However, the bottom line is that people are people. We all have common emotions that transcend gender, race, or culture: love, hate, joy, fear, jealousy, anger, etc etc.. How we handle these emotions may be dictated by our personal histories and society--and this is where research come into play--but tapping into these emotions will make your characters feel more real. I remember reading an interview conducted with novelist Armisted Maupin where he was asked how he, as a gay man, could write such convincing love stories for his lesbian characters. His response was that love is love and how we respond to it is with the same beating heart, sweaty palms, longing glances, and jumbled words. This reaction has nothing to do with gender, race, or sexual identity. Emotions are emotions. If you get to the truth of the emotion, then the character will come across as a living, breathing human.

OBSERVING PEOPLE One of the best things you can do to learn how to convey characters as believable human beings is to observe people (but don't be rude about it!). Start by observing yourself. (This can be very scary, I'm the first to admit.) As you respond to different stimuli, step back and think about why you react in the way that you do. Where did your reaction come from? Was it something you were taught by your parents, family, friends? Are your responses based on previous experience or are they rooted in fear of the u nknown? Where did your likes and dislikes, loves and fears come from? When you can tap into that, it becomes easier to do it with other people and your characters. It' s the first step to empathy that is important to the creation of art. Observe other people. When interacting with family, friends, and acquaintances, try to empathize with their feelings. Even if you've never


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been told the exact roots of their emotions, try to understand where the emotions came from. Watch people on the street. Look at their body language. What does this suggest about the person in your mind? What emotions can you draw from the person's face and movement? Again, you may be way off base, but that's not the point. It's an exercise in connecting the dots in a way to create a complete picture, a skill you must possess in order to create believable characters.

PROTAGONISTS A N D ANTAGONISTS Action/adventure stories, including superhero comics, tend to break characters down into good and evil, heroes and villains. If we follow the basic hypothesis stated in this chapter that people have many different masks they wear/roles they play in life, that people are never all one thing, then by extension, nobody is ever all good or all evil. Your heroes may have negative qualities. Your villains may have admirable traits. That makes them more complex and vastly more interesting. When approaching storytelling, I tend to think in terms of protagonists and antagonists rather than heroes and villains. The protagonist is the primary character of the story. He or she may be hero or villain or an average person, but it is the character whose story is being told. Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to have multiple protagonists as any ensemble movie or superhero team comic proves. It is the protagonist who should take the key action at the climax of the story that resolves the conflict. The protagonist is the character with whom the author wants the audience to identify and is the character who should be most profoundly affected by the events of the plot. The antagonist is what stands in the way of the protagonist achieving his or her goals. The antagonist may be a villain or hero or a series of circumstances. What defines a hero? There a re as many answers to that question as there are heroes. We generally define a hero by his or her ability to overcome great challenges--internal or external--for the greater good. You can tick off a list: bravery, strength, intelligence, etc etc., ., etc etc.. If I were to select one trait that I feel i s integral to all heroes, it is compassion. A hero absolutely must care about people other than him or herself. One thing that is often important to the hero is humility. In the traditional hero's journey, the hero doesn't recognize that he or she i s a hero at the beginning of the story. It is only through testing his or her resolve and overcoming adversity and his or her own shortcomings that the character comes to be seen as a hero.


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What defines a villain? Again, there are as many answer to that question as there are villains. Again, you can list numerous traits: violence, an unwillingness to accept responsibility, jealousy, envy, anger, greed, a short temper, etc etc., ., etc etc.. If I were to choose a single element that is integral to a villain, it is selfishness. A villai n is concerned with his or her own needs above all else. They may want something that on the surface seems like a good and noble goal, but they are willing to sacrifice anyone or anything (other than themselves) to get it. Writer Ruth Morrison once explained the difference between a hero and villain in this way: "A hero is a person who overcomes a tragedy and promises never to let the same thing happen to anyone else. A villain is someone who overcomes a tragedy and swears never to let it happen to him or herself again." I really like this observation. It is important to keep in mind that most villains don't see themselves as villainous or evil. We're all the heroes of our own lives. Even Hitler believed he was doing the "right" thing, regardless of how a ppalling his actions were. A villain has an unshakeable belief that they can do no wrong. Often, heroes are portrayed as "common" people. The goal of some storytellers is to celebrate the sense that any one of us can be a hero. They create their heroes from the every day , hoping to inspire the audience to bigger and better things. They imply that heroes are one of "us." Sloppy writers frequently fall into the trap o f making their villains an outsider, an "other." They don't want the audience to feel that a villain could be one of us--it has to be one of "them." It is my observation that in soap operas, villains are oft en "foreign devils." They are not members of the core families, but rather people who come to town from another place. In order to make villains a ll the more loathsome, bad writers pile all kinds of "negative" qualities on them in order to stop the audience from identifying with them. One short cut that became popular in the mid-90's was to show us a scene of the villain or general troublemaker smoking a cigarette. Another shortcut used in action/adventure and mystery novels in years past ( but not that far past...) was to make their villain all the more repellent and a lien by making them "sexual deviants"-homosexuals--reinforcing the negative stereotype that all gays, lesbians, and bisexuals were twisted and not to be trusted. Personally, I find a villain that could be one of us far scarier than one that is completely alien.


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When you compare heroes and villains, they often have many common traits. They may even have co mmon goals. But what separates them are the lengths to which they will go to achieve their goals. Now that we've covered the basics of story structure and character development, we can now begin our focus on the specifics of writing for comic books, beginning with outline or "page breakdown..."


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C HAPTER 5 T H E P A G E B REAKDOWN T H E OUTLINE When writing for comic books, I tend to work in a three step process: idea, outline, and execution. The idea is just that: the basic concept or hook that is at the heart of the story. In the professional world, the idea is presented as a springboard or a proposal. As they are used to present your ideas to editors, I will co ver them in a later chapter about selling your work. The execution is the physical writing of the script, including all of the panel descriptions and dialog (if full (if full script). script). That is the focus of the next chapter. This chapter is about the outline, often referred to as the page breakdown or PBD. For an example of the three step process, you can read my Scooby-Doo story "Psychic Psyche-Out" which includes the springboard, page breakdown, and final script. This will give you an overview of the steps I went t hrough in writing the story. It will also show that even when a springboard and page breakdown have been approved, there is still room for c hange. The story was published by DC Comics in Scooby-Doo #19 (and reprinted recently in Scooby-Doo TPB ). Vol. 4--"The Big Squeeze" ). The page breakdown or outline is the basic blueprint of your story. I feel very strongly about the use of o utlines when writing for comics. As mentioned previously, the biggest limitation in telling stories in the comic book medium is space. There is only so much material that will f it on a comic book page, and only so much that will fit in a panel. When working professionally, you will usually have a set number of pages in which to tell your story: 5, 8, 10, 12, 22, 28; whatever the number you are assigned, you have to h it it. You can't turn in two less or three more. It simply doesn't work that way as there is a set number of physical pages in the publication, and most publishers have to reserve some of that space for advertising. Once in a great while, a publisher might allow you ONE extra page for a month, but that is rare as it often represents an additional expense for them (they have to pay the creators for the page) and the loss of advertising revenue. The rule of freelancing is you deliver what's commissioned in the format in which it was commissioned. With space being the main determiner of pacing and the amount of content, working with an outline will help you stay within your confines. If you map out your story before you begin to script, then you are less likely to go off on space-consuming tangents. I can't tell you how many

n w o d k a e r B 5 e r g e t a p P a e h h C T

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scripts I had to grade a s a teacher at the Joe Kubert School where students, who had not worked out the pacing of their story before they began writing their scripts, discovered that they had run out of space on the last two pages of their story and tried to wedge six pages worth of story material into two pages. It doesn't work, a nd it can be avoided by starting with an outline. Below is a cramped map you can use for thinking out a standard ten page comic book story. The image is very small and hard to read (as if you needed me to tell you that). It is, however a link to a full-size 11 x 8.5" PDF version that you may print out and keep as reference (it's a handout I created to give my students at The Kubert School) School ). The theory in terms of pacing remains pretty much the same for any length of story as it is based on the 25%, 65%, 10% structure. However, keep in mind as you expand a story that y our audience usually has limited patience for waiting for a story to begin. If you are creating a 64 page graphic novel, it may not be wise to keep the reader waiting 13 pages (25% of story by volume--settling may occur in the shipping process) for the plot to kick into gear. I try not to make the reader wait more than five pages for the first kicker when writing stories of 22 or more pages.

