The first installment of many!
The most dreaded question in any facet of the
writing kingdom is “where do you get your ideas from?” For budding writers or
creative types, it seems like a valid question. There wouldn’t be content if
people didn’t have a means of finding ideas for stories, projects, or other
endeavors. The truth is that generally creative people can’t turn it off. It
just keeps happening. The best way I can describe how my process works is in
two words – what if?
But it isn’t just the two words that contribute to
my wondering imagination. I’m also heavily influenced by music. I walk the dog
every morning and take lots of other walks just for fun. Each time I hit the
pavement or trail I throw my headphones on and pick music that suits my mood. I’ve
always been really into visual mediums, so music is also visual for me. What I
mean by that is that while I’m listening to any song I default to picturing
images to go along with it. Sometimes it’s a fake trailer for a movie. Other
times I just let the images pour over me. To be honest, when I’m in a bit of a
rut, I’ll listen to theme songs of cartoons and TV shows I liked as a kid (or
now) and think about how I would reinterpret them. Aside from divine
inspiration, this is how I usually milk the ideas out of my skull.
Once I have an idea for a comic book and have a
story locked down I think about how long it should naturally be. Is it a
one-shot, an original graphic novel, or a mini-series? It might sound strange
to decide how long a story is going to be before you write it, but in comics
you’re working in pages and limited space. For example, a lot of the Big Two
(Marvel and DC) comics are just about 20 pages long. That means that every
story told by writers at those companies have to be told in 20 pages or in
parts of that increment. Independent series have a bit more leeway with the
page count, but it’s still around 20 or 24 on average.
This doesn’t have to be set in stone. It usually
changes after a day or two of outlining, but it’s good to know within a good
margin how long a story is going to be before you start it. I guess at least
for me it is. One thing about writing comics is that there is no set way to
approach or script a story. It’s similar to screenwriting, but doesn’t have all
of the rules and regulations. The concept of pacing is really important, so if
a story seems like it’s going to be too condensed or too fluffy I’ll trim or
expand where necessary.
When the idea is fleshed out I make a one-sheet that
has all of the series information. This isn’t for anyone else to see but me. It’s
just a guide so that I don’t forget.
Here’s an example.
Title: A Crazy
Space Adventure
Genre: Science
Fiction/Action/Thriller
Length: 4-Issues
(20-Pages Each)
Synopsis:
Captain Space Guy and his crew struggle to solve a murder
mystery before the killer can crash their ship into the sun.
Characters:
Captain
Space Guy
This is where the description would go. Etc.
And that’s generally what I do first. I need to know
what the story is and who the major players are. Then I usually write out a
treatment, or complete story in paragraph form, of what happens in each issue
below that information. That way I have a guide on how to pace the pages of the
story later.
I’ll get more into how I decide to pace out pages in
the second installment, but for now I hope this helps with anyone who uses Google
to try and find information about comic book writing.
Comment with any questions you might have!
