Filmic language sort of took over comics in the 1940s and ’50s with adventure strips. I think that thinking of the panel as a camera is really…well, it’s one way of doing it, certainly, but the advantage of being a cartoonist is that you are not looking out into the world to make your work, you’re looking into yourself. So if you think of the panel as something that you are looking through, then it’s kind of a backwards way of thinking about it. If you’re going to use the innovations of film directors to communicate emotion then you’re just falling back on a crutch that I think is not specific to the medium in which you are working. So I was trying to find other ways of communicating things that were more endemic to comics.

It’s interesting to get a little insight into Ware’s unique style and worldview.

Without conflict, you have no story. It doesn’t matter that your character wants something, and is motivated to get whatever he/she wants, without something standing in the way, you have no story.

Doesn’t matter how right the article is about conflict, still not gonna watch Miss Congeniality.

Now, pacing in my work is a serious problem because with The Winchcombe, I’m publishing one page of my story at a time. I need to pay special attention to how much I skip around in the narrative, how much I rehash of what’s come before, and at what emotional level I end a particular scene.

And I just couldn’t do that if I didn’t have nearly every scene at least plotted out. If I were writing this project by the seat of my pants, I would end up with a logistical train wreck, like I have going on over here.

Yet another argument for the planning of stories. As Larry of Storyfix.com will tell you:

You pantsers are gonna hate this.  But the truth is, you can’t pants pace.

But you can plan for it.

The pacing of your story is very much like analyzing the flow of the blueprint for a building that hasn’t been constructed yet.  You look at the relationships between the parts – chapters and scenes for writers, hallways and rooms for architecture – and determine if the sequence and proportions are in balance, if they are optimized for flow and feel, not to mention structural integrity and aesthetic beauty, and you make adjustments accordingly

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Slightly Random Thoughts About Story Pacing… From 10,000 Feet

I Shall Wear Midnight, a young adult novel, was launched in central London at midnight on Tuesday, but, as has been the way throughout a career that has so far produced 50 novels (38 of them set on Discworld) and generated more than 65m book sales – Pratchett is already 60,000 words into the next book.

And for the last two and a half years, ever since he was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s, and lost the physical ability to write, he has dictated those words into voice-recognition software. At first, in fact, he talks to me about the machine as if I am a machine (which is not entirely unwarranted: there is a tape recorder sitting on the table between us). “… And the nice thing is, contrary to what you might initially expect, comma” – we both burst out laughing – “yes, sorry about this, full stop.”

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Terry Pratchett: ‘I’m open to joy. But I’m also more cynical’

I really like this sample critique that Larry Brooks did for a writer. This is a service that Brooks provides, and I’d say that it’s a valuable one, especially if you don’t have anyone who your letting really dig into your work for you. And I think it’s rare that you’d find someone willing to go this far into your stuff in your own backyard.

Read the critique and analysis. Imagine how hard it must have been for that writer to endure the tearing down of his work. The repeated “you have potential” just wouldn’t be enough of a warm fuzzy to offset the systematic dissection of his story. But I guess the lesson is that you need to be able to get kicked in the face, smile, and really try to see how that kick was actually helpful in some way.

And I think that the writer being analyzed would agree that this document is very helpful.

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An Intimate Look at One Writer’s Feedback

This is a work in progress. It is a on-going list of suggestions collectively made by readers of this post. At this point the list has not been vetted or selected by me. In fact, other than the original five items I suggested, all of the articles mentioned here have been recommended by someone other than me. (Although I used to edit Wired magazine none of the article from Wired were suggested by me or anyone who worked at Wired. I also did not suggest my own pieces.)

I forget who pointed me here, and I only just got around to taking a look at some of the linked magazine articles here, but I think this is a text-book definition of ‘goldmine’ for wannabe writers looking for samples and examples of top-shelf writing.

These are big, meaty chunks of non-fiction from well known magazines ranging from the ’60s to the ’10s.

My Instapaper account is going to be filling up pretty quick here.

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Cool Tools – The Best Magazine Articles Ever

A beat sheet – as in, the beat of each story point — is a list of short, bulleted descriptions about each scene in your story. It could be stated that if you have 60 scenes, then you could create a beat sheet with 60 entries that describes the mission, or the content, or both, for each of those scenes.

Each entry on the beat sheet describes what the scene does in context to story exposition. It explains why it is there.

I’ve started using beat sheets to work out all my stories. I also use a form of beat sheet to plan each comic, more or less, panel by panel. It’s by far the best and most efficient way to block out the pacing of the story BEFORE you spend the time writing out a full draft. I also use a similar method when writing copy for clients and it saves SO much time and frustration.

I tend to use just a simple outliner tool, like OmniOutliner or the built-in outliner of Scrivener, or occasionally the outline view in Word for compatibility’s sake.

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Storytelling to the beat of a different drummer

The 19-minute vid is a bit daunting at first especially when you realize you’re going to be watching someone type and read aloud in a nearly monotone voice, but I soon found myself riveted by what was being done to this scene.

Inspiring stuff.

Writing better dialogue from John August on Vimeo.

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Writing better dialogue

A pretty interesting q&a.

Could you give a walk-through of your writing process?

In general, if there’s an idea I’m interested in, I usually think about that for a long time and write down my speculations or just ideas about how it could become a story, but I don’t actually start writing the story itself until I know how the story ends. Typically the first part of the story that I write is the very ending, either the last paragraph of the story or a paragraph near the end. Once I have the destination in mind then I can build the rest of the story around that or build the rest of the story in such a way as to lead up to that. Usually the second thing I write is the opening of the story and then I write the rest of the story in almost random order. I just keep writing scenes until I’ve connected the beginning and the end. I write the key scenes or what I think of as the landmark scenes first, and then I just fill in backwards and forwards.

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Ted Chiang on writing

If you’re having a hard time finding a character’s voice, get him talking about something unrelated to the scene at hand.

Let your hero knock back a beer with his college roommate. Have your corporate spy meet-cute a potential suitor at a ski lodge. Pick situations that couldn’t possibly fit in your actual movie. You just want to get your character talking so that you can eavesdrop.

I use this technique for busting through a stuck scene, or just trying to find the right key notes to hit in a scene.

Most recently, while working through an upcoming scene for The Winchcombe, I sat the two characters down in a room, gave them the topic I needed them to get through, and just had them start talking to each other.

I didn’t worry about anything like fitting the dialogue in a panel, or inefficient things like repeating phrases. I just had them go over the topic I wanted them to work through. And eventually, after about three pages of dialogue between the two of them, I figured out everything I needed about the scene.

I didn’t even need to refer back to this short document when I wrote the actual scene. I just knew how it was going to go.

Very helpful technique.

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