BASIC PHILOSOPHY Let's start with some of the basic assumptions with which I work. A good average for the number of panels on a comic books page is five. Five allows your artist room to work and maximizes panel layout possibilities. I say average--don't make the mistake of falling into a cadence with five panels on every page. I once worked with an editor who strongly believed that every page should be a five panel page. Some


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of my scripts were rewritten by the editor to fall into that vision, sometimes taking a six panel page and combing two panels in order to make five. This sometimes destroyed the rhythm I was attempting to create and I felt that the stories that were mandated at a five panels per page rate felt very mechanical. Any rigid format in terms of panel numbers may become repetitive and boring to the reader, even if they don't recognize how or why on a conscious level. (Exception one: sometimes the cadence can become a powerful rhythmic device--if you are using it for effect, then it's perfectly acceptable. This goes back to my a ssertion that if you are going to break rules, break them with a purpose, not out of ignorance. Exception two: Steve Ditko used the nine panel grid throughout his Marvel career, and it's hard to argue with his Spider-Man or Dr. Strange pacing. More recently, David Lapham uses his eight panel grid very effectively in Stray Bullets, although even he sometimes breaks with the number eight.)

Sometimes a six or nine panel grid will be an effective tool for pacing (although don't ask for a crowd scene in each panel of a nine panel grid unless you want to give your artist heart palpitations). As action gets bigger, especially in the superhero genre, then fewer panels on the page will allow for big, dramatic shots. The more panels you ask for on a page, the less information you should ask for within each individual panel. At the other end of the spectrum a re splash pages. I tend to be very cautious with my use of splash pages. One or two per 22 page story is the most I will (usually) ask for. If you overuse them (or any other device), they will lose their impact. When I employ them, it is for dramatic purpose. Many young artists in the industry like to throw in multiple pin up pages because they're fun to d raw and they can be sold for higher prices in the after market. As a writer, my primary focus is the storytelling, and multiple splash pages decrease the amount of storytelling space and can disrupt the flow of the story. (Besides, we writers don't get a piece of that after market, so it doesn't become a motivating factor for us.) I often use a splash page at the beginning of the story as a place to introduce the initial dilemma and/or key character(s) and as a place for the title and credits. The best placement for the introductory splash is generally on page one or page three. Right hand pages are usually seen first by Western readers when casually flipping through the pages of a publication (which is why magazine publishers can charge a premium for ads placed on the right hand pages of their publications), and the placement of a big, dramatic image at the top of the story on the right hand page can be an effective sales tool when a consumer is leafing through the comic at the store. Again, don't feel you MUST always place


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the splash on page one or three. Sometimes is a good idea to move it around so you don't become predictable. The other place I might use a splash page is at the climax of the story, to present the big action that resolves the core conflict of the story. As the biggest, most important part of the story, it may deserve the biggest, most dramatic image--especially when writing an action/adventure story. (An interesting exception to that theory is when a small decision might have the biggest impact. Using a small panel to convey the decision and then opening up later panels to show the weight of the impact can be an effective device.) I may sometimes use a splash page in the middle of the story if I am introducing a key character or concept, or introducing a crowd of characters (as in a team book). I try to be mindful that nothing that happens in the middle of the story overshadows the climax, though. Otherwise, the story will feel out of balance. I try to make sure that every panel carries important information about plot, character, or story. Every panel should exist for a reason. I also try to make sure that something significant happens on every page. A complication or reversal should happen every two or three pages to keep raising the stakes and hold the audience's attention. One additional element I'd like to address at this point is the use of the end of page hook or question. Some co mic writers, especially those who work in the "slice of life" genre, feel that this is an artificial device. I can't say that they are inherently wrong, but it CAN be an extremely effective device. At the heart of the concept is that you end each page with an unanswered question or unresolved action that will cause the reader to want to turn the page to find out what happens next. As all narrative is driven by unanswered questions, I think that the end o f page hook can be employed well, as long as you don't use the same type of hook at the end of every page. As with every other tool and trick, vary how you employ it. Some examples of end of page hooks include: A punch about to be thrown, and its impact is seen at the top of the next page. A character asks a key question, the answer to which is revealed on the next page or later within the story. A character is about to enter a room or look into a box ( etc. etc.). ). We may see their reaction (joy, horror, etc etc.) .) but it isn't until the next page that we get to see what the character has seen.


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A dialog balloon or narrative caption is broken into two pieces. The first half is at the bottom of the page with the second half at the top of the next page forcing the reader to turn the page in order to complete the thought. The end of page hook can be used to compress time. A character may leave location A at the bottom of a page and arrive at location B at the top of the next. Time has been compressed and you have left the reader with the question of what will change when the character arrives at his or her destination. (A further discussion of the passage of time follows in the next ch apter.)

THE P BD The page breakdown, or PBD, is just what it sounds like: the outline of the story broken down page by page. Some editors will want to see a PBD before they let you go to script. This is particularly true if you are working on a custom comic or a licensed property (in both cases, the publisher doesn't own the property, so representatives of the licensor must approve each step along the way. By approving the PBD, then it is less likely that significant plot changes will have to be made in the actual script, saving the writer and editor from more work). When writing a PBD, all that is necessary is one, two, or three sentences that explain the key action/events/story developments on the page. It truly is an outline, and you may find you have to make changes when you are writing the actual script--some scenes may require more or less (A side note to aspiring pencilers who may be reading this material-the same advice holds true. Don't

space than you originally thought. That's perfectly acceptable--most editors won't sweat the small stuff as long as your changes don't change the story itself.

judge your storytelling a single page at a time. To get the full

In the days before word processors, I used to use 3" x 5" index cards to

impact, lay as may as you can side

work out my plot outline. Each card represented one page of my story. I

by side so that you can get a sense

could lay them out on a table and get a sense for the actual shape of the

of the flow of your artwork. Even in

story. By stepping back and taking a long view (never lose sight of your

my professional work, I can tell when an artist has looked at his previous pages to make sure that everything comes together the way it should. If you are working at a fever pitch and have to send pages

main story by focusing too much on the details), I could often tell if anything was missing or if the story rhythm was off. Were there any scenes that were too long? Did I leave out any important details? I would move things around if necessary to improve the pacing, cut scenes, add scenes--whatever was necessary to make the story work. You can

in to the office as quickly as you

certainly cut and paste with a word processor, but there's nothing better

finish them, then keep photocopies

than being able to step back and look at the big picture, especially when

by your drawing table so that you can always look at the work you did previously.)

you are just starting out. Even today I may do my initial PBD on notebook paper with boxes representing each page so that I can get a better overview of my pacing.

H O W LONG SHOULD A N Y GIVEN SCENE B E ?


