Writing
Writing: it's not just for breakfast anymore
Elmore Leonard On Writing
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 24, 2004 - 15:45
Elmore Leonard writes dialogue like no one's business. If comics were an art form co-equal with literature, I have no doubt that Leonard would be writing massively best-selling comics in between his brillant novels and short stories.
Luckily for the mere mortals, Leonard is handing out writing tips today. Read up here.
Good Thread on Writing from James MacDonald
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 19, 2004 - 12:12
Aspiring writers should check out this thread on writing, started by Jim MacDonald. The thread presents a useful chunk of the writing life and worth reading.
Authorial Insanity Not Confined To Traditional Prose
Submitted by Wednesday Burns-White on December 27, 2003 - 01:17
A recent thread in Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Light blog, Varieties of insanity known to affect authors, might prove equally useful and amusing to comix writers.
Warning: comments are often important parts of Making Light threads, and that's certainly true here.
Breaking into Writing
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on October 2, 2003 - 12:42
A good column over at Comic Book Resources from Steven Grant.
Assuming you've mastered basic skills of grammar, punctuation and style, and you've researched the functions of dialogue, plotting and story (you don't need to study comics specifically for this, and it's perhaps better if you don't; most libraries have sections on writing for theater, TV, etc., and you can learn a lot from reading those books as well as plays, screenplays, etc.), there are a few ways in. None of them are easy, none guaranteed.
Gasps and Guffaws: Balancing Humor and Drama in Webcomics by Jeff Darlington
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Free from the stranglehold of syndicate and newspaper editors, webcomics have the luxury of unfettered imagination, allowing creators to develop their characters however they wish, catering only to their own (and presumably their readers') whims. The protagonist may be a lighthearted loveable oaf, a brooding anti-hero with deep psychological scars, or a seductive vixen with dubious motives.
greeneyes by William Van Hecke et al.
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greeneyes, an independent webcomic encompassing several simultaneous plotlines and artists, is run and primarily written by William Van Hecke. It tells of the events surrounding one of the more unusual classmates of Wilkinson School, Urbanite, Mars -- the intriguingly-named µ, a young girl with luminescent green eyes, bone studs rather than eyebrows, and a nasty habit of collapsing in inconvenient places.
Graduation Day: College Comics Cum Webcomics by Sean Barrett
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Every online comics reader encounters college webcomics sooner or later. They're so common you might start to feel like every third comic you encounter is college-based. But, despite the history and nature of college comics in print, it seems the most popular "college" strips are scarcely about college life at all, building instead on elements not found in the real world at all, much less college.
The End, or How to End the Story
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 29, 2003 - 11:20
A blog called Whitespace has a good entry on writing endings that is worth checking out.
How Not to Write a Webcomic
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 13, 2003 - 10:00
Over at Rocketbox, Mordred posts another interesting riff on how not to write webcomics, this time on the "epic" storyline.
Way back in the day when the grass was still green, I said that most bad webcomics fell into four categories:
1. Gaming comic.
2. Geek comic.
3. Wacky University Comic.
4. Foolish gaijin attempts to create manga and fails, horribly.
I've recently decided that there is a fifth category of bad webcomic: The Epic Saga. Some of these are sci-fi, some are fantasy, some are set in the real world, whatever. Incidentally, why is nobody doing westerns? For that matter, why is nobody doing anything set in Eastern mythology?
Slush Factory Presents: Comic Writing 101
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 21, 2003 - 11:03
Keith Giles' latest SF column on writing for comics covers the very important issue of research.
Research is what separates good writing from great writing. It's what makes your writing stand above the crowd and it lends your writing a degree of credibility that "un-researched" writing lacks. It doesn't matter how cool your concept, if you don't have good research to inject the story with a degree of believability, then you're sunk.
