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Writing a comic is hard!
Jun. 17th, 2012 08:02 pmSo for the last 3 months I've been working on a comic script (off and on, of course, there being many other projects and travels to be had). But today I finally just finished a draft that looks halfway decent. Yay! Below are some thoughts.
For Sixteen, I adapted a story that already had established plot, characters, and themes. What I did was tweaking and simplifying the plot and characters to fit better as a short comic. This time, I was still not ready to do something from scratch, so I decided to do a fairytale spin-off. Specifically, Rapunzel.
Doing a spin-off of Rapunzel has actually been in my head for a long time -- I believe it was 10th grade or 11th grade when I read the first few pages of a beauty and the beast alternate interpretation comic, and thought to myself, "What fairytale would I want to do a spin-off for?" And the answer was Rapunzel, because it had so many unanswered questions -- why did the witch want Rapunzel in the first place? What's with the slow ladder-making process? Why is Rapunzel such a ditz? Why did the prince have to wander around for 3 years before finding Rapunzel again? What was life like in the intervening time? In college I briefly entertained the idea of doing a modern AU re-telling, and even drew 3 pages before I stopped. So now, when I was looking for something that had some structure, but allowed me more creative freedom, Rapunzel seemed like the natural choice -- it's basically fanfiction, in that it is bounded by concrete story events: the banishment, the fall, the reuniting. But unlike fanfiction, there is an awesome 3 year chunk of blank space, and unlike fanfiction, fairytales generally have very trimmed-down plot and characterization -- once again, more freedom to experiment.
The story outlining process
It took 2 drafts to really get a grasp of the characters and their general motivations. At this stage they were more like "false starts" than actual drafts. Even though I scrapped the drafts, they were helpful in giving me a general sense of the direction I want the story to go, and what plot elements would be unreasonable given the scope of the comic. (For example, I don't want to draw a lot of people, which rules out a lot of settings. I also contemplated giving Rapunzel a different name, but decided that the cost of doing so is not worth the payoff.)
After that, I wrote a 3rd draft, which outlined both Rapunzel's and the Prince's 3 years, and showed it to Jono. Jono said that while it had character growth, it lacked dramatic tension -- the characters weren't making tough decisions, and nothing of value was threatened. Basically, what I'd written was character backstory that left Jono asking, "now what?" I agreed about the lack of tension, but I couldn't figure out a way to add it.
The fourth draft was an attempt to add more thematic focus and to add a bit more excitement. I gave Rapunzel a tough decision, and I removed the Prince half of the story. I changed the format of the narration to make it seem "cool" -- it was going to be a series of flashbacks focusing on the most dramatic moments of Rapunzel's life. But in the end it was still wrong -- the "tough decision" didn't match with the rest of her character arc, and made little sense plot-wise. The narrative structure was cool, but made everything seem contrived, especially when I started writing dialogue. And it turns out "focusing on the most dramatic moments/decisions" isn't really a theme. Blegh.
That was back in April. I picked it back up yesterday and wrote a 5th draft. This time, I picked a narrative structure that better correlated with the themes of the story (each chapter starts with a flashback that shows how Rapunzel's past has affected her choices and actions in the present). I picked a theme that actually works with the existing fairy tale and my characterizations. After writing this draft, I excitedly showed it to Jono, and he just said: "Still lacks Tension." Then he helped me brainstorm what Question should be resolved through the story. I vetoed first few that he proposed because they either didn't fit with the themes I had developed, or didn't match the scope of the story. Then he came up with two questions that would work, except for one thing: it would require me to give up my headcanon. In the fairytale, Rapunzel and the Prince meet up and then live happily ever after. And in the past 10 years, I've developed a headcanon for how that would go down and what would happen. Giving that up was hard, but once I did, everything else came pretty easily: Re-focusing the story around a larger Stake was easy when I wasn't overly attached to specific story elements.
So, finally, I wrote a 6th draft last night, and got the "okay" from Jono. And now I've begun the *actual* scripting process and design process, which I've had some experience with from doing Sixteen.
Lessons Learned
Be wary of the Headcanon.
I'm using headcanon to describe all those ideas in your head about how a character is or how a plot point should occur. It's very helpful in the early stages while you're trying to figure out basic characterization and themes, and deciding the general tone and scope of the story -- heck, your headcanon is the very drive for writing the story in the first place.
