by Matthew Russell - Posted 4 years ago
Welcome to another edition of Everyones Comics Tutorials where we discuss the fine art of script writing for a comic book.
My last blog on Lettering a Comic came out yesterday, and I started getting messages right away. I woke up around 6 AM to my Facebook Messenger blowing up asking for this topic. I guess some want to know how to write a comic script.
Apparently, this is where I blow my own horn for a second.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with some really crazy talented artists. I worked on various levels of partnerships, where I am writing their story and they are drawing mine. I have straight-up paid artists to work on my books. I have had artists assigned to me and my books, and I have been assigned to other artists on their books.
I have been a part of several different script types. I have been able to help others with novels, poetry books, movie and television scripts, and most comics. I have been both a writer and an editor of comics.
My point is that I have been around the block a few times and have gotten to work with many different artists from every level from novice to absolute professional. Each artist approaches a book differently and wants different things from your script. So I am here to teach you everything you will need to know so you can give your pencilers or digital artist everything that they will need from you.
I have written quite extensively about the nature of a storyboard and timelines. In several different posts here at CryptoComics Marketplace, I have given you direction on how to structure your story using timelines and webs.
You will need to come up with your own ideas for this tutorial. I will be using a comic that I created called Hunter. It is about a Vampire Hunter that works for the Illuminate. It turns out that Vampires are in charge of the Illuminate. Below is the Front and Back cover drawn by Eric Hurley.
I initially came up with this story when I was coming up with a new series for a comedy anthology. Vampires were overused, oversaturated, and now sparkly. While writing this, I had YouTube playing in the background and there was a video about how the history of the Illuminate and other secret societies.
Hunter instantly changed direction from a comedy to an action-horror comic and it all seemed to come together.
Hunter follows Richard Benning of Clontarf (the birthplace of Bram Stoker) through the typical Hero's Journey. I have purposely added several twists as well as blended certain arch-types in order to keep the story fresh.
Although I mentioned the Hero's Journey, that is not what this blog post is about. That will come in another blog post.
Before we begin, there are 7 main elements of Fiction.
This is a 7 level pyramid with the Character at the top in a descending level of importance. If the style becomes the most important aspect of your story, then your pyramid will be misshapen and your story will not hold its own weight.
The character must be the foundation of your comic. Think about a Superman comic without the man himself.
Sci-fi fans might remember this major lesson from Star Trek the Next Generation. At first, the setting (the Enterprise-D) was the main central focus of the show, and the crew took the second fiddle. It wasn’t until the showrunners decided to switch focus that Jean Luc Picard became iconic and Star Trek TNG became the Star Trek for a new generation.
You have to know your characters intimately. Know them well enough to speak with their voice (not really their voices, I mean see inside their minds and know them better than they know themselves.)
Make them real to you. Get to know them. Even if you are creating a new character, get to know them. Spend time with them. Flesh out their backstory, their motivations, their goals. Make each character a part of you.
Remember, each villain is really the hero in their own minds. To see this, look no further than the MCU. Why were Killmonger and Thanos so loved? It wasn’t that they were the evilest, it was because they made you see them as something more than a bad guy. As much as you rooted for the iconic good guys, you ( at the very least) understood the bad ones.
Once you have all your characters, then and only then can you move onto a strong plot.
Take your characters and bring them into the world where they would naturally be against each other. How would they clash, and to what level? In a realistic love story, they wouldn’t be toppling buildings (unless someone worked for a demolition crew).
There was a movie in 2007 called P.S. I Love You in which Gerald Butler (Gerri) dies of a brain tumor. After a tumultuous year, his wife Holly (Hillery Swank) receives a series of letters from her late husband teaching her to move on. Each one has a PostScript stating “I Love You” hence the name.
Nothing earth-shattering here. In the superhero genre, the stakes need to be a little higher. Batman faces villains almost exclusively based on several different mental illnesses, Captain America squares off against the Nazi party, Green Lantern has to face the possible loss of all life in the universe.
So, know your characters and build a plot based on that. What is appropriate for what situation. Make it grounded enough that the reader doesn’t lose interest.
Hunter, the first plot he has to investigate the murder of a Senator linked to the Illuminate. It starts out as him on an assignment. Strictly gather information and report back. As he does this, he realizes that he is on the trail of Vampires.
This is nothing new for him, but this time it’s different, its more personal for the villain. He isn’t looking for a random low-level vampire, the lone wolf if you will. He is on the trail of a Vampire Lord. As the series progresses, he learns the truth behind everything he does, and who he is working for.
Take enough time with your plot that you know how characters move through it. I was once told in a creative writing class that if your characters are sharks, your plot is the water; they must swim through it naturally.
Your plot must be centered around your characters so that they are not interchangeable with any other characters and come to the same place. If you took a Sherlock Holmes plot and tried to place Indiana Jones in it, it would naturally fall apart and not make much sense.
This is a natural extension of the plot. Where and when. This can be played with more and more, but you have to remember some of the drawbacks of the times. Star Wars took place in a galaxy far far away and a long time ago. A writer could also place it in the future without much trouble.
