Home: Writing for Comic Books: Chapter One - The Basics: Where Do I Begin?

Chapter One
The Basics
(cont'd)

WHERE DO I BEGIN?

When I set out to craft a story, I don't have any single way in which I approach the process. Often I start with the characters, examining who they are and what they care about--this is especially true of licensed properties where the characters have history before I come to the table. Other times, I have a neat conflict or moral dilemma to explore. Sometimes I just have a really cool visual in my head around which I can construct a story. I will go into more detail about where and how to start in the chapter on outlines and page breakdowns. For now, I want to concentrate on some of the basic elements of storytelling.

VISUAL THINKING

One of the most important skills an aspiring comic book writer (or a writer working in film, television, and/or the theater) must develop is the ability to think visually. The best comic books are a marriage of text and art. The writer must be able to tell his or her stories in pictures. Let the art carry important character and plot elements.

When I work with aspiring filmmakers/videographers, one of the first things I suggest they do is make a silent film in order to learn to tell a story with images alone. After that, then you can begin to worry about adding words to your work. As film and video are visual media, if artists can't convey their message with their images, then they are not taking full advantage of their medium.

In many ways, I think it would serve aspiring comic book writers well to do the same thing. Use a camera--be it still photo, film, or video--and shoot a purely visual story. This will help you in many ways. It will train you to think of your stories in images. It will help you conceptualize how much information you can convey in a single image. It will also help you learn how to describe the pictures in your head to an artist.

The biggest limitation to storytelling in the comic book medium is space. Generally speaking, you are only given so many pages in which to tell your story. If an editor assigns you to write a twelve page story, you can't turn in a script for eleven pages, or thirteen, or any number other than twelve. There is also only so much material that will fit on a page or within a panel. You have to learn how to make the best use of this space by combining words and images to maximum benefit.

THE THREE PLOTS

All right, let's start right off with a disappointing reality. Every story that can be told has been told--probably by a writer better than any of us can ever hope to be. Our job as creators is to reconfigure these hoary old chestnuts, disguising them in such a way that the audience is fooled into thinking they're seeing something new and different. So, what are those three plots?

• The Mysterious Stranger (Comes to Town)
  
• The Quest
  
• The Genesis Story

That's it. I don't care what movie, novel, play, comic book, or what-have-you you point to. When you boil the story down, you will come to one or more of these three basic plots. Yes, this is reductionism to its extreme, but these are not where you end. It's where you begin. Let's consider them one at a time.

The Mysterious Stranger (Comes to Town). Someone or something enters a community. The story built around this plot often follows one (or both) of these two questions: What is this stranger's impact on the community? What is the community's impact on the stranger? If it does not follow either of those questions, then the stranger may be used as a lens by which the author reveals the characters and/or community in which the stranger finds him or herself.

The Quest. This can be a search for anything: love, the Holy Grail, the identity of the Mysterious Stranger. All mysteries are built around the quest for the solution. You might consider some subcategories to the Quest. My friend, comic artist Howard Simpson, feels that the quest is too broad and breaks things down further, including such categories as the Chase and the Hunt. Other writers consider Boy Meets Girl a separate classification. While I understand the distinctions being made in each of these examples, I still see them as all being quests of one sort or another.

The Genesis Story. How something or someone came to be. In comic book terms, this is the origin story.

As far as I'm concerned, that's it. I've never found anything else, but if you have something to suggest, I'd love to hear it. E-mail me with your thoughts and if you come up with new categories that are truly separate from these three, I will be happy to update this page to include them.

Think about your favorite stories and you'll see at the heart of them is one or more of these three basic plots. Our job as artists, and writing is an art, is to find a new stories to tell based on these plots. This is where your artistic vision comes into play. We are all individuals, shaped by our experiences. It is our unique perspective on these three stories that will give our work a distinctive voice.