Finishing Drafts...and the importance therein

Hey everybody...so I know you're probably reading the subject heading and giving a giant collective, "duh" but I wanna share a few thoughts on the subject which may make you retract your "duh" and go "huh?"...exactly, you read me.

So in the past week and a half I have: formulated an idea, worked out the general overall plot, built specific plot points I wanted to achieve, set up scenes I am hopeful will work and written the first draft of a pitch for the story. Now, for those of you whom are writers will probably (hopefully) give me at least a smattering of respect (since I do have a job and I was doing this on lunch breaks and in the hours after work/weekend when I didn't want to curl up and sleep from mental tiredness). For those of you who aren't writers and have no understanding or ability to appreciate how tremendous this is, I'll lay it out for you like this; I have a one comic I developed for two years that has 6 pages of completed art (phenomenally done by the artist) and 22 pages of script that hasn't moved in a year.

Sometimes thought processes get lost, sometimes you lose interest in a project. These are somewhat natural things, but often times they are things that can be avoided or negated with better forethought and planning. Now, I'm not here to preach and I swear I'm not trying to, so if you feel that's coming across here please comment and let me know. Because I'm really just trying to share my experiences.

The project I mentioned before, yeah...that really has no outline. I just started writing it. That project was in my early days of comic writing and I thought I could approach it like I used to approach prose which was just to start writing out everything I had in my head to start and I would either fill in the blanks later or add things as needed along the way. Sometimes I'd end up making an outline, sometimes I'd just continue to write. Now I truly see and appreciate the value of outlines. Writing scripts are SO much easier when you've got an outline that you can just look at, see the bullet of where you're supposed to go next and the idea is right there for you. Now, outlines shouldn't be the script in bullet form. They shouldn't be overbearing with information. If you have some specific dialogue or a specific sequence of scenes that you know ahead of time then you should definitely put that in so you don't forget it. But you want to let the script flow and the outline should be short and direct. Plot keys, points you know you want to/need to hit on.

The outline for the project I'm working on with Matt Anderson long, because it outlines the entire story so far; four issues, but it's got: Main Plot Keys, Scenes, Specifics for those scenes (including bits of dialogue, scene cue's, etc.) because that's all you should need in order to build the dialogue of the scene. I also find it really helpful that after I work out the entire outline I put a tentative page-count next to each Main Plot Keys bullet, so know how long I expect that scene to be. If you go over your page count for that issue, don't worry because you can nip and tuck from other areas to make it all fit or you may end up cutting/replacing entire Plot Keys as you develop the story. That definitely happens in a lot of my projects.

I've even gotten to the point now where I do outlines for my prose projects. The story I'm writing for Asimov's Sci-Fi magazine has a full four page outline. It hits all the Main Plot Keys and helps me guide the story through to completion. I don't always need it, because I know a lot of where I want to take the story, but definitely when I get even the least bit stuck of where my transition is supposed to come in or where exactly I'm supposed to go next I reference it and get back on track.

So, my point here was really to say that...I'm always learning and improving my writing skills and styles. I wrote a little 5-page story that actually made it through the art and lettering stages, and when I look back at the script itself I literally cringe. It just looks so...ugly isn't the right word, but...yeah, ugly. I use a much more stream-lined and easy to read (i.e. artist friendly) model now. An important thing that can't really be understood until you work with a few artists is that how they interpret your script will improve greatly when it's easy to decipher and work through.

Ok, I think I've rambled on that long enough...on to rambling about other things. I watched Land of the Lost and first of all, it's freaking hilarious. I honestly didn't think I'd laugh as much as I did or enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Not only is Anna Friel gorgeous and a valid reason to watch the movie all on her own, but the story itself is really interesting and fun. I also watch Batman: Under the Red Hood and it was PHENOMENAL. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Batman: The Animated Series, and though (sadly) Mark Hamil doesn't play the joker, you will be pleasantly surprised with the darker side of Futurama's John DiMaggio playing him. It's pretty awesome. What I'm really excited about is that I got "9" and "Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths" in the mail today. I'll have reports on them next time! Man I love Netflix.

Alright, I think that's about all I've got for now. I hope you all checked out the first page of my first published comic at Ape Entertainment's Online Publishing Division it's called Journeys and page two will be up tomorrow. But don't worry, I'll be posting stuff about that too!

Peace,

Tim