Home: Writing for Comic Books: Chapter Five - Writing the Script: One Panel, One Moment in Time

Chapter Five
Writing the Script
(cont'd)

ONE PANEL, ONE MOMENT IN TIME

My basic philosophy is that the script (and plot, if plot-first) should provide the artist with everything he or she needs to tells the story and everything the editor needs to understand what is happening and why. I am a big believer in brevity when it comes to the full script. I don't go overboard in details that are not germane to plot points. I know artists that will take pens to scripts, crossing out anything that isn't key to what they have to draw. I can't say that I blame them. Quite honestly, very few people will have the opportunity to read my scripts for the sheer pleasure of it, so I don't overwrite (although humorous asides to the editor and the artist are fair game). Besides, keeping it a little looser means that the artist has more room to contribute, and that's a good thing. The more involved the artist is in the storytelling process, the more inspired and invested they become. It's good for the working relationship.

For now, let us concentrate on the general concept of each panel distilling one moment in time.

My approach to writing a comic book story is that every panel contains at least one key beat. Sometimes it is an important action. Other times it might be an important piece of dialog or even a reaction shot.

When I start actually writing the script, I begin with the beats. That speeds up my writing time because I can move from beat to beat, panel to panel fairly quickly without pausing to think about how to write the elements around the beats.

So, if I'm working on an action scene, I will write the choreography of the fight scene first, then go back in to write the dialog later. The reverse is true--if I'm dealing with a dialog-heavy scene, I will write the dialog first, determining how I want the conversation to flow. Then I'll go back to fill in the panel descriptions. This helps me keep moving forward and not getting bogged down in the details.

I also don't always write sequentially. To keep my juices flowing, I might write pages twelve through sixteen first because I have a clear picture in my head of how I want the scene to play out--I'll work this way especially if there's another portion that I'm having trouble writing. Rather than getting caught up in what's not working, I concentrate on what is. That often helps me break any creative logjam.

In writing the panel description, keep in mind that there is a limited amount of space on the page and within a panel. If you are writing a nine panel grid, it's not going to work to ask to have the entire population of Brooklyn in each of the nine panels. They just won't fit and you'll drive your artist to fits.

I try to keep my panel descriptions in the active verb tense. It helps convey the action to the artist and makes the manuscript easier to read for both the artist and the editor. Passive tense makes your manuscript feel wishy-washy and you don't want to dampen the artist's enthusiasm subconsciously through poor word choices. There are times when passive, past tense are appropriate, but it's usually to set up what is happening now...

PANEL FOUR

CAPTAIN WINGNUT, having just jumped over the speeding car, looks over his shoulder, wondering where the next attack may come from.

In the example above, "having just jumped" is past passive tense, describing what just happened (probably in the previous panel). The active verb in this description is "looks" over his shoulder. That is what is happening now (one moment in time). The clause "wondering where the next attack may come from" tells the artist what CW's frame of mind is, and helps indicate what CW's body language should communicate to the reader.

The description of the panel must include everything that is integral to the story--the characters, the action, notes about leaving room for sound effects and dialog (especially important when working plot-first. The full script would include the copy and the artist should allow for it).

Except under specific circumstances, do not ask for characters to undertake multiple actions, especially contradictory actions in a single panel. For example:

PANEL FOUR

GRIM GIRL grabs the parachute out of EVIL BASTICH's hand, slings it over her shoulder, and jumps out of the plane while firing her flare gun.

That's way too much action to fit into a single panel. It's a minimum of two panels (1. GRIM GIRL grabs the parachute out of EVIL BASTICH 's hand. 2. GRIM GIRL slings the parachute over her shoulder, and jumps out of the plane while firing her flare gun), and you're probably better off with three.

There are exceptions to this theory. In a large panel or a splash page, you could treat a complicated action as a series of steps. In this case, the background remains static while the action moves across the panel. For example:

PANEL ONE

This panel takes up the entire top third of the page. SPEEDCHICK dashes along the street, taking out the horde of villains. We see multiple images of Speedchick as she punches VILLAIN ONE in the jaws, kicks VILLAIN TWO in the gut, throws VILLAIN THREE into a trash can, and pulls VILLAIN FOUR out of a car at the curb.

In this case, we've put all the action in a single long panel and it helps underscore that Speedchick has superspeed. The static background here also helps create the sense that this is happening very quickly--that all this action is taking place in one moment of time.

There are occasions where there are two beats in a panel, a punch thrown while something is said or someone reacts. The thing to keep in mind is to not ask for too many beats or contradictory actions in a single panel.

Another exception to the single beat theory is a montage. A montage is a collection of images in a single panel/frame. In some cases, you can use this to create the sense of "meanwhile": characters A and B are undertaking an action in one location while characters C and D are doing something else in another place. You have linked these two sets of characters together visually within the same composition, giving the illusion that things are happening concurrently

You can also use a montage to compress time: Lovers E and F are seen in various locations around town, sharing ice cream, walking in the park, window shopping, watching a child with her mother. This tells us that E and F have spent quite a bit of time together.

PACING

You control the pace of your story by the amount of action that happens in the time between panels.