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This is a vexing question, especially for beginners. The bottom line answer to this question is "as long as i t needs to be." The trick is developing a sense for how much space any given scene needs to be. Developing an instinct for the length of scenes will come with time and practice. There are a couple tricks I try to keep in mind when writing for comic books that you may find f ind useful when addressing this question. I generally don't like to change locations more than once on a page (unless I'm creating a montage sequence in order to compress time. Another exception is when showing characters in transit from one location to another. Then the readers assume the movement as the characters pass through multiple settings). Frequent changes of location can become disorienting to the readers as they try to keep track of where the action is happening. Therefore, for the sake of pacing, I try to keep to single location on each page--which means each scene I write tends to be at least one page in duration. This is less true when I am dealing with stories that are 12 pages or less in length, although the shorter the story, the fewer locations I use in the first place. Every scene has its own set up and pay off, which usually translates to at least two panels. The bigger the payoff, the more panels of set up it may require and the more panels to deliver the payoff. The more characters that have to be introduced in a scene, the longer the scene will have to be. The more detailed plot information to be conveyed, the longer the scene will have to be. Content and intent dictate length.

GENERAL PACING Remember in chapter two the basic story structure I laid out: Beginning 25% or less of the total length of the story Middle 65% or more of the to tal length of the story, depending on beginning and end End 10% or less of the total length of the story You can use these basic proportions as y ou approach your plotting. In your standard 22 page comic book story, this means approximately 5 pages for beginning--the basic introduction of time, place, key characters, and introducing the first complication; 15 pages for rising action to the climax; and 1 or 2 pages for denouement/resolution/wrap up. The basic proportions are sound for stories of 1 to 32 pages. If the story extends beyond 32, then lower the percentages for the beginning and end. It is rare that people will want to wait 12 pages out of 48 for the


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story to begin or to take 6 pages out of 64 to watch action wind down (unless the repercussions are THAT interesting). As a general rule of thumb, even in stories that are longer than 32 pages (in a single volume), I try not to spend more than 5 to seven pages to get the story rolling. I try not to use more than 4 pages for denouement. In thinking out your story, remember that every scene of your main plot should help build to the final climax, and the climax should be the single most dramatic element of your story. (In a serial, your sublpots may not be resolved for many installments. As long as you resolve something in every installment or moved the plot f orward significantly, your readers won't feel cheated.) You should try to have a variety of sc enes in terms of length and location. Again, try to avoid falling into a cadence. Mix up the length of your scenes--some can be one, two, three, or more pages, followed by one of a different length. Short, staccato scenes can be used to build tension, then break that tension with a longer scene that will give your readers a chance to breath and absorb what they've just learned. I try to pace my stories so that there is a significant development on every page. Something should be learned by the readers or the characters on every page, or the status quo should change in some way. This gives your story a sense of forward momentum. You want to avoid pages or scenes where the audience learns nothing as they will feel that their time (and, worse yet, their money) has been wasted. However, this does not mean that every page has to be at a fever pitch. A small character revelation can be just as important (if not more) than a big, dramatic explosion (physical or emotional). It is wise to have a mix of both in order to give the audience that "roller coaster" feel. Every story is built on peaks and valleys--the minor climaxes and resolutions that build to the climax.

WHERE DOES T H E STORY START? When you are working in the superhero genre, it is often important to establish who the character is, what his or her powers are, and why they fight the good fight early in the story so that when the main dilemma kicks into high gear by mid-story, the audience is understands the character's goals and motivations. One trick we use to get capture the audience's attention right from the start and to explore the hero is to start the story in media res, res, literally in the middle of things. By having your characters already in action, you can show who they are, what they can do, and why they do what they do. If you introduce Hero Woman by having her apprehending some common


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street thugs in the opening pages of your story, you can establish important elements about her on the fly. As always, it's better to show rather than tell. If you start the story in the middle of an action, then you will have to fill the readers in on what is happening a nd why it is happening. There are a number of ways we can a ccomplish this important goal:

Narrative captions. This is probably the weakest method, although it is sometimes the only option you may have. When working in the action/adventure genre, over-long or large numbers of yellow caption boxes are often ignored by readers who want to get on with the story. This may be less true of Vertigo-type stories where the use of language is of equal importance to the storytelling as the art and the action.

Conversation. If a new character is arriving in the middle of the action, the old characters can fill in the newcomer (and thereby, the readers) with dialog, explaining what is going on and why.

Flashbacks. I am a strong believer in "show, don't tell" in any visual storytelling medium. This can be combined with narrative captions or conversation, showing the readers what led up to the current crisis. Sometimes you can use this device to add new details that were unrevealed previously, thereby making the flashbacks important to new and old readers alike. This helps take some of the old readers' resentment out of the flashbacks. The topic of flashbacks can lead into an interesting discussion about how much backstory you need to reveal at any given point in time. Readers who come back month in and month out for every issue of a comic often complain about the fact that they have to re-read material that they read last issue, last year, or several years ago. They often just want to keep the story moving without having to slow down for explanations of what they have already witnessed. This is further complicated by the emergence of trade paperbacks as a driving for ce in the comics industry. With so many story a rcs being collected into single volumes, the flashbacks become an even greater sticking point. There are a lot of readers who wait until collections come out to read stories where once there were four week gaps. Flashback often helped even regular readers refrech their memories, but with collected editions often read over a short period of time, going back over things that happened just a few pages ago (in trade paperback time) seems very awkward. How can you provide important history without alienating the core readers of your ongoing comic book or boring readers of trade paperbacks? The use of the inside front cover or letters page (or even


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the time-honored explanation over the titles on the splash pages in 70 s Marvel Comics) is a relatively painless way to accomplish the goal, although it isn't an option with all publishers. The list above offers some tools you ca n use, but I'm sure you can think of or invent additions of your own. As long as you play fair with the readers, filling them in on all the important information they will need to understand what is going on, it doesn't matter which method you use.

VISUAL ELEMENTS Something else that I recommend is that y ou always give your characters something to do, even in the slower, dialog-heavy scenes. It is often more visually interesting to watch people who are in motion than ones who are sitting around. (Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes you can increase dramatic tension in a static setting.) In theater, we call any movement that takes the character through space blocking. Personal movement, such as interacting with props (food, cigarettes, or anything else the character can hold) is called business. Blocking and business can reveal much about your characters via body language. It is also wise to place your characters in visually interesting locations. The settings in which you place y our characters can reveal much about them. Where do they feel comfortable? Where do they feel threatened? Where do they have fun? What do they do to have fun? This keeps the story visually appealing and can increase your artist's pleasure in the work by giving them fun stuff to draw (although if you are going to ask for anything way off the beaten path, you should provide your artist with reference!). Movement, location, and structure are core things to keep in mind as you sit down to work on your outline. The more you think out ahead of time, the faster and easier the plotting and writing will be.

WRITING T H E PAGE BREAKDOWN All right, so I've laid out some of the theory with which I work. The act of putting all this down on paper is going to seem anti-climactic. That's because you should have thought out y our story before you sit down to work. The more thought you put into the detail up front, the faster and easier the actual writing usually is--not always, but usually. The PBD should be short and to the point. You don't need more than a few sentences to describe each page. All you need to do is lay out the key story points for each page. Sometimes its useful to make note of specific character motivations and other details, but the PBD is merely a blueprint You don't have to overload it with detail. In many cases, you


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are better off NOT overwriting as the editor may want you to make changes. Don't feel that you have to write in a linear fashion. I have found that with beginners, it is often best for them to work from the end backwards. That way they don't fall into the trap of coming to the penultimate page of their script and discover they have five pages worth of story they have to wedge into two. It doesn't matter what order you write the scenes --all that matters is that you keep writing. Work on the scenes that are clearest in your mind and work outward from there. I have a template on my computer that lays out comic book stories page by page, to wit: PAGE ONE PAGE TWO PAGE THREE PAGE FOUR PAGE FIVE Etc. A template can help take some of the drudgery out of the work as you don't have to keep typing PAGE PAGE PAGE. I also have the template set up so that when it comes time to script I can access the different paragraph styles with a few short keystrokes. (Learn the power of your word processors, my friends--they can save y ou much work. The best advice I can give you right now is to go do it. Write a PBD or two, keeping in mind what you've read here (and heard from any other sources) and when you get that done, move on to the next chapter: scripting.


