How to Write Comic Books: Tips From the Pros Part 4

Between now and Part 3 of this series, we got off Twitter (briefly) and read actual books about writing scripts for comics, books written by a murderer’s row of influential minds in the medium. As a result, this most recent entry in our compilation series of writing tips from pros features the mighty Brian Michael Bendis (Bendis is coming!!!!!) and Alan “Watchmen” Moore. Plus, also David Lynch, who hasn’t (to my knowledge) written comics but is an amazing film director and my personal artistic spirit animal.

Before we get to it though, I have to confess that my own work is suffering lately due to me failing to invest enough time in it. To that end, I’m going to start Tweeting a weekly tally of what I write, letting you all know how many pages I outlined, scripted, finished, etc., even if it’s all zeroes. I know myself well, and this sort of accountability and shame will without question move me to productivity.

I’ll report back on how it goes in Part 5 (coming soon, after I read more books). In the meantime, I hope you’ve found a productive lifestyle and an accountability system that works well for you!

Now, onward to the advice!

David Lynch: Have a setup.

It’s almost a cliche of writing advice, but it’s important to keep a notebook with you everywhere you go. I’ve heard this in journalism school, at creative writing workshops, and from countless authors of instructional guides. I recently read a book by my favorite director—the aforementioned David Lynch—called Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, and there it was again.

Lynch writes:

“If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will go away. You didn’t fulfill it—that’s just heartache.”

To emphasize further, I’ll tell a quick story about Chris Claremont, the all-time great Uncanny X-Men writer I recently met at a comic con in Sacramento. While waiting at his table, I noticed that in the big vest Claremont wore, one pocket brimmed with tattered, oft-used notepads. Here’s a guy with nothing to prove, and he’s still practicing that old kinnard of writing advice. One must assume for a master like him, it’s simply become second nature. Us young’uns would do well to follow suit.

Brian Michael Bendis: Story outlines vs. pitch documents.

This book is not only useful, but it's so useful I couldn't bring myself to outline in it, opting instead to tab good passages with sticky notes.

Bendis’ book Words for Pictures is an extremely practical guide, especially for those who dream of getting to Marvel or DC. It’s brimming with advice about everything from communicating with artists to identifying the best editors for a pitch. But one thing I found particularly helpful at this early stage in my career (one full script written, one series outlined, one 8-page mini comic slowly taking shape) was this about the difference between outlines and pitch documents.

Here’s Bendis:

“A pitch document is a quick one or two paragraph document that describes the story or series the writer is trying to sell. A story outline is a somewhat more involved document that goes into more detail about story beats and character arcs. The difference between the two documents is detail.”

This may seem rote, but when you have an idea that’s so exciting you start to get nervous, it’s incredibly grounding to have it laid out so simply. And, perhaps most usefully, Bendis’ book gives several actual examples of both documents. My own takeaway after reading them all was that I should focus on my outline, which should then later inform my pitch when I’m ready. Maybe you’ll have your own process. Another lesson from Bendis is that creating comics is a multi-faceted endeavor with few hard rules but many available examples from those who have had success and want to be helpful.

Or, as the kids say, you do you...but read up on what the masters tell you first.

Alan Moore: God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Alan Moore and George Saunders are two of my favorite writers, but outwardly they share little in common. Moore is a bearded Englishman responsible for comics like the searing social commentary V for Vendetta and the seminal superhero deconstruction Watchmen, held by many as the best superhero story ever. Saunders, meanwhile, is from Chicago (like me!) and writes hilarious and heartbreaking short stories, inimitable bursts of speculative fiction about a ghost haunting a Civil War recreation, or a male stripper whose aunt rises from the dead to demand he start showing his gear at work for more money, and so on.

Saunders and Moore do, however, have something in common: they both insist a vital part of being a good writer is being a good human (I think this is also probably true of Bendis, who “is coming!!!!!” but is also massively convivial by all indications).