(And, just for the record, I'm a big believer in gutters between panels. They help separate moments in time and make it easier to read comic pages. There are times when just a thin line can be useful to indicate a group of moments that happen simultaneously or in rapid succession, but with today's computer coloring and the use of heavy blacks or deep colors in the gutters, comic pages have become very difficult to read. This is just one of the many things that may hold new readers back--if they can't fathom what's happening visually and can't tell how to decode a comics page, they aren't likely to try. Copy placement can help overcome this problem, but it's only part of the battle.)

So, to demonstrate my point about the passage of time between panels, let me use two examples...

Fast pacing:

PAGE ONE

PANEL ONE

Exterior. Beautiful sunny afternoon. SUPERGUY takes flight outside his parents' home in Charleston, North Carolina. This is a low angle shot to make Superguy look powerful.

PANEL TWO

SUPERGUY, in flight and coming right at the reader, leaves Earth's atmosphere. We can see the Atlantic Ocean and the continents in the background.

PANEL THREE

SUPERGUY comes to a landing on the moon. We can see the Earth distantly in the background.

PANEL FOUR

Etc.

The entire trip happened between the two panels and moves the story at a fast clip. It implies that the time it took Superguy to get from Charleston to the moon is negligible.

Notice that I set time of day in the first panel. If Superguy's parent's house was a common setting for the series, I would leave the description at that, assuming that the editor or the artist would have reference. If it's someplace we'd never seen before, I would go into more detail about the look of the house. If it was something last seen fifteen years ago or I had a specific look in mind, I would try to find reference to send with the script to help the artist.

I also called for a low angle shot because I wanted to convey power. I generally do not call for specific "camera angles" in most panels. Again, this is to allow the artist maximum freedom to bring his or her style/voice to the story. When I do call for an angle, it's for dramatic purposes. If you minimize the number of specific shots you call for, you increase your likelihood of the artist accommodating your requests when you do ask for something special.

In the second panel, I specified a specific layout. I definitely want to have Superguy flying at the reader with the Earth in the background to set up the image in the third panel where I ask for the distant Earth in the background. I did this to give a sense of the amount of space traveled.

You could further speed up the pacing by cutting out the second panel altogether.

Another element that would affect the pacing in this sequence is the amount of copy. If Superguy was doing a lot of thinking while in flight or I used a lot of caption boxes to describe what was happening, the reader would have to slow down to read the text.

So, the amount of action that happens between panels and the amount of text within the panels themselves are the two most significant elements that control the pacing of the story.

Slow pacing:

PAGE ONE

PANEL ONE

Long shot. Late afternoon. Busy metropolitan street. CONNOR (a professional lawyer in her mid-30s) dashes out of the courthouse, late for an appointment. She is in a well-tailored suit.

PANEL TWO

CONNOR tries to hail a taxi that goes right by her. There are PEOPLE walking by on the sidewalk. She looks exasperated.

PANEL THREE

CONNOR tries to hail another taxi that goes by her. DIFFERENT PEOPLE are on the sidewalk passing by. By this time, her clothes are looking a little disheveled and her shoulders are stooped. She's been on this curb for fifteen minutes trying to get a cab to stop.

PANEL FOUR

Another five minutes have passed. A taxi has finally stopped for CONNOR. She gets into the back seat.

PANEL FIVE

Largest panel on the page with room for an inset panel. Long shot. The taxi is at a full stop, trapped in traffic on a busy city street. It's obvious that it will not be able to move any time in the near future.

PANEL SIX (inset panel)

This panel is inset into panel five. Close up of CONNOR looking defeated, realizing there's no way she'll ever make it across town to meet her client.

The sheer number of panels slows this sequence down. By pointing out that there are different people in the backgrounds of panels three and four help denote the passage of time, as do the descriptions of Connor's body language.

Panel five includes an inset panel. An inset panel is a panel contained by a larger panel. When I use inset panels, it is to distill a moment or detail happening within the larger panel. In the example above, we are seeing Connor's reaction to being trapped in the traffic jam.

Another inset for panel five could be a plank of wood with a sharp nail point out that the cab's front tire might be about to roll over. Here you'd be showing an important detail that could not be seen because of the nature of the composition in the larger panel. This could be used to build tension at the end of the page, creating your end of page question (as discussed in chapter four).

Notice that I placed the paranthetical description [i.e. (inset panel)] next to the panel number. This is useful for the artist in planning layouts. Any time there is something unusual about a panel--especially something that has a consistent look or feel that is part of the visual grammar of the story--I will put it in paranthesis beside the panel number. Two good examples are flashbacks or TV screens. These both often have different borders or coloring tricks to set them apart from the standard panels, so saying that right from the start gives the artist a quick head start.

It's a good idea to vary the pacing of your scenes so you don't fall into a cadence, become predictable, and bore the reader. I try not to have the same number of panels from page to page over several pages. (Although, the magic number of five panels allows for much variation in layout which helps overcome the problem of cadence.) However, it isn't just the number of panels on the page that affects the pacing, it's the amount of action happening between the panels. Steve Ditko effectively used the nine panel grid without it becoming monotonous, as did Jack Kirby with the six panel grid and David Lapham with the eight panel grid. However, they broke the grid when they wanted extra emphasis for a particularly dramatic moment.

Plot-First, or "Marvel Style" >>