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C HAPTER 6 W RITING THE S CRIPT (Note #1: to see some examples of scripts and plots, visit the sample scripts section of the website at http://mysite.verizon.net/joe_edkin/sample.html http://mysite.verizon.net/joe_edkin/sample.html Note #2: even though this chapter carries the title "Writing the Script", a discussion of writing dialog will appear in the next chapter.. ) DEFINING SOME TERMS All right--we've covered characters, plots, and page breakdowns. Next we come to the actual writing of the script--except that before we can discuss the script, we need to define some terms. Let's start with terms I will be using for the sake of this discussion.

Script - in the world of comic books, "script" can mean one of two things. There is the full script where the story is broken down page by page, panel by panel, with all of the dialog, caption boxes, and sound effects included. The second meaning for script is the dialog script that is either written or tightened up after the pages are penciled. When you work in the plot first style (often referred to as the Marvel style, even though it predates

Marvel Comics and is not used by every writer or editor at Marvel). In the plot-first method, the writer breaks the story down page by page, and usually panel by panel ( although it can be even looser than this). The amount of information provided is dependent upon the relationship between the writer and the artist (as well a s the editor's comfort zone). It allows the artist the greatest amount of input into the story. Once the pages are drawn, they are sent to the writer to compose the dialog script. I will be coming back to this concept in a later chapter. This chapter will focus on the process of writing a full script.

Plot - in the course of this chapter, "plot" will mean a breakdown of the story in page by page, panel by panel format.

Manuscript - this is the script or plot a s you turn it in to your editor. Remember, the manuscript is read only by the people invovled in the creation of the comic book. It is usually not read by the audience at large. The text that the audience reads is the copy .

Copy - all text that is published in the comic book and is seen by the readers will be referred to as the copy for the sake of this discussion.

t p i r c S e 6 h r t g e t n p i t a i h r C W

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WHICH STYLE D O I PREFER? I am sometimes asked in which style I prefer to work--full script or plotfirst? It all depends on my relationship with the editor and/or the artist. Often, when a writer turns in a full script, the copy placement is handled by someone in the editorial office, although it may also be determined by the penciller or even the letterist. I've heard some writers say that once they've turned in the full script, they've done their job and don't want to see it again, perfectly happy to let someone else deal with the copy placement. I'm not like that. I prefer to do my own copy placement whenever given the opportunity. Where the copy is placed on the page has a significant impact on the storytelling and page design, and I don't like to let go of the control of this element. I will discuss the theory of copy placement in a later chapter. One of the strongest arguments for working in full script is that it shows the artist exactly how much dialog f or which they need to allocate room in their compositions. When you work plot-first, you are at the mercy of the artist in terms of copy space. You may mention in your plot that a specific page or panel requires extra room for copy, but what you consider extra room and the artist considers extra room ma y be vastly different things. By having the copy in front of them, the artist should be better prepared to leave the required amount of negative space. Another benefit of having the pages come back to me even when working full script is that it forces me to take a second look at the text I've written and it gives me th e opportunity to make rewrites. Because there is a gap between the time you turn in a script/plot and the time the penciled pages come back, it gives you the opportunity to forget what you've written. This is a good thing because you can come back to your work with fresh eyes and often you can catch things that got by you the first time around--missing words, clumsy dialog, unclear thoughts-and fix them. To me, the biggest benefit of having the penciled pages come back to me is that it allows me to take advantage of opportunities presented by the artist that I had not expected. There have been many times where artists have added little bits of business or fun expressions on the faces of characters that have caused me to change or add dialog. It's great to have the chance to capitalize on these opportunities. And there have been other times where artists have not left the a mount of space I'd needed for the copy or not drawn important elements, so I had to make adjustments to make sure that the story remained clear.


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When you work plot-first, the pages HAVE to come back to the writer to finish the job by providing the dialog, so that is an advantage if you are a control freak like I am about copy placement.

EVEN MORE BASIC DEFINITIONS Before we get to the nuts and bolts of writing a comic book script, we should define some more important terms that will make c ommunicating with your artist much easier. Comic book scripts borrow not only elements of sc reenplay format, but also the language of the screenplay in order to communicate to the editor the composition for each panel. W hen we describe a panel, we write as if the artist is taking a picture. We often refer to "the camera" with the assumption that the artists is the cinematographer (the person in the filmmaking process responsible for camera placement and lighting design). Therefore, it is useful for y ou to know basic filmmaking terminology. In this section, I will define so me of the most common terms you will need to know.

Subject - the subject is the person or object that is the primary focus of the panel.

Shot - in filmmaking, this is a single camera set up. Each panel in a comic book can be considered a shot.

Cropped - when the subject of the panel is not completely seen, extending beyond the panel borders. A bust shot shows the subject's head and shoulders (get your minds out of the gutters, people), cropping the rest of the body outside of the panel.

Three planes of action: Foreground - the area closest to the camera, a nd by extension, the reader.

Middleground - the area between the foreground and the background. Often, this is where the majority of action will take place.

Background - the space that exists behind the subject(s) of t he panel. In Chapter Four, I defined blocking and business. I think they're well worth mentioning again here because these are elements you will be using when writing panel descriptions.

Blocking - this refers to any movement that moves characters through space. Getting characters from one location to another is blocking. Fight scenes are blocking.


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Business - this is any personal movement/interaction that characters have with props. Personal business should never steal focus from the primary action. Ah--what does it mean to steal focus? This means that something is pulling the audience's attention from the main focus and distracting them from what they should really be watching. That's a great skill to have if you’re a

magician--it's called misdirection in that case. You lead the audience's eyes to the unexpected flash of powder while pulling the concealed dove out of your pocket. It's not cool to do that to someone who is imparting important information about the plot or undertaking important action. This is also called upstaging someone. This is a term that c omes from the theater. The part of the stage that is closest to the audience is downstage (i.e. the foreground). Center stage is just that--center both from front to back and from left to right (the middleground). Upstage is the part of the stage furthest from the audience. Unscrupulous actors who want to steal focus will drift upstage so that the other ac tors have to turn their backs to the audience in order to interact with them. This is where the concept of upstaging comes from, and today it refers to anything an actor does onstage to steal the focus away from the other actors.

COMMON TYPES O F SHOTS Shots are defined by the distance from the subject of the panel to the camera.

Establishing Shot - usually an extreme long shot that defines the location and the spatial relationships between people and objects in the panel. I think it is useful to have an establishing shot on every page of a story, or at the very least, within every scene of a story. Establishing shots can also be for people or objects that we need to define for the audience.


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Extreme long shot - a shot so distant that the main subject is a dot or not visible at all.

Distant long shot - a shot where the subject can still be seen, but no meaningful information about the subject is discernable.

Long Shot


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Long Shot (for a person)

Medium Shot


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Long shot - a shot of such distance that few details and little meaningful information about the subject can be easily seen. When the term long shot is used to describe a person, then it usually means a full body shot of the subject(s).

Long medium shot - a shot where meaningful information about the subject can be seen, but the subject of the panel occupies less space than the surroundings within the composition. When referring to people, a long medium Close Up

or medium long shot might be from the knees up. Part of the body is cropped outside of the panel, but we c an still see about 3/4 of the individual.

Medium shot - A shot that shows the subject and the surroundings equally well. When referring to people, a medium shot would be from about waist up, revealing maybe 1/2 of the individual.

Close medium shot - the subject takes up more of the frame than the surroundings, but is significantly cropped within the panel. The emphasis is clearly on the subject. Extreme Close Up When referring to people, a close medium or medium close shot would be from the breastbone up.

