hello, and my story

[brendon]

what's up,
I'm new to the writing area here, and would like to share my writings with you guys.
I wrote my first comic book last year, finished it and printed a hundred copies for the experience. Some of you might have seen it before. I do all of the work myself, e.g. story, pencils, inks all done by me. Now it's not a great book, but I learned a hell of a lot from it, and I'm glad that I finished one. Now I'm starting on my second book and I'm learning that one of the most important parts of getting the whole act to gether is having a well written script. Even though I'm writing it for myself, it helps me tremendously to have all of the words scenes and panels thought-out (at least half-way) before my pencil hits the drawing board. I thought I was saving myself time when I did the first book, by just making notes and drawing it as I went along, but it actually took me a lot more time to think at the drawing board, and the overall composition of the book actually turned out kind of crappy.
I'm out of the country studying right now so I can't show you guys the script I'm currently working on, but please check out my first book at:

http://www.brendonschumacker.com/zero

and see if you can give me any crit on the book or it's story, if you can I appreciate it. Don't think that because it's a finished book you can't crit it! It's just my first book, and it's all for practice.

then when I get back to home at the end of the month I'll give you guys a script to hack away at ! :) woohoo!

other than that I'd be happy to hear any advice on script writing too! I know absolutely nothing about it!

[banshee]

hey again brendon!

I will take a peek at the book later in the week when I've got a bit more time. I am supposed to be cooking dins hehehe

Earlier threads have mentioned great books/resources on script writing and how to finetune/attempt it. Check it out. I personally loved Denny O Neill's book, helped me tremendously!

soooooooo looking fwd to seeing more of ur stuff! I will get to read ur book for sure!

later days
B

[Vendetta]

Hello and welcome to The Writers' Desk. I've been off on a tangent or two of late so please forgive me not doing some C&C on your work yet. I'll be doing my best to get to those from here on out.

[Vendetta]

AH! I am on a roll... Two in as many days.

Page 1, Panel 1
I hate to say it, but this is worded a little awkwardly.
“A cold planet lies in space, centuries from now.” I take it this takes place in the future. It’s a little awkward but not bad… but the bit about the hot springs is very convoluted. Maybe something like “A cold planet circles a small star somewhere in deep space. The planet is too cold to support life as we know it save for several deep fissures where the heat from the planet core warms small patches of fertile ground.” Panel two. “Several Centuries from now, after years of searching, a group of humans finds…” etc. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you or not but I definitely think you ought to take a fresh look at your wording.

Page 1, Panel 3
They must survive! You make it sound like they are struggling to make it then toss out that life is peaceful there. Kind of threw me a little.

As a side note… if these humans are advanced enough to soar the cosmos then they know the value of language and writing/documenting. It’s always bothered me in stories when beings come to a place through space but forget everything they knew before. Even if their ship crashed and everything they had were destroyed, beings this far along the evolutionary ladder understand the importance of keeping records so that knowledge is not lost. They would have found some way to make some kind of paper and write…

That is not to say you cannot use “humans” in that capacity. I think you just need a good explanation. Perhaps they were a slave race and not very advanced… and when their masters died from some strange virus that didn’t effect the humans much if at all, they found themselves lost and trapped until the ship crashed into the planet.

But then, you only say that they forget where they came from… there are still some technological things floating around so they haven’t forgotten EVERYTHING. But still… if they have the tech, they definitely have the means to write down “we came from a planet named Bob” or something. Why have them not know?

Page 7, Panel 1 & 2
way too much white space left on these panels. In 2 you could spread out the two characters instead of leaving them standing one in front of the other or draw in some backgrounds with some important details.

Page 8, Panel 1
I love the hall. But I’m a bit confused by the conversation… which order do I read the balloons? It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense unless perhaps your people are carrying on several conversations to each other before the meeting actually starts (which is what I suspect is happening here)

Page 14, Panel 3
It should be “our” not “are”

Page 17, Panel 1
You need an apostrophe on “council’s”

As you can tell, I don’t have a lot of specific crits to give. I think some of the wording in the story was a bit awkward but that could be the way these people talk and there is nothing wrong with that. The story is good enough but I think it can be a bit more dramatic. Better page design by a more proficient artist will help greatly. You do a few choice panels like #3 on page 16 (yet another large “hall” panel). I think a bit more development on the Dentren would help too… let us know what they are thinking of the new race. You have some council meetings so a couple lines about what they think the Dentren want would help give us a bit more insight.

I think there is a bit too much “drag” at the beginning that could be tidied up a bit to give the extra room for talking about the Dentren. Like, for example, Indar jumps across the fissure on the last panel of page one but doesn’t fully complete the jump until the last panel on page three… that’s 4 panels AND a full page splash devoted to that jump… That’s a bit much I think.

Also, I think with some good editing, you can tighten up the lines after when Indar meets with the professor and learns about the “formula.” Now… this formula is a complete mystery. Indar finds it laying about? How does Indar know it’s the right stuff? A few questions there I think.

Overall, it was a relatively interesting story but does lack a real “hook” to draw the reader into it. The biggest hook would be Indar’s council meeting which wasn’t really a strong hook.

Also, how do the Dentren know where to set their trap? Why are they setting the trap? Last we see of them one of the guys is going to “tell on” the other for firing at Indar. Did that guy kill the other and set the ambush? (That might be a neat twist… the Dentren are really looking for peace but one man’s rogue actions set off war between them)

Anyway, thems me thoughts. Hope there was some help for your future stories.

[banshee]

so far I like it. Ven covered the tech bits (nice to see u back btw Ven!) so I wont repeat myself.

keep em coming!
B

[brendon]

It took a while, I must say :) , but I thank you very much for your response.