Observe this quote from Moore’s book, Writing for Comics:

“...if you want to be a truly great writer, it is perhaps worth remembering that even in this, it is more important to be a good human being than it is to be a good writer. The artists, writers, painters, musicians whose voices speak loudest to us across the centuries are those that turned out to have the most profound souls…”

This makes all kinds of sense. At the core, most stories aim to show growth, and how can one convincingly depict growth without at least striving to be a good human?

Let’s listen to Saunders advising the same in a 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse:

“Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf…”

Or in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, another all-time favorite writer of mine, God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

And hey, what’s the worst case scenario? If being kind doesn’t improve your writing, you’re still putting net positivity into the world, creating something wonderful, and I don’t know about you but creating something wonderful is what brings me to my keyboard in the first place.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

How to Write Comics: Tips From the Pros Part 2

In writing, the simplest truth is that if you don’t sit down to write, the work won’t get done, regardless of your talent. This sounds obvious (I can just feel your eye rolls), but being disciplined and making time to write is the advice I've heard accomplished writers give the most.

Yet, for me it’s a struggle, because there’s always Twitter and my stacks of unread comics and the simple pleasures of just staring wistfully into space. Making time to write every day is kind of like getting eight hours of sleep: I know how important it is, but wasting time on my phone is just sooooo much easier.

To combat distraction, however, I try to think of my daily writing time (ideally an hour before work each morning and another hour at night after dinner) as a foundation. In that, I could know all there is to know about building fancy walls and windows, but the whole thing will fall over if I don’t have a solid base.

That metaphor is a bit jumbled (self editing is also very important, clearly), but there’s truth in it somewhere. Basically, I think you can know characters and three-act structure and scripting and suspense, but if you don’t put your time in, all your other knowledge will go to waste.

This series, however, is not about my own fairly obvious musings! (Although, I do tack some onto each section.) No, it’s about the advice I compile from comic book writers and editors and other creative people. Before we get to that good stuff, though, I’d like to note that last week’s How to Write Comics: Tips from the Pros Part 1 is and will continue to be up on the site. And, as always, if you want to share your own tips, thoughts, or just some pictures of small dogs looking like cranky humans, please reach out to batmansbookcase@gmail.com.

Happy writing and creating, friends, much love to you this week with all your creative endeavors!

The Importance of Writing When You Don’t Feel Like It

Eric Heisserrer is the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter responsible for Arrival as well as for the best Valiant book of 2017, Secret Weapons. He may have a difficult to spell last name that I had to triple check, but he also knows the importance of getting yourself to the keyboard at times when you don’t feel inspired to write. Here's a bit from his Twitter:

I have written more than 400 script pages in the last three months and, while it has been awful, there were a dozen brilliant discoveries in that mess. Writing when I don't want to write often bears fruit.

I LOVE this. I'm one who makes this excuse: “I don’t have any ideas right now, so I’ll just skip today and go hard tomorrow.” Sound familiar? I bet it does. Well, Heisserrer’s Tweet exposes this as a lazy cop out. It’s important, of course, to write when you’re burning with inspiration, but it’s equally as important to force yourself back to your pages when you don’t feel like it. You never know what you'll find until you open your word doc and arrive (sorry, Mr. Heisserrer! I have a lot of growing to do still, clearly).

How to Write Comics: Scripting

Greg Pak, who you may know from the super-underrated Totally Awesome Hulk or the increasingly popular Mech Cadet Yu, gave me a gift this week. While I was putting together this piece, he laid down a Twitter thread about comic book writing so exquisite, I nearly wept. This thread got much run, but I'm going to rehash it here in case you missed it, as well as for posterity. Buckle in, because it's a long one. You might even call it hulking (what is wrong with me?):

How I write a comic book script:

1. Outline the whole thing.
2. Break the outline down into pages.
   A. Break pages down into panels, then add dialogue.
   B. Hammer out some dialogue, then break down into panels.
3. Write from the beginning, but if I get stuck, skip around and write the easier scenes first.
4. Go back and write the harder scenes, which are easier now that I've done the rest.
   A. If I'm really stuck on a scene/beat, call up my editor and talk it out. Editors are awesome. Sometimes they just nod and say "uh huh" and let me blab until I work it out. Sometimes they ask just the right questions. These calls ALWAYS help.
5. Rewrite the easier scenes now that I've written the harder scenes and know my story better.
6. Go through and edit everything multiple times.
7. Turn it in when I run out of time.
8. Enjoy that fourteen minutes of calm you get after turning in a script.
9. Work on revisions.
10. Figure out what it's REALLY all about and make the subtle dialogue tweaks that bring out that deeper theme/emotional thread.

