Home: Writing for Comic Books: Chapter Four - The Page Breakdown: Where Does the Story Start?

Chapter Four
The Page Breakdown
(cont'd)

WHERE DOES THE STORY START?

When you are working in the superhero genre, it is often important to establish who the character is, what his or her powers are, and why they fight the good fight early in the story so that when the main dilemma kicks into high gear by mid-story, the audience is understands the character's goals and motivations.

One trick we use to get capture the audience's attention right from the start and to explore the hero is to start the story in media res, literally in the middle of things. By having your characters already in action, you can show who they are, what they can do, and why they do what they do. If you introduce Hero Woman by having her apprehending some common street thugs in the opening pages of your story, you can establish important elements about her on the fly. As always, it's better to show rather than tell.

If you start the story in the middle of an action, then you will have to fill the readers in on what is happening and why it is happening. There are a number of ways we can accomplish this important goal:

• Narrative captions. This is probably the weakest method, although it is sometimes the only option you may have. When working in the action/adventure genre, over-long or large numbers of yellow caption boxes are often ignored by readers who want to get on with the story. This may be less true of Vertigo-type stories where the use of language is of equal importance to the storytelling as the art and the action.
  

• Conversation. If a new character is arriving in the middle of the action, the old characters can fill in the newcomer (and thereby, the readers) with dialog, explaining what is going on and why.
  

• Flashbacks. I am a strong believer in "show, don't tell" in any visual storytelling medium. This can be combined with narrative captions or conversation, showing the readers what led up to the current crisis. Sometimes you can use this device to add new details that were unrevealed previously, thereby making the flashbacks important to new and old readers alike. This helps take some of the old readers' resentment out of the flashbacks.
  

The topic of flashbacks can lead into an interesting discussion about how much backstory you need to reveal at any given point in time. Readers who come back month in and month out for every issue of a comic often complain about the fact that they have to re-read material that they read last issue, last year, or several years ago. They often just want to keep the story moving without having to slow down for explanations of what they have already witnessed. This is further complicated by the emergence of trade paperbacks as a driving force in the comics industry. With so many story arcs being collected into single volumes, the flashbacks become an even greater sticking point. There are a lot of readers who wait until collections come out to read stories where once there were four week gaps. Flashback often helped even regular readers refrech their memories, but with collected editions often read over a short period of time, going back over things that happened just a few pages ago (in trade paperback time) seems very awkward.

How can you provide important history without alienating the core readers of your ongoing comic book or boring readers of trade paperbacks? The use of the inside front cover or letters page (or even the time-honored explanation over the titles on the splash pages in 70s Marvel Comics) is a relatively painless way to accomplish the goal, although it isn't an option with all publishers. The list above offers some tools you can use, but I'm sure you can think of or invent additions of your own. As long as you play fair with the readers, filling them in on all the important information they will need to understand what is going on, it doesn't matter which method you use.

VISUAL ELEMENTS

Something else that I recommend is that you always give your characters something to do, even in the slower, dialog-heavy scenes. It is often more visually interesting to watch people who are in motion than ones who are sitting around. (Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes you can increase dramatic tension in a static setting.) In theater, we call any movement that takes the character through space blocking. Personal movement, such as interacting with props (food, cigarettes, or anything else the character can hold) is called business. Blocking and business can reveal much about your characters via body language.

It is also wise to place your characters in visually interesting locations. The settings in which you place your characters can reveal much about them. Where do they feel comfortable? Where do they feel threatened? Where do they have fun? What do they do to have fun? This keeps the story visually appealing and can increase your artist's pleasure in the work by giving them fun stuff to draw (although if you are going to ask for anything way off the beaten path, you should provide your artist with reference!).

Movement, location, and structure are core things to keep in mind as you sit down to work on your outline. The more you think out ahead of time, the faster and easier the plotting and writing will be.

WRITING THE PAGE BREAKDOWN

All right, so I've laid out some of the theory with which I work. The act of putting all this down on paper is going to seem anti-climactic. That's because you should have thought out your story before you sit down to work. The more thought you put into the detail up front, the faster and easier the actual writing usually is--not always, but usually.

The PBD should be short and to the point. You don't need more than a few sentences to describe each page. All you need to do is lay out the key story points for each page. Sometimes its useful to make note of specific character motivations and other details, but the PBD is merely a blueprint You don't have to overload it with detail. In many cases, you are better off NOT overwriting as the editor may want you to make changes.

Don't feel that you have to write in a linear fashion. I have found that with beginners, it is often best for them to work from the end backwards. That way they don't fall into the trap of coming to the penultimate page of their script and discover they have five pages worth of story they have to wedge into two.

It doesn't matter what order you write the scenes--all that matters is that you keep writing. Work on the scenes that are clearest in your mind and work outward from there.

I have a template on my computer that lays out comic book stories page by page, to wit:

A template can help take some of the drudgery out of the work as you don't have to keep typing PAGE PAGE PAGE. I also have the template set up so that when it comes time to script I can access the different paragraph styles with a few short keystrokes. (Learn the power of your word processors, my friends--they can save you much work.

The best advice I can give you right now is to go do it. Write a PBD or two, keeping in mind what you've read here (and heard from any other sources) and when you get that done, move on to the next chapter: scripting.