The toughest part of the story, inevitably, is the beginning. How do you get the narrative ball rolling? How do you get somebody’s attention so that they want, maybe need, to hear what happens next?
A big black hole – The galaxy’s bowl? Captain Power’s goal? Enough poesy. What we’re dissertating on today is not verse, which I’m pretty sure I don’t quite understand, but goals. But first, a brief look at what are widely considered the seven basic plots. I’ll be courteous enough to add, under each one, an…
Here I sat, with my blank screen yelling profanity at me for not knowing what to bitch about this week. And like every piss-poor English student in high school, I’m opting to begin this week’s column with a “when I didn’t know what to write…” introduction. Well… When I didn’t know what to discuss this…
Despite my thirty odd (sometimes very odd) years as a professional writer in comics, I wouldn’t describe myself first and foremost as a writer. I consider myself primarily a storyteller. You don’t have to be a writer to be a storyteller; in fact, all of us are storytellers. Phillip Wilson, the former rector at the…
By now, those of you who probably greeted with thudding indifference my first regular post here last week may be whining (privately) about my tone. As of this writing, that piece hasn’t gone up yet, so I haven’t yet read the comments I probably won’t get. No doubt some of you will slander me as…
When asked my influences, I invariably add William Shakespeare which may seem a bit pompous. Shakespeare? Really? (Aside: this column is not going to deal with the whole “Who Really Was Shakespeare?” debate. If you want to believe someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s play, you go ahead. It’s not germane and, frankly, I’ve read…
This week’s roundtable at New Pulp Author Sean Taylor’s Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action Blog focuses specifically on comic book scriptwriting. Sean posted the top three questions he hears often at conventions or from those wanting to start writing comics or looking to turn an indie movie or small press novel into a…
One of the primary rules for writing is “Write what you know.” As I’ve discussed before, the corollary question becomes “what do you know?” I can write characters that, on the surface, are totally unlike me because underlying there are elements that true for both of us. Granted, I need to get the details of…
Noted comic book junkie (and occasional comic creator) Patton Oswalt delivered the third annual keynote speech at the Just For Laughs Comedy Conference in Montreal last week. He presented his address in the form of two open letters, one to creators and one to gatekeepers, and everything he said to those audiences can and should…
There’s an old maxim that says “God is in the details.” So is a story and especially in comics. I’ve said and I believe that a good writer can write any character. I don’t have to be African-American to write an African-American character; I don’t have to be female to write a good female character….
The other writer on the platform was Tony Bedard and he was getting most of the questions. We were at the Supercon in Miami and our topic was the Green Lantern. What was Tony doing there? That’s easy. He was answering questions about the current status of GL and well suited to do it, was…
Based on…oh, I don’t know – some observation? A hunch? An angel whispering in my ear? Anyway, based on some darn thing, I hereby guess that some comics writers aren’t as aware of story structure as they might be – not as much as, say, their artistic first cousins, screen writers who, I’m told, are…