Also worth noting re: 1: If my outline is really working, it nails the big plot beats as well as the big emotional turning points & thematic brushstrokes. All the essential things that make the story work & matter. A great outline means the scripting goes MUCH more smoothly.

Hardest parts of writing a script:

• The outline.
• The beginning (particularly working in exposition seamlessly in a serial story).
• The ending/cliffhanger.
• Pages 14-16 or so. Those beats before the climax (p.s. it's all hard, sorry.).

There's an interesting mechanical aspect to writing a script, sometimes. Where you come up against page count limits, for example, and realize that helps you make decisions that work. For example, every once in a while, I'll have a 3-page scene that's hard to crack. So I'll write everything that precedes & follows it. And suddenly I discover that there's only a page left for the tricky scene -- and that's all it needed. Or maybe I don't really need it at all.

Two general notes to myself that always seems to work is give your characters quiet moments that dramatize character, especially early in the script/story, and give the big emotional beats time to play out. Let it breathe when it needs to breathe.

There's a lot of unspoken panic, particularly in superhero comics, to blow something up pretty quickly. Understandable. Gotta grab people's attention in 5-page previews. BUT action without emotional drama falls flat. Gotta take the time to build character and emotional drive.

Other ongoing activities essential to the writing process:
A. Drink a glass of water.
B. Get enough sleep and food.
C. Acknowledge that whatever you're writing this very instant isn't perfect, but you're gonna revise it and make it better and "perfection" is an illusion anyway.

Also worth noting: Everyone has a different process! This is just what works for me, right now, for the most part, most of the time. Figure out what works for you and do that.

This is helpful in a couple ways. Not only has he given us so much invaluable practical advice, but he's also given us encouraging glimpses into his own occasional frustrations and struggles. I'm yet to be paid for a script, and I find it incredibly comforting that someone as experienced and good at what he does as Pak has similar troubles as I do.

How to Write Comic Books: Gail Simone Section

One of my favorite comic book writers on Twitter is Gail Simone, who is not only really good at what she does, but is also incredibly generous with advice. I featured her last week, I'm featuring her again here, and, WARNING, I'll probably feature her again next week. For today, she weighed in on the value of finishing small projects when you're just starting out:

First, get something completed. It is a rare person new to comics who can make a full OGN happen. Start smaller. A smaller story has fewer places to hide, and thus is better practice, anyway.

Every item you COMPLETE will change you for the better, I promise. If you finish a ten page story, you will have learned a metric ton of information about what NOT to do next time. But it only works if you FINISH things.

Now, I have a bit of experience writing short stories, with a handful of publications at journals that even many folks in the literary world haven't heard of, so I'm by no means an expert, but one of the obstacles that tripped me up when I started was that I obsessed over my BIG ideas, thinking I could and should be able to execute them now. I wish I'd known the value of baby-steps, as well as the value of being patient with one's art. No writing time is ever wasted, of course, but I would have certainly done things a bit differently. 

Motivation from Lin-Manuel Miranda

Our final comic writing tip this week comes from outside the medium, from Lin-Manuel Miranda, the lyricist, composer and playwright behind Broadway mega hit Hamilton. Really though, this one is an inspirational missive for any creative, one that shows the broad ways (at what point is this a cry for help?) and time investment one must make for success. On New Year’s Eve 2017, Miranda Tweeted:

What I was doing on New Years Eve 2011. The work is hard but it is worth it. Don’t give up.