A great detective novel such as the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes would be harder to place in the distant past before the invention of forensic evidence or so far in the future that camera are literally everywhere and people place their entire lives on social media. Now, it could be done but it would take considerable alterations to make it work.
That covers the when but what about the where?
Superman is synonymous with Metropolis, just as Batman is to Gotham. This doesn’t mean that all their stories have to revolve around the locations. Just keep in mind that those iconic locations are just as much of a character as the main protagonists are. Having a story sans typical location is still possible, and can be good.
For Hunter, he starts out in an underground cathedral in Alexandria. He then travels to New York, London, Dublin, Italy, and other historic locations while on the trail of the Vampire also known as the Second of the Fifth.
For this story, these locations are key due to their ties to history. The villain would not be found dead in the back alleys of New York City during this day and age. He feels himself beyond that. So, the locations are key.
This is not to say that another issue might our hero visit such gritty locations. The next arch takes place in a frozen tundra where he learns the entire truth. Much fewer locations.
One of my all-time favorite movies is 1997’s, 12 Angry Men. This takes place entirely in a jury deliberation room. They discuss other locations but only use diagrams to do do so.
There is a small men’s room that they enter to have private conversations from time to time, but 90% of it takes place in a single room. It wouldn’t make sense to place them in any other location, and this works beautifully. Check it out some time.
Whose story is this, who is narrating, who is the focal character? I have seen great stories told through the eyes of a second-tier character such as a sidekick. I have seen stories telling the same story from various people’s points of view (the movie Vantage Point is a perfect example of this).
First-person is typical. You get a character’s POV of the plot that involves them. You see things through their eyes and you get more personable with them.
The second person is rarely used in fiction. It’s VERY hard to write and keep consistent. Personally I say, “Don’t Bother.” It will be more trouble than it is worth.
Third-person tells the entire story from a birds-eye view on events. Little narration except for an omnipresence simply explaining what is going on.
I tell my comic from the perspective of Richard as he is relaying past events to the Council of Twelve. Everything is from his point of view except when the Council interjects tidbits of information that help the story and that he was not privy too.
Now, this is your fingerprint. As you write, you should have a style in mind. How do your character’s look? How should it be drawn?
In a recent interview with the creator of Music Maker, series creator, and writer S.K. Malveaux describes how she went looking for an artist and asked for an Aeon Flux type figures and found the perfect fit with Andres Quezada Peña. The rest is history.
For Hunter, my main character is both a mix of Daniel Craig’s James Bond mixed with someone I met from Italy. (I was not in Italy, he was just from there.) The art style should reflect that. I am still looking for an artist, but I have had some initial mockups drawn up.
Every story should have a certain theme in mind. What is the big idea? Otherwise, why read it if the writer is not trying to convey anything?
In the example of P.S. I Love You, the theme is moving on. In 12 Angry Men, justice is prevalent. In Sherlock Holmes, the use of logic is the key.
Hunter tries to convey Honor, Betrayal, and Duty. At least this is what the main hero has to struggle with. As I have said, originally, this was going to simply be a one-off, slapstick comedy, but it mutated and evolved to be so much more.
After 9/11 and also in this current political climate, we are seeing a lot more “Call to Actions” where we are subtly being told to pick a side. After 9/11 we saw a huge spike in movies pertaining to the military that told the stories of soldiers through a Post 9/11 lens; Lone Survivor, Stop-Loss, Valley of Elah, American Sniper, and so on.
This is a huge departure from pre 9/11 movies based on the military without the major combat scenes; Renaissance Man, Sum of All Fears, and Saving Private Ryan showed the military in a very different light.
A partial list of literary devices includes simile, personification, hyperbole, metaphors, symbolism, alliteration, figurative language, humor, onomatopoeias (no not the character created by Kevin Smith), and irony.
For a more complete list of Literary Devices check out this great article from Reedsy. Just remember to weave them in carefully. Do not overdo it or your comic will become a disastrous mush and a mess.
In Hunter, I use a lot of established symbolism from the masons and other Illuminate writings that I could find. I also try to use Flashbacks very sparingly. Now the foreshadowing is tricky. I try not to add much on the first pass, and I might sneak it in on the second draft. I try to keep it so vague that it can be blended into a scene without anyone thinking too much about it but one might catch it on an in-depth analysis of my comic.
Some say that this is cheating, but I say, “I’m just telling a story, not building a rocket. Just sit back and enjoy it for a while.”
Personally, I like to stay away from allegories. Not to say that I haven’t in the past. I wrote a poem about a little boy playing with a toy that was about my views on life and death. This was very meaningful for me, but in the end, not everything works out and almost everyone that read it hated it. Oops.
It was at that point that I decided to try to stay away from them although I have had a fan who has read way too much into one of my comics state that they have found a deeper meaning behind that particular comic. I was so surprised that I lied and said that he was the first to find that. I went back and read that comic again and still, I didn’t see what he was talking about.
So every piece of literature from the Divine Comedy to the Cat In The Hat has these elements. Hunter is no different in that regard.
Spend time thinking about the story you want to tell and the characters that you want to tell it with. Be mindful of your audience, and your comic. Planning is the key.
Next time we will tell the tale of Hunter and how to structure the comic script. Be on the lookout for that. Until then, much love and be safe.
