Script process changes.

This last week I was writing in three different comic series at once. Which… well it can hurt the brain. The interesting part is that they also were being written with three totally different techniques.

Then I thought: I should write about them! So I am.

Script One was done in a Marvel Style. I’ve never worked that way before, so that was a trip. The artist and I talked over the plot and got it to a place we both liked the story a bunch. Then he went off to draw everything. When he was done with the pages he sent them to me and I scripted over them.

It was a bit strange to just script over art. I knew the story beats but had very little input into how they were broken down and paced out. Once the art was in, I had to adapt my preconceived notions of how the entire story would unfold and adjust to tell the best version of the story with what was in front of me.

Certainly not a weak way to make comics, just very different from what my head is used to.

Script Two I did by going through and laying out the action and scenes first, then doubling back to adjust them and then going in and working out the dialogue. Also not my normal way of working. But this one is in the early project stages as far as my writing on it is concerned and so I had a much clearer picture of the scenes than of how characters spoke.

Doing it this way let me focus on the stuff I could work out first and then use that to inform the characters speech more. It’s a fine way to write script just takes a bit longer, at first.

Script Three was done the way I normally do these things. Layouts and dialogue and all in one pass. It’s a juggle, mind, but one I am used to. The whole scene, every inch of pacing from chars to setting sits as one and allows for a smooth, for me, build.

Mind you the thing I love about this, as brain breaking as it can be to switch back and forth in both stories and actual physical ways to write, is how many different ways there are to make this stuff work. Just endless, and every time I get to try a new way it makes me happy, not only because it can make me a better writer but because I get to explore and find ways that may be better than ones I use now.

I dunno. Just nattering about boring process stuff.