With a screen cap of another Tweet of his from back then...

It’s very hard to write battle raps between Jefferson and Hamilton when you’re nowhere near as smart as the people for whom you are writing. The hamster in the hamster wheel that runs my fevered brain needs a drink.

I find this incredibly inspirational. Roughly five years after this Tweet, Miranda's hard work bore fruit in the form of the most successful Broadway musical penned in most of our lifetimes. He was clearly struggling when he wrote the first one, but he forced himself onward, kept working, kept running with that hamster wheel in his fevered brain. Pretty awesome.

Anyway, do you hear that? It’s the keyboards of the world calling us to give them some love. Best of luck, friends. I hope the ideas flow, but, more importantly, I hope you stick to your writing schedule. The brilliant work inside you depends on it!

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

How to Write Comic Books: Tips from the Pros Part 1

In journalism there is a basic piece of advice that goes something like this: It’s okay to not know something, as long as you know what you don’t know.

This is useful for journalists, who have to quickly figure out when they need to verify or look things up. It is, however, also solid advice for those of us in other fields, including aspiring artists who—ding ding ding—want to write comic books.

Take me, for example. I know I have the desire and ambition to write comics, and the discipline to pursue my goals, but I also know that I don’t know enough about the industry or logistics or the skill set one needs to write and, ultimately, sell scripts. Not yet, anyway. I work on getting better every day. As I work, I am also fortunate to have access to many writers (online) who do have this knowledge, most of whom are famous, at least in comic book circles.

So, this is the first of an ongoing series compiling writing tips for aspiring comic creators. Each will feature advice from four writers, as well as thoughts or musings from my own experiences (who am I? nobody, so feel free to ridicule! I’m a writer too, which means I hate myself a little, you know how it goes!).

Oh, and if you happen to be a creator who wants to participate directly, please don’t hesitate to contact batmansbookcase@gmail.com. Help and guidance are always appreciated. We’re all in this art thing together, amiright?

That does it for my intro. Let’s get to it. Happy reading and writing and creating, friends!

How to Write Comic Books: The Importance of Distinct Characters

Shea Fontana (@sheafontana) has written an arc on Wonder Woman, a fill-in issue of Justice League, and she helped shape DC Super Hero Girls. Recently, she started a thoughtful Twitter discussion about effectively writing characters in an ensemble:

When developing an ensemble for a story, make the characters extremely different for maximum use in story. Redundancies in personalities mean that you won't need or utilize characters in story. If you distill each to 4 traits, those traits shouldn't overlap.

It is hard because in real life we tend to be a lot like our friends. But real life doesn't always make great story. Focusing on differences helps more in story than in real life too!

And then, DC Assistant Editor Andrea Shea (@whatthe_shea) joined in to add relevant perspective she gleaned from a master: I always really liked the triangle balances Marv Wolfman described in creating New Teen Titans -- Kory (extreme emotion), Raven (extreme control), Donna (balance); Gar (extreme jester), Cyborg (extreme gravitas), Dick (balance). Wolfman definitely said it better though, haha.

If I remember correctly it was from an interview in the back of one of my old Teen Titans trades, maybe Judas Contract or something. I'll have to see if I can dig it up when I'm home, it's some very cool insight.

My take away is that making characters distinct from each other is foundational to storytelling. Once you have traits, however, push them to extremes. As a short story writer within literary fiction, I too often bog my characters down with realism, making them close reflections of people I know in real life. Real life, however, is dull. What Fontana (and Wolfman via Shea) are saying is forget that, and make characters stand out. It’s more interesting for the reader, and it also gives rise to conflicts.  

How to Write Comic Books: Scripting

Here’s some advice on scripting from G. Willow Wilson (@GWillowWilson), who is the writer on Ms. Marvel, arguably Marvel’s most successful new character in a decade:

1. Put big reveals on page-turns
2. Unless you're a designer, let the artist be the boss of page layout.
3. A page flows better with an odd # of panels (3/5/7), though there are exceptions.
4. Always strive to be the best version of you, not a middling version of someone else

Wilson notes later that you must also limit panels to one action and one emotion, and writers should determine number of panels on a page while artist determines layout.

