Never Stop Writing

Jeph Loeb was interviewd by the supermanhomepage in 2004, and offered this advice to writers when asked if he had any advice for breaking into the comic business, or into writing in general? 

" Keep writing," he advises. "Every day. Write a page. Of something. Anything. Write what you love, what you know. Stay on it. If it's comics, get to know the editors. They are the ones who can hire you. Not other writers. Don't be a snob. Work for anyone. Get to know artists. Work for free and work up from there. And never, ever let anyone stop you from your dream."
 
How long it takes him to script a comic, he revealed, "depends on the issue, depends on the book. Sometimes they come very quickly -- a few days. sometimes it takes a few weeks of thinking, taking notes, coming up with moments and then finally sitting down and doing it. William Goldman who is one of my heroes and who wrote (among many, many things) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was asked how long does it take to write a screenplay. He said that he thought about Butch & The Kid for 13 years and wrote it in seven days. So. how long did it take him? A LOT of writing is done when you're not writing.
 
" That's hard to understand when you 're the writer's wife or girlfriend or boyfriend. It's hard to explain when you're on the couch for six hours, counting ceiling tiles that you're actually working. But, my mind never stops."
 
Loeb says he always tries to work with an artist on a book. " I always talk about the story with my artist at the beginning," he revelaed, "so he knows what he's getting into. I try and keep mind his concerns, strengths and the things he loves to draw.
 
"I write a full script -- very detailed description, all the dialogue, just like a screenplay. But -- and it's a BIG but --I tell the artist that it's there for him to interpret. I only ask that if they can, try to follow the pacing -- the rhythm -- of the dialogue, that'd be great.
 
"Even so, when the artwork comes in, I re-dialogue the work to better suit the images. Sometimes that's a complete rewrite, sometimes, that's just putting the balloons on the page. 

"I happen to work with brilliant guys who always astonish me with their work. It really is FUN!"

• Read the whole interview on a number of projects Jeph worked on here:
www.supermanhomepage.com/tv/tv.php?topic=interviews/jeph-loeb2

Robert McKee's Ten Commandments

Robert McKee's Story Structure Seminar is an intensive three-day course that concentrates on screen writing. Most of the course is very applicable to comics writing. The course is well worth the cost and comes recommended by many people I know who have been on it.

Most seminars are in the US but he sometimes teaches overseas. To find out if and when he'll be in your area, contact:

Two Arts Inc
12021 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 823
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Tel: (001) 213 312 1002.

McKee's Ten Commandments of Writing are as follows:

ONE: Thou shalt not take the crisis/climax out of the protagonists' hands. The anti-deus ex machina commandment. No surprises!

TWO: Thou shalt not make life easy for the protagonist. Nothing progresses in a story, except through conflict. And not just physical conflict.

THREE: Thou shalt not give exposition for strictly exposition's sake. Dramatize it. Convert exposition to ammunition. Use it to turn the ending of a scene, to further the conflict.

FOUR: Thou shalt not use false mystery or cheap surprise. Don't conceal anything important that the protagonist knows. Keep us in step with him/ her.We know what s/he knows.

FIVE: Thou shalt respect your audience. The anti-hack commandment. Not all readers know your character. Very important.

SIX: Thou shalt know your world as God knows this one.The pro- research commandment.

SEVEN: Thou shalt not complicate when complexity is better. Don't multiply the complications on one level. Use all three: Intra-Personal, Inter-Personal, Extra-Personal

EIGHT: Thou shalt seek the end of the line, the negation of the negation, taking characters to the farthest reaches and depth of conflict imaginable within the story's own realm of probability.

NINE: Thou shalt not write on the nose. Put a sub text under every text.

TEN: Thou shalt rewrite.

• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting
by Robert McKee Methuen Publishing Ltd ISBN 0413715604
 
"Story" deciphers the guiding structural principles that animate every classical and award-winning film, ranging from Citizen Kane through to modern acclaimed works like The English Patient.

What Comic Editors Look for in a Submission: Writing

1) Before submitting your work, check for spelling and grammar. Also, revise and polish your submission. Is it a story you'd want to read featuring your chosen hero? Have you written a story using characters you're familiar with? Could you edit it to improve the storytelling? Re-writing is an important part of any creative process, be it comics, TV, film, radio or novel.

2) Format: There is no particular format for writing plots or scripts but companies my require submissions to be in particular formats. Comics strips scripts do not, for example, need to be double spaced. (For more on this topic, have a look at Chris Bunting's web blog article on the subject, written in July 2005). If you are using a computer to write scripts, many creators prefer the program Final Draft to other word processing programs.  