Bust shot - this is the head and shoulders shot as mentioned above. Close up - the subject fills the panel with very little room around it. For a person, it's a full face shot. For an object, it's the entire object

Extreme close up (ECU ) - this shows a specific detail of the subject: the dial pad of a telephone; the mole over someone's lip; a finger tightening on the trigger of a gun; etc. And here's an important aside to artists (and I do hope that a rtists are taking the time to read this, just as writers should learn the theory of


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layout, design, lettering, and coloring. The more we all know about the other disciplines, the better we are at communicating with our collaborators)--when you think in terms of close ups and extreme close ups, remember that the copy (caption boxes, word balloons, sound effects) make up part of your frame. If the writer calls for a close up and indicates that there will be text in the panel, don't fill the entire panel with the close up and leave no room for the copy. The copy elements are part of your framing device.

MORE

TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW

In the previous section, I discussed different types of shots. Now I want to address some additional filmmaking terms you should know that can apply when you are writing y our plots and scripts.

Two shot - this is generally a medium or medium close shot of two characters where the two subjects have equal prominence in the panel. A "two shot favoring character one" means that character one is more prominent within the panel--usually because this character is carrying an important piece of the plot or a ction (whether it's dialog, blocking, or a reaction shot).

Zoom In

Zoom Out

Pan (Right)


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Dutch Tilt

Over the shoulder shot - the camera is

(Dutch Angle)

placed behind one character, looking over that character's shoulder at another character or object. This is a variation of the point of view (POV) shot where the

audience's attention is being drawn to the same element that the character is focusing on without the audience being asked to identify completely with the character.

Point of view (POV) shot - the camera (and by extension the audience) is seeing something the same way that a character does. This is done to force audience identification with the character.

Reverse angle shot - the camera is placed in almost the exact opposite position that the immediately previous panel. For example, if panel four was over HERO WOMAN's shoulder looking at CANNON FODDER BOY as CFB said something particularly stupid, then panel f ive might be a reverse angle shot over CFB's shoulder looking into HW's dumbfounded reaction. Hey, artists! Here's something to keep in mind--when discussing reverse angle shot, you should keep the 180 degree rule in mind. When reversing angles, you want to be careful not to cross the 180 degree line bisecting the subjects of your frame. Doing this will cause the characters to flip position within the panel and be against a completely dfferent background. This can lead to confusing visual cues to the audience. This rule is very important in film, but perhaps less so on a comic book page, but it's worth thinking about as you work out your compositions.

Head room - this is the amount of space between the top of your panel (frame) and the tops of the heads of your characters or the topmost point of an object. Generally you want to leave a little space between the top border and the tops of heads unless you are trying to create a sense of claustrophobia. This is not the same a s dead or negative space. Also, keep in mind that caption boxes and word balloons are part of the frame, so head room applies to the a mount of space between the tops of heads and the bottoms of copy elements.

Dead/negative space is used to help draw attention to the subject of the panel or is reserved for copy. This is space within the composition that has no artwork in it. It usually white or some other solid color.

Cut away - this means we cut away from the primary focus to something else. This can be a reaction shot within the context of the s cene or to someplace completely different to give a sense of meanwhile.


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Match cut - this means that panels flow from one into the next in order to give the sense of continuous action:

PANEL ON E Inside the bank vault. SUPERGUY draws back his fist, preparing to slug MEAN CHICK.

PANEL TWO SUPERGUY lets loose with a mighty blow, speeding right toward MEAN CHICK's jaw.

PANEL THREE SUPERGUY's fist connects with MEAN CHICK's jaw.

PANEL FOUR Cut to outside the bank. MEAN CHICK crashes through the wall, carried by the momentum of the blow. In that sequence, there is a very definite flow of action, each panel matching the action of the previous panel to create a sense of fluid f luid motion.

Jump cut - jump cuts compress time. We move from point A to point E without seeing points B, C, or D. For example:

PANEL ON E Inside the bank vault. SUPERGUY draws bac k his fist, preparing to slug MEAN CHICK.

PANEL TWO Outside the bank. MEAN CHICK is escorted away in handcuffs by two UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICERS as SUPERGUY watches. Mean Chick's jaw is bruised. There is a hole in the bank wall and rubble on the sidewalk. The reader should be able to piece together the cause a nd effect. They saw Superguy about to throw a punch and the bruised Mean Chick being escorted away. We've compressed time, but the audience can assume what has happened pretty easily by the visual clues.

Zoom in - the camera moves closer to the subject. Zoom out - the camera moves away from the subject. Pan left or right - the camera pivots from left to right or vice versa. (Please note that this is not a discussion of filmmaking, so I am not going to get into the differences between zooms/pans and tracking shots.)


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Tilt up or down - the camera tilts up or down. (Hmmmm--that one is pretty self-evdient, isn't it?)

Low angle/worm's eye view - the camera is placed below the horizon line (often at floor level) looking up at the subject. This is often used to make the subject look powerful.

High angle/bird's eye view - the camera is placed above the horizon line and looks down at the subject. Often used for establishing shots or to distance the audience from the action.

Overhead shot - the camera is placed directly ov er the subject's head looking straight down.

Dutch tilt/angle - the camera is at an angle causing the horizon line to not be parallel to the top or bottom of the panel frame. The 60 s Batman TV show used this device often.

FORMATTING YOUR SCRIPT I've said it before. I'll probably say it again. And again. There is no universal format in which you must write a nd/or submit your scripts. Generally speaking, comic scripts use a modified screenplay format. What you really need to convey in a full script is:

Page Number The page number is the story page number, not the physical page number in the comic book/graphic novel or of your manuscript. In the standard 32 page comic book, story page number four often is on page five of the comic. Since you can't always be entirely sure where ads will be placed any given month, y ou can't anticipate where your story pages will fall. That's why we must provide story page numbers. (Note: the inconsistent placement of ads makes it really difficult to plan for double page spreads--a thought I will come back to later.)

PANEL NUMBER You number you panels sequentially on each page, starting again with one at the top of each successive page.

PAGE FIFTEEN PANEL ONE Description PANEL TWO Description


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PANEL THREE Description

PAGE SIXTEEN PANEL ONE Description PANEL TWO Description PANEL THREE Description I like to give the artist clear cut visual cues in my manuscript to tell when a new page starts. I often use all caps for the page number and indent everything that applies to that page. I also try to make clear visual distinctions for each individual panel, again using caps and indentations. I do this to make the manuscript easier for the a rtist to work from. (You will note that because of the i nherit formatting limitations, I have not applied the identations to all of the sample scripts on this website. It would take to much time to go through and reformat those pages at this time.) When there is only one panel on the page, it is called a splash page and you indicate as such…

PAGE FIFTEEN SPLASH PAGE Description

DESCRIPTION Here you describe the action that is ha ppening in the panel. You must tell the artist everything he or she needs to know to convey the story. I put the names of any characters who appear in the panel in ALL CAPS. Some writers also put key props in all caps, but I tend not to so it doesn't confuse matters. At the beginning of each scene, the first panel description should indicate time and place ( i.e. Exterior, bank, night; or Interior, Lana's bedroom, mid-afternoon; etc. etc.))

COPY


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As I mentioned previously, all text that is placed on the printed comic page is called copy. This includes ca ptions, dialog, thought balloons, signs, sound effects, and anything else that must be lettered. When indicating dialog, I use the following format...

PAGE SIXTEEN PANEL ONE Description 1) SPEAKER: Blah blah blah blah blah. 2) SFX: Boooooom! (Note that SFX is short for "Sound Effect.") Sometimes you may find it useful to number the copy elements. It can help you keep track of how many copy elements you have on the page. It can also be a useful shortcut when you get to the point where you are doing balloon placements and preparing the dialog script. You beginning renumbering at 1) with the beginning of each new story page.

MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING Generally, it is wise to leave one inch margins on top, bottom, left, and right. The inch at the top and bottom may be used for your header and footer. I can't stress how important it is to have the title, manuscript page number, and your contact info on every page, preferably in the header--the upper right hand corner makes it easy to find the info when the pages are printed out. It's also useful to have the date of the draft. That way, if there have been multiple drafts and any questions arise, you can make sure you are all on the same page, literally and figuratively. Personally, I like to double space my manuscripts. This allows me to make notes and corrections on the hard copy (print out) during the proofreading phase. Double spacing can create issues if you are working by fax, given that it uses twice as much paper as single spacing. It can also lead to horrific phone bills, especially if you are dealing with artists in other countries. Single or double spacing is something to work out with your editor, but being almost everything is being done these days via e-mail and electronic files, recipients can reformat manuscripts at will. Most writers today work in word processing programs on c omputers. If you don't have a computer, then get a typewriter or stand-alone word processor. No editor is going to accept handwritten scripts or proposals. As a general rule of thumb, when working in a word processing program, use a serif font (one with hooks on the edges of letters), preferably a


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ubiquitous one like Times New Roman. This means that when y ou e-mail a file to an editor, chance are nearly 100% that they have the same font on their computer. Studies have shown that serif fonts are easier to read than sans serf fonts like Arial, avoiding eye strain and fatigue. (Yes, this website uses a sans serif font for its body text. Studies show that fo nts like Arial are easier to read on computer monitors.) Do not use display or funky fonts in order to make your manuscript look more personal or to indicate odd speech patterns for chara cters. Chances are excellent that your editor, artist, a nd letterist don't have the same font collections you do and this create problems when they open your file. And sharing fonts isn't always going to be a solution since Macs and Windows-based PCs map fonts differently. So, avoid the headache and stick to Times New Roman. One more thought on the subject of submitting your scripts via e-mail or on disk--save your file in RTF (Rich Text Format). I suggest this f or several reasons. First and foremost, Microsoft Word documents can contain macros which are virus delivery systems. Sharing a virus with your coworkers is bad form. Second, RTF is a (relatively) universal file format that can be read by (almost) all word processing programs. I used parentheses in the previous sentence because MS Word uses some sort of proprietary formatting even in its RTF f iles that can sometimes read into other programs oddly. (I discovered this when test driving Open Office/J for Mac OS X. Still, as long a s you aren't using tables, frames, or other specialized formatting, RTF is your best bet. Otherwise, go with PDF format, but that is another technical conversation for another website.) RTF is an option under File: Save As. Within this dialog box, y ou can specify what format in which to save your file. All right, with all that out of the way, let's look at some nuts and bolts of the scriptwriting process...

H O W MANY PANELS SHOULD B E O N A SINGLE COMIC PAGE? The short, and seemingly not very helpful answer to this question is, "As many panels as you need." Of course, there is the limiting factor of physical space. It's very unlikely you'll get one hundred panels on page twenty-two of your story, even if you need that many to wrap everything up. Ultimately, it's going to be a matter of practice for you to determine how much space/number of panels a given scene may need. Even after you have developed a sense for your pacing, you'll still run into times when you miscalculate. I've run into this problem while writing Sonic X . I've been putting a lot of plot into my scripts, and with every issue, I have found that I've had to cut panels and entire scenes in


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order to keep to my allotted page count. One of the skills you need to develop is recognizing what is important and what you can cut. I know it's sometimes painful to lose elements, but when you are assigned X number of pages, you can't turn in X + Y. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made. Fortunately, in some instances, you can file the cut material away for later use. I prefer to have more story than I need and have to cut something than come up short and have to add padding. Cutting means that there's a lot of story happening and the reader will get a big bang for their buck. Granted, having too much plot sometimes leads to rushed conclusions because you have too much story to tell or it can lead to the accidental deletion of an extremely important plot point. These are things you have to be on guard against. However, adding padding to stretch out a thin story will leave the reader feeling cheated. I remember hearing stories (perhaps apocryphal) about one comic writer who had regular work and would write from page one to the end of the story. I f the writer found that the script turned out to be less than the allotted number of pages, the writer would just designate some panels be turned into splash pages. The writer didn't even bother to add a new scene or two (or more). Talk about taking the easy out! My approach is that every page, every panel must convey something to the reader. They (the panels, not the readers) must be there to move the plot forward, establish time/place, or give more understanding about what the character is thinking or doing. Any page/panel that does not accomplish this should probably be cut. I try to keep in mind that most panels distill one moment in time. As with every rule, there are exceptions to this statement, and I will come back to that thought shortly. I tend to average five panels per page. Five is a good number because it gives the artist a lot of layout possibilities. For dialog scenes, I might ask for six panels on a page. For big establishing shots or action sequences (especially those with a lot of characters), I will ask for fewer panels. Ultimately, the number and size of the panels is determined by the amount of information you are trying to convey.

SAMPLE 5 PANEL LAYOUT OPTIONS


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1

2

1

3

3

2

1 2

3

5 4

5

4

Great for an establishing shot at the start of a scene

5

4

Useful layout for introducing a Dramatic end to page leading character into the next page

1

1

2

2

1 3

3 4 2

3

4

5

4

5

5 Conversation between two characters

Big action with reaction shots

Note that panel three includes two inset panels

I rarely ask for more than six panels on a page unless there is a specific reason for more, and that's usually a question of pacing. The smaller the panels, the less information you can wedge into them. One way to look at it is that the more panels on a page, the smaller the moments within each panel can be. Another reason I like the average number of five is that it feels like you're giving the reader something for the price of admission. Too many splash pages may make for a fast read, and could leave reader feeling cheated. I try to make sure that people come a way from my storie s feeling like they got something for the price of admission and their investment of time. I use splash pages sparingly--usually only for the title page or to give a sense of scope for something dramatic. I can't think of any occasion where I've used more than two splash pages in a single story. They may be pretty to look at, but they lose their impact if overused. Double page splashes (a splash page that spreads over two facing pages) can be incredibly dramatic, especially when introducing a huge group of characters, giving a sense of scale to an establishing shot or a battle, or for showing devastation following a battle. A double pa ge spread always starts on an even numbered page and ends on an odd numbered page of the comic book. (Even numbered pages are always on the left, and odd on the right.) Because of the problem of ad layout, you can never be sure


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from month to month where in the comic the story pages will be placed in relation to the ads. For this reason, one of the last (almost) safes place these days for a double page splash (unless you have worked things out well in advance with the editor and the publisher) are pages two and three of the story and the comic itself. I can not recall any comic book where an ad was placed on page one, two, or three (although Mike Pellerito, my Sonic X editor, told me in a recent conversation that ads are now starting to creep onto pages two and three, so even that's no longer a guaranteed safe zone). Even with this (almost) "safe zone", the rise of collected editions/trade paperbacks has made using double page spreads even more complicated because when ads are removed for the trade edition, it can throw off the odd/even rhythm of the page placements and the binding of a trade paperback may mean more lost space in the spine, so important dialog or art may get lost). The editors I've spoken to in recent times are really gunshy about double page spreads. It's too bad because there are times when they can be most effective.

O N E PANEL, O N E MOMENT I N TIME My basic philosophy is that the script (and plot, if plot-first) should provide the artist with everything he or she needs to tells the story and everything the editor needs to understand what is happening and why. I am a big believer in brevity when it comes to the full script. I don't go overboard in details that are not germane to p lot points. I know artists that will take pens to scripts, crossing out anything that isn't key to what they have to draw. I can't say that I blame them. Quite honestly, very few people will have the opportunity to read my scripts for the sheer pleasure of it, so I don't overwrite (although humorous asides to the editor and the artist are fair g ame). Besides, keeping it a little looser means that the artist has more room to contribute, and that's a good thing. The more involved the artist is in the storytelling process, the more inspired and invested they become. It's good for the working relationship. For now, let us concentrate on the general concept of each panel distilling one moment in time. My approach to writing a comic book story is that every panel contains at least one key beat. Sometimes it is an important action. Other times it might be an important piece of dialog or even a reaction shot. When I start actually writing the script, I begin with the beats. That speeds up my writing time because I can move from beat to beat, panel to panel fairly quickly without pausing to think about how to write the elements around the beats.