But! It gets very cumbersome later in the outline stage, when you're trying to hone the story and focus it around a singular theme or issue -- that is when your headcanon puts up a fuss by saying "you can't delete this scene! It's canon!" Or "This character shouldn't be this way! It's canon!" This is when you have to give up the headcanon and treat everything neutrally. It's hard, because headcanon might have been around a long time. It's also hard because a part of you might not trust the resulting story -- after all, headcanon had been the driving force, the soul of the story. I was worried that if I gave up my headcanon, the story would be meaningless and not "my story" anymore.
It turned out that giving up my headcanon was what saved my story. The basic goals, themes and characterizations were already firmly established in the earlier drafts -- I had already captured the essence of the headcanon. With the headcanon out of the way, I could look at what I had on the page with a much clearer eye. And after all the structural tweaking, I was able to add some of my headcanon back in.
Writing stories is very different from role-playing stories.
I've had a lot of fun making up stories by playing rpgs like PTA, so I had gone into this thinking, "I got this -- I can have characters with issues who resolve conflicts". But it turns out that, without the interactions of gameplay, creating characters with issues who resolve conflicts is super-hard! As a player in PTA, I just had to have a basic grasp of character issues and motivations, and count on the other players for tense character moments, and count on the GM for tense plot moments. As the GM in PTA, I just had to throw challenges at the players and leave it for them to make it meaningful to their character. (Or suggest a better way to relate it to their character.) In every scene and every session, the story would be limited by what 3-4 different people thought about the direction of the plot and the themes.
When I'm writing a story, though, I have to do both. This was the problem of my first drafts -- In my 3rd draft I was creating interesting characters, but the plot elements weren't really hitting the issues. Then in my 4th draft I was creating miscellaneous plot elements, but they weren't really relevant to my characters. And it was hard to hold both sides together in my head. Without the structure and interaction of PTA, there wasn't many limiting factor on the number of harebrained plot elements or character actions that could happen. There was a near-infinite number of choices to narrow down.
That said, RPGs have helped me be a better storyteller -- I've had experience in making characters with issues, and figuring out the stakes of the story and the conflict of the scene. Once Jono pointed out that I didn't have a clear Stake in the story, I knew how to go about finding a clear stake -- the kind of questions I had to ask myself, and the types of thinking I had to do.
For Sixteen, I adapted a story that already had established plot, characters, and themes. What I did was tweaking and simplifying the plot and characters to fit better as a short comic. This time, I was still not ready to do something from scratch, so I decided to do a fairytale spin-off. Specifically, Rapunzel.
Doing a spin-off of Rapunzel has actually been in my head for a long time -- I believe it was 10th grade or 11th grade when I read the first few pages of a beauty and the beast alternate interpretation comic, and thought to myself, "What fairytale would I want to do a spin-off for?" And the answer was Rapunzel, because it had so many unanswered questions -- why did the witch want Rapunzel in the first place? What's with the slow ladder-making process? Why is Rapunzel such a ditz? Why did the prince have to wander around for 3 years before finding Rapunzel again? What was life like in the intervening time? In college I briefly entertained the idea of doing a modern AU re-telling, and even drew 3 pages before I stopped. So now, when I was looking for something that had some structure, but allowed me more creative freedom, Rapunzel seemed like the natural choice -- it's basically fanfiction, in that it is bounded by concrete story events: the banishment, the fall, the reuniting. But unlike fanfiction, there is an awesome 3 year chunk of blank space, and unlike fanfiction, fairytales generally have very trimmed-down plot and characterization -- once again, more freedom to experiment.
The story outlining process
It took 2 drafts to really get a grasp of the characters and their general motivations. At this stage they were more like "false starts" than actual drafts. Even though I scrapped the drafts, they were helpful in giving me a general sense of the direction I want the story to go, and what plot elements would be unreasonable given the scope of the comic. (For example, I don't want to draw a lot of people, which rules out a lot of settings. I also contemplated giving Rapunzel a different name, but decided that the cost of doing so is not worth the payoff.)
After that, I wrote a 3rd draft, which outlined both Rapunzel's and the Prince's 3 years, and showed it to Jono. Jono said that while it had character growth, it lacked dramatic tension -- the characters weren't making tough decisions, and nothing of value was threatened. Basically, what I'd written was character backstory that left Jono asking, "now what?" I agreed about the lack of tension, but I couldn't figure out a way to add it.