Warhammer and TOXIC Writer Stu Taylor advised back in 2005 (via Chris Bunting's site): "It's not particularly cheap, but if you buy it direct from the American website (www.finaldraft.com), you can get it for half the price you'd pay at somewhere like PC World. Once I started using it, I could never go back to just using Microsoft Word."

3) If you are targeting a particular company, submit work featuring the company's published characters you're familiar with. it's pretty pointless submitting new character ideas in the first instance, unless you've teamed up with an artist to knock 'em dead (another good idea, and one you can realize by publishing a fanzine). Also, check with the company before you send them anything. Neither Marvel nor Dark Horse now accept unsolicited submissions. Find out what a company's submission procedure is before you make your pitch.

4) If pitching to a British title such as 2000AD, send in storylines/four page 'Future Shock' ideas, not multi part epics. (2000AD's full submission guidelines are here) These plot lines should be brief never be more than a single side of A4. If you can tell the story or explain a character in a sentence, it really helps. US editors will also want to see self-contained short stories. don't use well-known characters, either ? you may stand a better chance of getting accepted as a new writer if you submit a story featuring a lesser-known character in need of development or revamping.

For anyone struggling to get stuff published in 2000AD, Andrew Ness wrote to mention that there's a dedicated mail list where you can get critiques and (sometimes) helpful hints. To join, just e-mail subscribe-scriptdroids@yahoogroups.com. Browsing through the online archive is recommended before posting, just to avoid repetition. Other than that, all welcome.

5) DC Thomson Commando Library
Published as 64 page black and white books, Commando war stories centring on armed forces action (stories can come from every era of human history but, generally, modern conflicts) and consist of 135 frames per story. Pitches require a synopsis of about 1000 words in the first instance but successful writer Gordon Wells (writing in the May 2005 issue of Writing Magazine) advises writing a 2500 word synopsis in order to have sufficient material to complet the 135-frame story.

Script format differs from weekly and US titles in that almost every frame includes a lengthy 25-30 word caption to move along the story. Word balloons are limited to two per frame, with at most 25 words per frame.
 
Research is vital when pitching ideas: there are a huge number of web sites dedicated to retelling real military action. While editing the launch issues of RAF Magazine for Titan I compiled some links to RAF sites which may give you a jumping off point to other resources -- click here for my RAF links page. There are also numerous World War One links on the unofficial Charley's War web site, dedicated to the comic created by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun for Battle Picture Weekly. 

My resource page of historical sites is by no means exhaustive, but may also be of interest: click here for my History links. The military books or history section of your local library or a trip to your local museum may also provide story ideas.

DC Thomson buys all rights to any accepted script. 

• Read a December 2007 interview with Commando editor Calum Laird offering a guide to submitting to DC Thomson titles

6) Writer Warren Ellis recommends sending script samples to companies. It's worth a try if you're an unknown. An editor needs to know you can write good dialogue as well as come up with sparkling ideas.

I'd also STRONGLY advise that as for artists, if you are approaching a particular company, you should submit a sample script featuring the characters that company features, rather than your own. As they want to see artists can really draw their characters, so they'll also want to see that writers can really write for their characters. Keep the script short, perhaps: write an eight page vignette rather than a 22 page complete story.

7) Always include your name, address and telephone number on each sample and each page that you send in. Include a stamped addressed envelope.

8) Be prepared to wait for a reply but in the case of writing, because there are generally fewer submissions, I would say a phone call won't hurt your chances. If you do phone leave it until about four weeks after sending your submission. Plus, be polite and be quick. Editors are always busy, even on the toilet. (They're also partially insane and never in the same mood from day to day. In this, they have a lot in common with traffic wardens, but that another story).

9) If you are sending in story ideas with new characters you've created and feel paranoid (not necessarily a bad thing), you might want to post a copy of the material to yourself. Then leave the envelope unopened in a box file somewhere. The date stamp on the envelope serves as the indicator of when you sent the company your work, so if your character appears in another form you at least have some evidence of your creations being ripped off.

Many American companies adopt the same principles as TV companies, requesting that you send a legal release form with any submission so they can avoid any potential legal wrangle if 'simultaneous creation' occurs. It does happen...

Quote Me on Writing Comics: Mike Collins

"On writing, I always put pen to lined paper first and always. The computer always comes last.

"I find when I write straight into the machine it results in ridiculous levels of verbosity, but if it's all written long hand it hurts to waffle on and on.... I also find working longhand, I'm less precious about scrubbing out what I've just written...

"It always looks so finished on screen, so untouchable, which it shouldn't be.