Everything you said was on-the-money. I have the same concerns myself. And in fact, all of the questions you had are answered in the second book, which I'm working on now. I'm not a very good writer, in fact, I just started to make this story so that I could practice my drawing....and also came to find, that I am not a very good artist :) .

Since this was my first book ever, and I did everything myself, I have to admit that I rushed it a lot. I think I will completely redo the first book.

The reason I spend too much panel space on silly things like the character jumping across the crevise is because it's the first book and I wanted to give the reader a chance to become comfortable with the characters.

Do you think I should skip that stuff and just hop into action? I don't know too much about story development so I'll believe you if you tell me...


I thank you very much for your crit!!! I think it will help me a lot!

[banshee]

Cool beans. Hmm... well, action is good and that but never, never neglect story development. I think when it's your first project, you do tend to get very excited and dash thru it but now you are in a position to step back and think, which are the best parts of what I did, and what folks said needed work.

I will have to say that a character jumping across a crevice doesnt always mean character development. I mean, I am not an artist but I do read comics (and sometimes I even try writing lol) and from what i've seen, unless he is chasing someone or is displaying super powers and the panel is superflous, kick it out. This is what I learnt from writing my first script, keep it neat, tidy and keep the story gng.

I hope I am making sense LOL if not ask away! Where are you studying right now brendon? I am in Malaysia if that helps any lol

later days
B

[brendon]

You know, I actually just thought there had to be a splash page of the main character somewhere in the first view pages....just in order to plug the title and get things started. Also, I often associate panel layouts with movie camera dynamics. If you were to see some guy gliding across a huge crevice using some type of glyder, I'm sure the camera would take a step back and give you a chance to take it in. Now that I've said all this though...I can see what you mean. It's not a movie, it's a comic, and using a splash page is a very dynamic tool in comics.

I'm in China studying chinese and teaching a little english here and there. I guess we're not that far apart at the moment if you're in Malaysia...right? my geography isn't too good. At least I know we're a lot closer now than we will be after a week, I'm getting on the plane back to america in less then 5 days :) It's been a long 6 months (especially with SARS and everything) so I'm actually looking forward to getting back....

very good tips on the panel layout...thanks!

[banshee]

thats cool Brendon! wow... Mandarin is hard, man! I Take my hat off to you (or at least I wld if I was wearing one!). We are abt hmm.. 4-5 hours flight or so, at least from HKG.

aahh.. your contract is done in China or you going home for the hols?

yeah, comic is different in many ways to movie etc b/c of space constraint or something like that... but it can just be as exciting

later days
B

[brendon]

Thanks, I have to admit that learning mandarin is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done in my life! But I would probably say that about a lot of things, so I guess it's hard to say exactly how difficult I find it :D ha!
I know it's not generally considered an easy thing to do though...I still have a lot of things to learn before I reach fluency anyway....

No, I just came in on a 6 month student visa. The visa time has run up, and I've still some studying to do in the US, so I'll be going back home for a while.

[banshee]

aahhhh IC. yeah it's a tough language all rite.. but man, u stuck it out for 6months that is very brave! :)

did u enjoy ur experience there? must hv been diffr from the US huh?

hv a great trip back when u do go back :)

[brendon]

yes, I like it here very much...as strange as it can be here, the chinese are often very friendly, and there are many things to do here.

One thing that I'll tell you, which I often try to explain to the chinese, is that America and China are two countries completely different. Although we share a lot of human traits...there is really little to compare. It's probably the most life changing experience I've ever had - being in China.

[Vendetta]

I would say that if you really wanted to do that "splash page" of him leaping that you can... you just need to approach it a little differently. Have him rushing the chasm at the end of the page, but not yet leaping... then the next page do a splash in a worms eye view to get the sense of "soaring" (as we humans tend to view things that are "soaring" from underneath them as we are generally landbound critters) Then you can also do some "cool" art stuff by doing boarderless panels of the same pose, in the same possition over the chasm but from different angles and MUCH smaller, maybe even overlapping the tiniest bit. In this way, you can get that "cinematic" effect you were hoping for and your splash.

As to the next page (to keep your page count if you like) have him standing on the other side of the chasm, viewing the terrain, scanning for possible hazards or enemies. You can then describe his keen vision or hearing or something... tell us a little about him... why he's running and leaping over a chasm like that, etc. You can give us a lot of character development in a panel like this using words and simple images. ie. "...All seems clear... But I know they are out there, watching. I just don't know where. I've got to get to cover quickly. My "speeder" (or what ever it is) is near. I don't hear its alarms. That is a good sign. I take the long way around; slipping behind trees and through the brush. I want to make sure I'm not walking into a trap..." and onward it goes. Certainly you would not do that... that's obviously rushed and not "thought out" but I hope you at least get what I'm hinting at.

as for "skipping" anything and jumping into the action... no, please don't. I appreciate your efforts to develop this character and those efforts are never wasted. Today, I think there are a slew of comic writers that rush the action, force the action and don't give us enough development to understand the action. I feel that the action should flow out of everything we have learned about the characters and storyline.

Certainly, since comic books are also a visual medium, we writers want to be consious of the great impact our artists can have with great fight sequences... But great artist can often do even more when fed the proper ammount of character development, emotion and description. One of the GREATEST panels of art I've seen in recent months is in the current Daredevil title (marvel knights series, number fourty nine, I think... where he fights bullseye) its at the end of the book and its almost a completely black panel except for hints of light on Matt and his girl as they are about to kiss. Its absolutely incredible.

In the arts there is never a right or wrong, only individual's opinion on what could be better.