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So, if I'm working on an action scene, I will write the choreography of the fight scene first, then go back in to write the dialog later. The reverse is true--if I'm dealing with a dialog-heavy scene, I will write the dialog first, determining how I want the conversation to flow. Then I'll go back to fill in the panel descriptions. This helps me keep moving forward and not getting bogged down in the details. I also don't always write sequentially. To keep my juices flowing, I might write pages twelve through sixteen first because I have a clear picture in my head of how I want the scene to play out--I'll work this way especially if there's another portion that I'm having trouble writing. Ra ther than getting caught up in what's not working, I concentrate on what is. That often helps me break any creative logja m. In writing the panel description, keep in mind that there is a limited amount of space on the page and within a panel. If you are writing a nine panel grid, it's not going to work to ask to have the entire population of Brooklyn in each of the nine panels. They just won't fit and you'll drive your artist to fits. I try to keep my panel descriptions in the active verb tense. It helps convey the action to the artist and makes the manuscript easier to read for both the artist and the editor. Passive tense makes your manuscript feel wishy-washy and you don't want to dampen the artist's enthusiasm subconsciously through poor word choices. There are times when passive, past tense are appropriate, but it's usually to set up what is happening now... PANEL FOUR CAPTAIN WINGNUT, having just jumped over the speeding car, looks over his shoulder, wondering where the next attack may come from. In the example above, "having just jumped" is past passive tense, describing what just happened (probably in the previous panel). The active verb in this description is "looks" over his shoulder. That is what is happening now (one moment in time). The clause "wondering where the next attack may come from" tells the artist what CW's frame of mind is, and helps indicate what CW's body language should communicate to the reader. The description of the panel must include everything that is integral to the story--the characters, the action, notes about leaving room for sound effects and dialog (especially important when working plot -first. The full script would include the copy and the a rtist should allow for it).


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Except under specific circumstances, do not ask for characters to undertake multiple actions, especially contradictory actions in a single panel. For example: PANEL FOUR GRIM GIRL grabs the parachute out of EVIL BASTICH's hand, slings it over her shoulder, and jumps out of the plane while firing her flare gun. That's way too much action to fit into a single panel. It's a minimum of two panels (1. GRIM GIRL grabs the parachute out of EVIL BASTICH 's hand. 2. GRIM GIRL slings the parachute over her shoulder, and jumps out of the plane while firing her flare gun), and you're probably better off with three. There are exceptions to this theory. In a large panel or a splash page, you could treat a complicated action as a series of steps. In this case, the background remains static while the action moves across the panel. For example: PANEL ONE This panel takes up the entire top third of the page. SPEEDCHICK dashes along the street, taking out the horde of villains. We see multiple images of Speedchick as she punches VILLAIN ONE in the jaws, kicks VILLAIN TWO in the gut, throws VILLAIN THREE into a trash can, and pulls VILLAIN FOUR out of a car at the curb. In this case, we've put all the action in a single long panel and it helps underscore that Speedchick has superspeed. The static background here also helps create the sense that this is happening very quickly--that all this action is taking place in one moment of time. There are occasions where there are two beats in a panel, a punch thrown while something is said or someone reacts. The thing to keep in mind is to not ask for too many beats or contradictory actions in a single panel. Another exception to the single beat theory is a montage. A montage is a collection of images in a single panel/frame. In some cases, you can use this to create the sense of "meanwhile": characters A and B are undertaking an action in one location while characters C and D are doing something else in another place. You have linked these two sets o f characters together visually within the same composition, giving the illusion that things are happening concurrently


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You can also use a montage to compress time: Lovers E and F are seen in various locations around town, sharing ice cream, walking in the park, window shopping, watching a child with her mother. This tells us that E and F have spent quite a bit of time together.

PACING You control the pace of your story by the amount of action that happens in the time between panels. (And, just for the record, I'm a big believer in gutters between panels. They help separate moments in time and make it easier to read comic pages. There are times when just a thin line can be useful to indicate a group of moments that happen simultaneously or in rapid succession, but with today's computer coloring and the use of heavy blacks or deep colors in the gutters, comic pages have become very difficult to read. This is just one of the many things that may hold new readers back--if they can't fathom what's happening visually and can't tell how to decode a comics page, they aren't likely to try. Copy placement can help overcome this problem, but it's only part of the battle.) So, to demonstrate my point about the pa ssage of time between panels, let me use two examples...

FAST

PACING :

PAGE ONE PANEL ONE Exterior. Beautiful sunny afternoon. SUPERGUY takes flight outside his parents' home in Charleston, North Carolina. This is a low a ngle shot to make Superguy look powerful. PANEL TWO SUPERGUY, in flight and coming right at the reader, leaves Earth's atmosphere. We can see the Atlantic Ocean and the continents in the background. PANEL THREE SUPERGUY comes to a landing on the moon. We can see the Earth distantly in the background. PANEL FOUR Etc.


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The entire trip happened between the two panels and moves the story a t a fast clip. It implies that the time it took Superguy to get from Charleston to the moon is negligible. Notice that I set time of day in the first panel. If Superguy's parent's house was a common setting for the series, I would leave the description at that, assuming that the editor or the artist would have reference. If it's someplace we'd never seen before, I would go into more detail about the look of the house. If it was something last seen fifteen years ago or I had a specific look in mind, I would try to find reference to send with the script to help the artist. I also called for a low angle shot because I wanted to convey power. I generally do not call for specific "camera angles" in most panels. Again, this is to allow the artist maximum f reedom to bring his or her style/voice to the story. When I do call for an angle, it's for dramatic purposes. If you minimize the number of specific shots you call for, you increase your likelihood of the artist accommodating your requests when you do ask for something special. In the second panel, I specified a specific layout. I definitely want to have Superguy flying at the reader with the Earth in the background to set up the image in the third panel where I ask for the distant Earth in the background. I did this to give a sense of the amount of space traveled. You could further speed up the pacing by cutting out the second panel altogether. Another element that would affect the pacing in this sequence is the amount of copy. If Superguy was doing a lot of thinking while in flight or I used a lot of caption boxes to describe what was happening, the reader would have to slow down to read the text. So, the amount of action that happens between panels and the amount of text within the panels themselves are the two most significant elements that control the pacing of the story.

