SOME NOTES ON WRITING COMICS (or graphic storytelling in general)
Writing for comics resembles a lot of other writing formats—writing for movies, for short stories, even for radio or spoken word—but it's not exactly like any of them.
Part of the difference is rooted in the manufacturing process and history of American comics. For more than seventy-five tears, we've become accustomed to a certain page size and page length... and in fact, it corresponds to our “real-time” experience of TV programs and even movies.
A really good comic can be read in 20-25 minutes – about the length of a half-hour TV show minus the commercials. We seem to be accustomed to paying attention for about that long, so even if there's a longer story to be told, it will be broken down into a story of about that length.
In practical terms, you're talking about 20 to 22 pages of art in a comic (or a chapter). No more. Many writers get around this by doing multi-part stories, as few as 3 issues and as many as 12 (or more), but the pacing still works in parts that break down into around 20 pages each.
BUILDING UP A COMIC STORY
- The Premise
The most common way to structure a story is to build it up and out. You start with a single idea for a story that is usually called the premise:
Aquaman has to battle a trio of villains who are actually made of water. They kill a new friend of Mera's (Aquaman's wife), and Aquaman has to restrain her while defeating the villains. Ultimately he has to confront his own fear of the cold to freeze the villains and shatter them.
You can see all the basics in there: a hero, a villain (or villains), a conflict (their battle) and a resolution (their freezing and shattering). It also contains an internal conflict (his fear of the cold) and a “B” story (the death of Mera's friend and the revelation of her savagery).
- How Long, How Deep?
Next, the writer will decide how long he will take to tell this story. One Issue? Three? Six? He decides this can be told well in three issues (or parts):
- The introduction of the villains and Mera's friend, ending with the friend's death.
- Mera's savage outbreak and Aquaman's restrain of her, his first confrontation with the villains and his 'defeat' because of his fear of the cold.
- Mera's containment, Aquaman's overcoming of his dear, and the final battle that ends in the villains death.
This is the “building up and building out” process – adding another layer of detail and complexity with each stage.
- The Treatment(s)
Next, the writer will probably create a treatment of the three issues – a longer, more detailed story that includes at least a couple of sentences for each scene. Though this may not include a lot of dialogue (maybe a few key sentences that come along as the story is told), it is often the most 'creative' part of the process, as the writer goes back to revise and rework the story so that he knows exactly what happens, how many scenes take place, how the plots works and how the characters develop.
Some writers will actually summarize each scene on individual 3” x 5” cards so they can move the scenes around, or post them on a bulletin board or a wall to see the story visually. Others will writ it in a present tense, almost as if they were telling the story around the campfire, then make tons of notes in the margins, or annotate it with highlighters. Each writer will develop ea different working style, but the end product is almost always the same: a scene-by-scene breakdown of all the scenes in the story.
- The Script
Finally, it's time to write the script that the artist will be using as a guideline. Like all scripts – movie screenplays, TC screenplays, stage plays, radio plays – it is an intermediate document. It's usually a document that no one but the artist and the writer (and something editors) will see; the final story comes out of this. It's the highly detailed description of the final product and nothing more.
The comic book script, at first glance, most resembles a movie screenplay, but it's different in many ways. The script actually calls out the number of panels on a page, and gives a general idea of how big (important) or small (unimportant) details that each illustration has. Some comics writers include thumbnail sketches of the page; others simply describe it. Either way, the writer indicates what he 'sees' in his mind's eye as the final page, and includes all necessary action and dialogue. The artist (rather like a director guiding the camera operator and film editor of a movie) will often take these breakdowns as a suggestion, not a requirement. The artist won't alter the basic action of the page or draw it in such a way that there won't be room for the dialogue, but the actual layout, number of panels, angles, etc. may vary widely. That's the artist's job.
- The Art
The writer has little to do with these pages other than approve or diapprove. This is where the artist draws the 22 or so pages, elaborating from the script – first in very rough pencil sketches, that are often reviewed by the writer and editor. Approves art is then inked – all the sketchy line-art is made solid and blank – then another artists comes in to color the lines.
Finally, the comics writer gets to something that writers of other 'intermediate forms' don't: they get to come back in at the end and literally place (and often rewrite) the dialogue and captions that they presented in the script. The artist's final rendition may present better ideas for telling the story; it may mean cutting dialogue, moving or removing a caption, or otherwise 'smoothing out' the storytelling now that he can see the actual art (unfinished though it may be) in front of his eyes.
- Placing Word Balloons
Though there are a number of other stages for completing and manufacturing the story, this is usually where the writer finishes – with the rewriting (if necessary) and placement of all the word balloons and captions for the 20-22-page story. And it's on to the next one.
Some General Guidelines
Whether it's a superhero story, a horror story, a romance or a quirky tale of frontiersment in Lower Manhattan c. 1983, some stoytelling principles for comics still apply:
- Keep the story linear; it's very difficult to illustrate the passage of time or (even worse) flashbacks or simultaneous scenes (something that's far easier to do in film)
- The action and dialogue have to carry the story. There is no verbal description at all, and the writer's control of the environment is limited to the very basics he can describe to the artist.
- To the end, don't waste a lot of time making the physical description poetic or polished. They are merely guidelines for the artists' vision of your story. If you're lucky, you will be pleasantly surprised at what a good artist will bring to the basic concept of “a desert” or “a department store” or “a dark and stormy night.” But as a rule, give only the essential details.
- Even though you're often writing for continuing characters that you can't kill or even substantially alter, you MUST come up with some internal conflict for your story. It might be danger to loved ones that he hadn't taken seriously until now; it might be the death of a friend (as in the example above) that has to be avenged, or an internal conflict (like fear o the cold) that has to be overcome. But even with characters who the reader knows cannot 'die', conflict is what makes a story, a story.
- Keep captions to an absolute minimum. The cast majority of information bout the scene – its location, time of day, the mood – has to be in the picture itself. Overlapping or transition dialogue, or a special time or day might be mentioned in a caption, but by and large the fewer the better. There are plenty of comics writers who set a goal of no captions at all, and achieve that more often than not.
- Avoid thought balloons. Once a very popular approach, they have disappeared from many storytellers' work, and appear only rarely in others. They may still be a popular approach in a kind of storytelling (novels, or instance), but they add a layer of 'unreality' that does not sit will with most modern-day comics readers. Interior monologue, personal narration can work, but “thought balloons” as opposed to “word balloons”... not so much.
- Keep it simple. Complicated plots or lots of exposition do not work in comics, anymore than they do in modern films. Simple, linear and easy-to-follow action is far more powerful than talk, talk, talk and ambiguity. It is one of the things that makes comics to internationally popular.