The fourth draft was an attempt to add more thematic focus and to add a bit more excitement. I gave Rapunzel a tough decision, and I removed the Prince half of the story. I changed the format of the narration to make it seem "cool" -- it was going to be a series of flashbacks focusing on the most dramatic moments of Rapunzel's life. But in the end it was still wrong -- the "tough decision" didn't match with the rest of her character arc, and made little sense plot-wise. The narrative structure was cool, but made everything seem contrived, especially when I started writing dialogue. And it turns out "focusing on the most dramatic moments/decisions" isn't really a theme. Blegh.
That was back in April. I picked it back up yesterday and wrote a 5th draft. This time, I picked a narrative structure that better correlated with the themes of the story (each chapter starts with a flashback that shows how Rapunzel's past has affected her choices and actions in the present). I picked a theme that actually works with the existing fairy tale and my characterizations. After writing this draft, I excitedly showed it to Jono, and he just said: "Still lacks Tension." Then he helped me brainstorm what Question should be resolved through the story. I vetoed first few that he proposed because they either didn't fit with the themes I had developed, or didn't match the scope of the story. Then he came up with two questions that would work, except for one thing: it would require me to give up my headcanon. In the fairytale, Rapunzel and the Prince meet up and then live happily ever after. And in the past 10 years, I've developed a headcanon for how that would go down and what would happen. Giving that up was hard, but once I did, everything else came pretty easily: Re-focusing the story around a larger Stake was easy when I wasn't overly attached to specific story elements.
So, finally, I wrote a 6th draft last night, and got the "okay" from Jono. And now I've begun the *actual* scripting process and design process, which I've had some experience with from doing Sixteen.
Lessons Learned
Be wary of the Headcanon.
I'm using headcanon to describe all those ideas in your head about how a character is or how a plot point should occur. It's very helpful in the early stages while you're trying to figure out basic characterization and themes, and deciding the general tone and scope of the story -- heck, your headcanon is the very drive for writing the story in the first place.
But! It gets very cumbersome later in the outline stage, when you're trying to hone the story and focus it around a singular theme or issue -- that is when your headcanon puts up a fuss by saying "you can't delete this scene! It's canon!" Or "This character shouldn't be this way! It's canon!" This is when you have to give up the headcanon and treat everything neutrally. It's hard, because headcanon might have been around a long time. It's also hard because a part of you might not trust the resulting story -- after all, headcanon had been the driving force, the soul of the story. I was worried that if I gave up my headcanon, the story would be meaningless and not "my story" anymore.
It turned out that giving up my headcanon was what saved my story. The basic goals, themes and characterizations were already firmly established in the earlier drafts -- I had already captured the essence of the headcanon. With the headcanon out of the way, I could look at what I had on the page with a much clearer eye. And after all the structural tweaking, I was able to add some of my headcanon back in.
Writing stories is very different from role-playing stories.
I've had a lot of fun making up stories by playing rpgs like PTA, so I had gone into this thinking, "I got this -- I can have characters with issues who resolve conflicts". But it turns out that, without the interactions of gameplay, creating characters with issues who resolve conflicts is super-hard! As a player in PTA, I just had to have a basic grasp of character issues and motivations, and count on the other players for tense character moments, and count on the GM for tense plot moments. As the GM in PTA, I just had to throw challenges at the players and leave it for them to make it meaningful to their character. (Or suggest a better way to relate it to their character.) In every scene and every session, the story would be limited by what 3-4 different people thought about the direction of the plot and the themes.
When I'm writing a story, though, I have to do both. This was the problem of my first drafts -- In my 3rd draft I was creating interesting characters, but the plot elements weren't really hitting the issues. Then in my 4th draft I was creating miscellaneous plot elements, but they weren't really relevant to my characters. And it was hard to hold both sides together in my head. Without the structure and interaction of PTA, there wasn't many limiting factor on the number of harebrained plot elements or character actions that could happen. There was a near-infinite number of choices to narrow down.
That said, RPGs have helped me be a better storyteller -- I've had experience in making characters with issues, and figuring out the stakes of the story and the conflict of the scene. Once Jono pointed out that I didn't have a clear Stake in the story, I knew how to go about finding a clear stake -- the kind of questions I had to ask myself, and the types of thinking I had to do.