"When I started out (and although everyone's forgotten, I was more a writer than an artist in them there distant early days) Steve Moore gave me the best bit of advice ever -- write out your script and then cross out pretty much every second word. Hone the text to the minimum.

"The artist should be able to make the pictures dazzle and tell the story. On the odd Doctor Who's I've written, I've given myself scope to do some insane dramatic no-BBC-budget-could-afford- this visuals.

"Too often as artists, we get scripts from writers who though fine and talented don't think in pictures. That's why writer/artists at their finest make the best comics... Gibbons, Miller, Eisner... all storytellers who make the medium all it can be."

Writing Comics: First Points

Comics is a very versatile medium that's got possibilities that people have not even begun to touch...

Alan Moore, interviewed in the fanzine Zarjaz #3

I take the same approach to writing a comic as writing a script; I flesh it out panel by panel, page by page, rather than doing a plot and letting the artist break it down. Not because I don't think the artist can or should, but because I just don't know how to write it any other way. I need to see it in my head, shot for shot, or I can't follow or create the narrative.

J. Michael Straczynski on writing comics, March 2000

Writing comics is not easy. It takes determination, perseverance and lots of practice, whether you're an aspiring writer or artist. 

 If you didn't already know it, there are one heck of a lot of people out there who think they have what it takes as a writer or an artist to make it in the industry. The fact that 95 per cent of these people haven't got a clue is neither here nor there. These 95 per cent are the ones who bombard editors both in the UK and the US with their work, without undertaking the basics that every comics editor wants to see.

If you want to shine in the unsolicited slush pile your work must be polished, take on board the current trends in the market and particularly those of the company you're aiming at. It has to be something the editor wants to see, be they working on Thomas the Tank Engine or 2000AD. And on that subject, be prepared for the inevitable possibility that you're more likely to get work on a junior title than the dizzying heights of the titles your regularly read. 

Many an artist and writer I worked with on Marvel UK titles such as Death's Head II, Warheads and Overkill etc. learnt their trade writing or drawing The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats. Grant Morrison started his career by writing Zoids, among other things. If you're self-employed and still learning, nothing should be beneath you.

COMIC STORYTELLING TIPS THAT WORK...

1) Write or draw anything. Practice. Read and watch things that aren't action adventure or comics. Go to the theatre. Watch movies. There is often more characterization in one episode of a good episode of the British TV soap Coronation Street than 20 episodes of X-Blobs from Mingo. 

As for classic fiction, it's as good a place to start as any. Novelist Orson Scott Card once wrote: "I don't know how anyone can be a writer of fiction in any genre without being deeply immersed in the lives of real people as recorded by historians and biographers."

That said, if you find a comic and style you like, don't be afraid to ask yourself "Why?" - What made the characters interesting? What made the artwork stand out above all the other comics you might have bought in the last month? 

Like books, 90 per cent of comics are rubbish and like those books, just as unmemorable. But the best drawn, best written comics are always those that stand the test of time - and keep a writer or artist in work in a very competitive market place.

2) Self publish if you can afford it. Much easier these days now you can publish online! Good editors like to see published work, even published work in fanzines. I started my career in comics by publishing my own fanzine. It never made any money and we only ever produced 200 copies every issue, but several people who started with work in it have gone on to work in comics, including myself. Dave Jones now works on Viz and Nick Miller has drawn for many comics, as well as occasionally continuing to draw The Really Heavy Greatcoat just for the heck of it. (My co-editor, Matt Bingham, has worked for magazines like FHM but that's another story). 

Many top name comic authors have done nothing but publish their own work, to considerable success. Dave Sim's Cerberus is the archetypal example, Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore's From Hell, Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright or Paul Grist's Jack Staff or Kane. There are others, such as the delightful Strangehaven, but they are sadly still few and far between. Comics are still dominated by the big publishers such as Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, each with their own very different attitudes towards storytelling, creator's rights, royalties and the like. These major companies are where most of the work is and probably your first targets when it comes to trying to get work.

3) When you get work, be prepared to revise your astonishingly brilliant storyline or art when the editor asks you to. The nature of mainstream comics is that a comic is created by more than one hand -- mainly the writer and artist, but also the editor, editor-in-chief etc. Be prepared to compromise but learn your own tolerances when it comes to resisting the 'suggestions' of those above you, especially if you feel the the suggested changes are wrong and alter the basic essence of the story you're pitching. If it was good enough to be accepted, it's good enough to sell elsewhere if things are going horribly wrong for you. And when an editor changes the names of all your characters without consulting you, I think you have every right to blow a gasket!