SLOW

PACING :

PAGE ONE PANEL ONE Long shot. Late afternoon. Busy metropolitan street. CONNOR (a professional lawyer in her mid-30s) dashes out of the courthouse, late for an appointment. She is in a well-tailored suit. PANEL TWO


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CONNOR tries to hail a taxi that goes right by her. There are PEOPLE walking by on the sidewalk. She looks exasperated. PANEL THREE CONNOR tries to hail another taxi that goes by her. DIFFERENT PEOPLE are on the sidewalk passing by. By this time, her clothes are looking a little disheveled and her shoulders are stooped. She's been on this curb for fifteen minutes trying to get a cab to stop. PANEL FOUR Another five minutes have passed. A taxi has finally stopped for CONNOR. She gets into the back seat. PANEL FIVE Largest panel on the page with room for an inset panel. Long shot. The taxi is at a full stop, trapped in traffic on a busy city street. It's obvious that it will not be able to move any time in the near future. PANEL SIX (inset panel) This panel is inset into panel five. C lose up of CONNOR looking defeated, realizing there's no way she'll ever make it across town to meet her client. The sheer number of panels slows this sequence down. By pointing out that there are different people in the backgrounds of pa nels three and four help denote the passage of time, as do the descriptions of Connor's body language. Panel five includes an inset panel. An inset panel is a panel contained b y a larger panel. When I use inset panels, it is to distill a moment or detail happening within the larger panel. In the example above, we are seeing Connor's reaction to being trapped in the traffic jam. Another inset for panel five could be a plank of wood with a sharp nail point out that the cab's front tire might be about to roll over. Here you'd be showing an important detail that could not be seen because of the nature of the composition in the larger panel. This could be used to build tension at the end of the page, creating your end of page question (as discussed in chapter four). Notice that I placed the paranthetical description [ i.e. (inset panel)] next to the panel number. This is useful for the artist in planning layouts. Any


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time there is something unusual about a panel--especially something that has a consistent look or feel that is part of the visual grammar of the story--I will put it in paranthesis beside the panel number. Two good examples are flashbacks or TV screens. These both often have d ifferent borders or coloring tricks to set them apart from the standard panels, so saying that right from the start gives the artist a quick head start. It's a good idea to vary the pacing of your scenes so you don't fall into a cadence, become predictable, and bore the reader. I try not to have the same number of panels from page to page over several pages. (Although, the magic number of five panels allows for much variation in layout which helps overcome the problem of cadence.) However, it isn't just the number of panels on the page that affects the pacing, it's the amount of action happening between the panels. Steve Ditko effectively used the nine panel grid without it becoming monotonous, as did Ja ck Kirby with the six panel grid and David Lapham with the eight panel grid. However, they broke the grid when they wanted extra emphasis for a particularly dramatic moment.

PLOT

FIRST , OR

"MARVEL STYLE"

In the previous section, I talked about writing panel descriptions and the basics of pacing. From here, it's easy to talk about the plot-first method of writing a comic book story. When we refer to plot first or "Marvel Style", it is shorthand for a manuscript that does not include all of the final dialog. Traditionally, it is broken down page by page, panel by panel, but that isn't a necessity. Depending on your relationships with the editor and/or penciler, the breakdown can be even looser. For the exposition-heavy pages or for complicated action, you may provide panel by panel descriptions. In other cases, you might say something as simple as... PAGES TWELVE THROUGH NINETEEN Extended fight scene. HERO WOMAN and SUPER GUY in battle against the EVIL KNIGHT and his FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON. The setting is an abandoned castle in a remote forest. Because of Super Guy's vulnerability to fire, it would appear that the Dragon may slay our hero, but once Hero Woman destroys the control gauntlet on EK's right wrist, EK can no longer control the Dragon and the tide turns. The Dragon flies a way, free once more of EK's control. HW and SG take EK into custody. By the end of the battle, nothing is left of the castle but rubble. Make this scene as visually exciting as possible and have fun with it!


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The would be plenty for some artists from which to work, and they would enjoy the freedom it allows. other artists are intimidated by this much freedom and really want each moment spelled out for them. In my opinion, the more comofrtable you make the artist, the more successful the collaboration will be. Develop a manuscript style that serves the needs you you as writer, your editor, y our artist, and most importantly, the readers. You have to make sure you convey everything the artist will need to communicate the story on behalf of the people who have paid good money to read your story. As important as it is to maintain a good working relationship with your artist, you both (all) serve the audience.

PLOT-FIRST DOES N O T MEAN " N O DIALOG ALLOWED" Even if you are not providing all the dialog for the story in your manuscript, that does not mean you should not provide the artist and the editor with the gist of any dialog that will be included later. Often it is imperative for the main dialog points to be included so that the artist knows how to convey the appropriate body language for the characters. For example, two characters saying "Hi, how are you? It's great to see you." "I'm fine. That's a lovely frock you are wearing." are likely to have very different body language compared to two characters having the following exchange: "What the blazes are you doing here? I never wanted to lay eyes on you again." "The feeling's mutual, punk. I wish your cape would get caught in the axle of a truck and rip your head off." For particularly important conversations, it is useful to include all of the dialog, even if it's in rough form. This helps the editor determine if the story is hanging together and the artist to kn ow how much room needs to be available for copy. Here is a page from the plot to Quicksilver #13. You can read the entire plot in the sample scripts section. This is exactly how the information was conveyed to Chris Renaud, penciler of the issue.

PAGE THREE PANEL ONE NESTOR tells QUICKSILVER that his na me is Nestor--but does that really tell QS anything? You have to get beyond the names to know who a person really is. He asserts that he is QS's friend--or else he wouldn't have helped him escape from Exodus.


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PANEL TWO Close up of QUICKSILVER as he responds to Nestor's next question, "So, who are you?" Keep Nestor off panel. Focus on Quicksilver's reaction--he really doesn't know how to answer this question. Leave room in the lower right hand corner of the panel for a letter caption as Quicksilver reveals to Crystal that this is a question he'd never given any thought to. PANEL THREE Pull back to show NESTOR and QUICKSILVER in front of the cottage. Nestor asks why Quicksilver has come to this place. PANEL FOUR QUICKSILVER opens the door to the cottage, NESTOR standing right behind him. QS looks pensive, as if trying to understand that this was once his home. Compose this shot from inside the cabin, with QS and Nestor framed by the door. QS tells Nestor that this is where he and his sister were born. He wonders what it must have been like for his mother on the night sure first arrived here. The cottage should look like it has not been inhabited in quite a while. PANEL FIVE (flashback) This panel is how Quicksilver imagines his mother's arrival at the cottage. It is a cold, wind-swept night with snow in the air. The cottage door has opened. MAGDA stands outside shivering, illuminated by the moon. She is pregnant and asks for help. BOVA i s in the foreground looking surprised by the stranger's presence. The cottage has a homey feel to it. Leave room for captions as QS tells Nestor the story. This panel echoes the previous panel visually in terms of composition with Magda taking the place off QS & Nestor. As you can see, arti st Chris Renaud followed by descriptions very closely, although he did not show the cabin in panel five as I'd described. and, to be completely honest, I think the choice he made is much stronger give the echo he's created to panel four. By providing him with the sample


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dialog, he was able to conv ey the body language the conversation required. As the writer, you have to be prepared for the fact the artist will change things. Sometimes it's because you have asked for something that simply can't be drawn as y ou described it. Sometimes it's because he or she ha s a different vision of the panel than you described. It doesn't matter what the reason is--you have to be prepared to roll with it. This is something that I will discuss in greater detail in the next c hapter: Writing the Dialog and Placing Copy.


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MORE T O COME--EVENTUALLY I hope that you have found the information presented thus far to be informative, interesting, thought-provoking, thought-provoking, and useful. I will be uploading additional chapters as I complete them. I have no set schedule in mind as I am writing them as time permits, and right now, I don't foresee having a lot of time to dedicate to t his project. Material that I do intend to cover in future chapters include, Full Script a nd Plot-First Method, Script Format, Common Comic Book and Film Terminology, Balloon Placement, Plotting for Self-Contained and for Long-Term Storylines, and Writing Proposals. In the meantime, I am providing another PDF file for y our reference here. It is a handout I created for my students on the subject of balloon placement. This is a subject near and dear to my heart as I've seen way too many people (writers, artists, and editors) who don't understand the flow of pages and place copy contrary to natural sightlines. The handout below covers just some of the theory. If there are any areas you would like to see me cover, please feel free to e-mail me. me. I may also compile a list of common questions and my responses to them as one of the f uture chapters, depending on the number of questions I receive. receive. Be advised that I am not accepting manuscripts/proposals/stories to be critiqued as I do not have the time to look at them. Thanks for understanding.

Y L L A U T N E V E E M O C O T E R O M

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Writing for Comics

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