Full Script or Plot First?

[nolan]

Which method do you guys prefer?

And I'd love to hear from writers AND artists on this one. As well as people who both write and draw their projects.

Do you write a full script first or plot it out, draw it and add words?

[davidaccampo]

My predictable answer: I couldn't imagine working in anything but full script. I need that control to know all the nuances of the story.

However, I will say this -- when I was about 18 I wrote and few a serialized comic for, oh, about 80 pages. While working in that style, I would plan out the story, layout the panels, and write the dialogue as I went. It was all just pencils on an 8.5x11 page, but it was probably the purest form of sequential creation I could imagine.

My sub-question(s) to the writers: If you work in full script, do you first PLOT it out in a treatment or in story beats, and THEN write the script? Or do you just script it out to see where to story goes?

In film or prose, I can just start writing, often just writing to see where I end up.

In comics, I'm finding I'm planning an outline so I have a rough idea of where issue #1 would end. It's a tougher way to work, as it means that you can't really write "to discover" what you're writing...but it's definitely very concise and draws your attention to pacing and structure.

Has anyone just tried free-writing...? Like a pseudo script/prose hybrid just to see where the story goes, then work from that to transform it into a detailed script?

[jayvee]

First I get the idea, then I guess-timate how many issues it's going to take to tell the story.

Before I work on anything else, I write up full HANDBOOK TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE-type bios on every character that's going to appear in the story, give them three goals and try to work those things into the plots as I'm going so all the characters have direction.

Then, if necessary, I'll break down the plot into multiple arcs.

I'll roughly plot the arcs, then write three to four paragraph plots of each issue.

When I start writing the chapters, if something else comes to me that I really want to include but don't have space for, I'll merely bump the number of chapters I needed to tell the story and include it, anyway. I figure, if I ever do get any of these scripts into print, it's going to be small press and I don't have to worry yet about space concerns or issue allottments. I just tell the story the way I need to tell it and that's all.

I tried to do a book one page at a time, drawing it myself, but when I started getting about ten pages deep I realized that I wanted to take the story in a little different direction and since I hadn't plotted it out, I missed several opportunities to foreshadow or add elements that would have really made the story stand out. I subsequently abandoned the project, rewrote it in script form and learned my lesson about doing comics on the fly.

Though, I really want to go to a 24-HOUR COMICS session.

[davidaccampo]

jayvee said:

First I get the idea, then I guess-timate how many issues it's going to take to tell the story.

Before I work on anything else, I write up full HANDBOOK TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE-type bios on every character that's going to appear in the story, give them three goals and try to work those things into the plots as I'm going so all the characters have direction.

Then, if necessary, I'll break down the plot into multiple arcs.

I'll roughly plot the arcs, then write three to four paragraph plots of each issue.

When I start writing the chapters, if something else comes to me that I really want to include but don't have space for, I'll merely bump the number of chapters I needed to tell the story and include it, anyway. I figure, if I ever do get any of these scripts into print, it's going to be small press and I don't have to worry yet about space concerns or issue allottments. I just tell the story the way I need to tell it and that's all.

I tried to do a book one page at a time, drawing it myself, but when I started getting about ten pages deep I realized that I wanted to take the story in a little different direction and since I hadn't plotted it out, I missed several opportunities to foreshadow or add elements that would have really made the story stand out. I subsequently abandoned the project, rewrote it in script form and learned my lesson about doing comics on the fly.

Though, I really want to go to a 24-HOUR COMICS session.

Wow, see for me, that first half you talk about is -- well, I find it hard to really allow myself the creativity if I've mapped everything out ahead of time with full bios and such. What it really means is that you're doing a lot of the discovery work in THAT phase. So when you're actually scripting, you are doing a detailed painting of a sketch you already drew. That can sometimes become stifling creatively.

However, in comics, I think it's mostly what you have to do. I mean, Jeremy and I wrote up our Vostok treatment just outlining everything that would make up the story. INcluding bios and stuff. Then, we wrote the first script, passing it back and forth, only know where it would end and what kind of information we'd have to fit. Just last night, I wrote down story beats for the next 5 issues, just letting myself sketch all the beats I thought would be fun or necessary. That was the freest form of writing because I was just letting the characters dictate the plot. That's also when I realized it probably wouldn't fit in four issues.