This is all really helpful to me, because my background is in short story writing. I’ve gotten most of my instruction from writers workshops run by literary magazines. I’m starving for instruction on how to operate within the unique structure of comic books. I also don’t draw (well), which means I don’t grasp the perspective of the penciler. This stuff is key for my writer's journey.

What to do, what NOT to do, and why

Gail Simone is (@GailSimone) a veteran writer who has written Birds of Prey and Batgirl, as well as one of my all-time favorite monster comics, the very-underrated Clean Room. Simone recently reacted to a comic-reading binge with some urgent advice for writers, advice she shared in a staccato Twitter burst, which I’ve transcribed for you fine folks below (okay, I copy and pasted them, but still, I care!):

• First, for the love of god, remember that the reader does not know what is inside your head. That is your only job, to convey your message.
• Pro or newbie, shame on you if you don’t name your characters on panel if we are supposed to recognize them later.
• Over and over, I am reading comics where the main character is not named or even introduced. The story just starts and we are meant to guess.
• This is just aggressively bad storytelling, unless there is some specific reason. If you are writing the Man With No Name, fine. But that’s mostly not the case.
• Second, learn what an establishing shot is, and what it accomplishes. Over and over, I was not told where the characters are.
• An establishing shot establishes not just location, but tone. One lonesome farm in the snowy emptiness can convey pages of dialogue and exposition. Better, too.
• Third, when did we forget that it’s important to know what a character wants? I don’t need a characters D&D stats, I need to know what they NEED. What drives them.
• Over and over, I am seeing stories where a threat arises, attacks the hero, the hero fights back, bang, continued next issue.
• If I read your story and don’t know what the character’s motive is, that’s on the writer.
• Additionally, learn what a reveal is. In almost any story worth a damn, someone’s keeping a secret, regardless of genre. Secrets are storytelling nitro.
• Finally, I am still reading comics where the characters all have a similar speech pattern, a sort of affected one-liner-spouting verbal malaise.
• It’s bad enough if TWO characters are indistinguishable in their speech. If all of them are, start over, you have hit a tree in the road.
• That’s it, just some things to consider. A lot of potentially very interesting comics out there are missing a little lesson in the basics.
• Just think it over, I guarantee you you will be happier with the result.

I can relate all of this to instruction I’ve gotten in the literary world. My most influential writing teacher has been Steve Almond, an exceptional short story writer and essayist, an underrated thinker, and an all-around good dude. I’ve been lucky enough to do two workshops with Steve, and he hammers every story on the same points Simone speaks to: 1. orient the reader, and 2. show the audience what the character wants, quickly. Basically, if a reader is confused, a reader checks out, and a reader will always be confused if they don’t know what a character wants. This is true of comic books just like it is of novels.

Maintaining Discipline and Focus

Lastly, none of the tips above matter if you can’t get yourself to the keyboard. Luckily, Brian Michael Bendis (THE Brian Michael Bendis, creator of Miles Morales and Jessica Jones) regularly takes to his tumblr to offer advice:

Just decide that you are the kind of person that gets a certain amount of pages written a day, and be that person. Remind yourself that there are many writers sitting at their computers right now and they are going to end up living your dream life because they sat down to write and you didn’t. Remind yourself that you may get hit by a bus tomorrow and wouldn’t it have been nice to write something on your last day. Remind yourself how lucky you are that you have the capacity for creativity and freedom to express yourself and what a waste it would be not to.

This is a quote to read before and after each writing session, or to print out and tape to your monitor. Storytelling is a burning instinct a select few of us have, a grand human tradition that has transcends technologies. As Bendis says, we are lucky to have the capacity and freedom to do it. 

With that, I’m off to write...an hour of fiction in the morning and an hour of plotting or a page of scripting before bed. Writing goals, man, writing goals. Good luck with your own.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.