Writing, scripting, storyboarding?

[FranR]

Hello everyone,
I'm working on a fairly big story for a comic (graphic novel), and found that just storyboarding per chapter won't work now. The story is too big and it's far too easy to lose track or have inconsistencies.

So after browsing the forums I found a nice tool called Celtx and started writing out my story. Now is my question, is it common for a graphic novel to first script and then do the storyboard or can I skip scripting and move right in to storyboard? What would be the pro and cons for either methode?

To give an indication of how much I have at this point. 1 volume of 14 chapters and enough ideas to fill two more volumes (they have to be different volumes because of how the story goes in each new part).

I do both the writing and the drawing, but I have a few friends that look over my text/art (and they offer more than the usual praise you get from friends and family ;)).

[tlbowen]

I usually do thumbnails or rough storyboards before I write anything out just so I have a flow of how I want things in my head. Then I write the script based on those flows with modifications here and there if I think something isn't working. I looked at Celtx and it is pretty slick. I just wish they would modify it a bit more to handle pages and panels.

[FranR]

I usually do rough storyboards as well, but since the project turned into some sort of collaboration I decided to write out the story to share. While writing it, things already got changed from what I originally had drawn out in storyboard. It seems when I write I ask myself far more questions than when I draw >.<

I'm just trying to figure out a workflow that is efficient ... right now I just keep changing one thing and it causes a domino effect.

[JMSullivan]

I guess it depends on how your brain works, and everyone's is different. :)

To me, that's an absurd question. I'm strictly a writer, and I come from a world where the script is the product. Storyboards would come later, and be developed by someone else, from the script.

But the question obviously makes sense to other people here. I'm assuming they're writer/artists and the creative process sort of jumps back and forth between modes.

One thing you might want to try as an intermediate step that's not as involved as a full script (or as complicated as Celtx) is roughing out your story in a two-pane outliner. If you're not familiar, that's basically a program that lets you build a tree of elements on one side that you can nest and reorganize as your story changes. And each node in that tree has its own simple word processor window in the other pane that gives you room to work out more details, leave yourself notes, etc.

In my case, the nodes are story beats. "Bob's car gets stolen." "The thieves find the body in the trunk." Stuff like that. You can do it that way, or if you're thinking more visually to begin with, they could be pages and panels within those pages.

I use a program called Action Outline for this, and recommend it highly. It's not free but it's reasonable. But there are lots of other options. Here's a pretty exhaustive list that covers those, plus a bunch of other organizing and creative tools if that's not quite what you're looking for:

http://psychinnovations.com/psych/node/37

John

[FranR]

If I was purely a writer then I probably didn't have this problem of what to do next ;)

Though if I look at what's easier to change/correct and share - I believe that would be the script rather than storyboard.

That's something that comes into play as well, I'm not the only one working on this project. So I'll work on the script and see how that goes.

As for Action Outline, I tried it but I didn't like it that much. I find it easier to just script in Celtx.