By contrast, I write a lot of fiction to discover what i"m writing about. That's some of the most freeing creative activity I've ever had. My published short story, "Apartment House Blues" (www.laughingmadscribes.com/apartmenthouseblues.htm), came from that type of writing.

And in between: when Jeremy and I started writing our first film, script, "Bad Habits," back in 2000, I basically wrote up 5 pages of a character at a crossroads. I handed those five pages to Jeremy, and he wrote 5 pages that spun it off into unexpected territory. We kept that up for about 50 pages, just shocking each other back and forth until we actually had to start having plot discussions to see where things would end up.

So, I'm drifting off topic a little, but for me, even with a full script, there are several ways in which I work.

[jayvee]

I keep adding things to the map as I go, usually jotting tiny ideas down here and there to revisit later and I've never once felt creatively stifled.

[davidaccampo]

jayvee said:

I keep adding things to the map as I go, usually jotting tiny ideas down here and there to revisit later and I've never once felt creatively stifled.

OH yeah, it's a totally personal thing -- didn't mean to imply that. But my background also comes from a lot of creative writing workshops and such, so I'm really wired to write as a form of discovery. That said, I was still finding little nuances and surprises in the Vostok script, so that's pretty similar to what you're talking about.

[jstevenson]

nolan said:

Which method do you guys prefer?

Whichever method is easiest for the artist on the project to work with. I'm a writer, I can adapt, and if providing them with a plot-style script will keep them motivated and on schedule, that's what I'll do.

davidaccampo said:

If you work in full script, do you first PLOT it out in a treatment or in story beats, and THEN write the script? Or do you just script it out to see where to story goes?

Depends on who I'm writing for and what process they want to go through. Most of the time, I'll write up a few paragraphs to get a feel for what I want my story to be about. Then, I'll give myself a goal for how many issues to tell that story in and write a paragraph or two describing the basics of each issue. Then I'll break it down page-by-page (usually one to three sentences per page), and then go to script it out. This method works really well when working on someone else's property because they can review the storyline at each stage of this development to provide input and notes.

[nolan]

It seems to me that you'd really have to have a good rapport with an artist for plot first to work.

[dragonaces]

I come up with a basic plot.
I decide a beginning and an end.
I sit down and fill it all in, adjusting as the story moves along.

[davidaccampo]

dragonaces said:

I come up with a basic plot.
I decide a beginning and an end.
I sit down and fill it all in, adjusting as the story moves along.

And do you allow yourself to completely change the ending, if you begin to fill it in and the characters dictate a new ending that you didn't expect?

To me, that's one of the keys to good writing -- letting yourself discover what you know about these characters. In mainstream comics, I think I see this in Bendis more than anyone else...he seems to let the characters wander around, and he's not afraid of suddenly ending series or completely changing things because the characters dictate a different direction.

I like that. I think it's hard to pull off in a more commercial setting, especially one where the artist has to invest a lot of time in drawing the whims of the writer.

[nolan]

I think that dragonace's approach could be weakened by its rigidity. Its always good to think that your story might go in another direction.


Bendis is almost in his own category as a comic writer though. His stuff reads a lot more like a playwright then any comic writer out there right now in terms of how he does character scenes. So its a great thing that Marvel trusts him as much as they do.

I think it would be incredibly hard for a writer like Bendis to do a plot first method. It would force him to actually reign in some of his characterization and dialogue and, frankly, I doubt he'd be that strong of a writer if he did it.

[jayvee]

The different directions thing, that's why Marvel's FAMILY way of organizing their editorial works so well. You have four people writing four different books and one editor and suddenly they've all got a lot of people involved in the creative process, bouncing ideas off one another.

[nolan]

jayvee, just as often an approach like that ends with ten creators who all have to do the stuff someone else thought of and work it in to 70s stories and there's no real voice.

[jayvee]

The Ultimates and Spider-Man books have been really well coordinated over the last few years (though the ramifications of THE OTHER have been derailed by CIVIL WAR). X-Men editorial has always been shaky, from the time I started reading them in '92.

[Nolan Joseph Werner and Marc K]

Well the X-Men have had some problems in that regard.

Namely, like 10 x books at a time, all done by different people. And then having to fit all those storylines together.

Its a hell of a lot better then it used to be, in the late 90s, it was pretty much inacessible even to long time comic readers.