Under the Radar

An update! After two weeks of escape and evasion I have returned with news. Heartless is currently picking up some solid momentum, though it's taken longer than I hoped (doesn't everything) I have winnowed the beast down to a four issue mini-series as the final story in a larger world. To continue the arse-backwards theme I have managed to write a first draft of #2, don't get me started, as well as all the scene breakdowns for the other three issues. The bible has been updated and I should be posting some more snippets, he says crossing his toes and rubbing the lucky rifle badge, in the not-to-distant future. It will also signal open season on unsuspecting artists who want to draw city samurai and psychodelic dream worlds. The point of no return beckons.

Writing ain't (:)) easy

If it is easy then I'd be concerned. I struggle to write, everyday is about wondering whether I’ll make the connections in a story and be able to write about it. No doubt I’m not alone in this. Everyone’s been in a place where you just stare at the screen for an age without managing to add anything of value. I know there are all kinds of theories for getting on; leaving the piece at a point where you’ve got more to write, doing a prescribed amount of work then stopping no matter what, finishing in the middle of a sentence you can pick up next time you sit down to write etc. The problem for me is if I’m on a roll, writing for all I’m worth, then I don’t want to stop. It seems like the easy option to say ‘Done my bit for the day’ when it’s evident to myself, if no-one else, the words are ready, willing and able to continue. But by the same token, writing until you’re flush out of ideas/inspiration, leaving yourself a flickering screen full of frustration next visit, isn’t exactly ideal either. Hence the dilemma.

Personally I’m beginning to find that sitting down to write only becomes unbearably difficult when I don’t have a plan. Writing the script isn’t easy, but it’s the easiest part of the process because by that stage the story is fully planned out, broken down into manageable chunks and all the dots have been joined. Getting to that stage is where all the effort and frustration come in; teasing threads of story out of the loosest connections, melding characters based on a feeling, throwing away bits you like that don't work, this is the skill of a writer and it ain't easy.

Diamond's not a creator's best friend

In case you haven’t heard already the comic mountain’s gotten a little steeper in the last week to ten days. Diamond Comics Distributor Inc., the distributor for pretty much all of North America’s comic books and other associated merchandise is raising its minimums. Instead of the current standard whereby every item would be expected to earn the distributor $1500 before it would be offered through the direct market, Diamond has raised the standard to $2500. This equates to a significant two-thirds increase. People smarter than myself have crunched the numbers and pointed to the fact this now means for an item to justify its listing in Diamond's Previews catalogue, from which retailers order the vast majority of their stock, that item would now have to make $6250 retail. In other words OUCH!

Realistically I haven’t made a published comic yet, but while this is still down the list of issues to worry about in terms of progression, it is by far the biggest. I can honestly say it worries me no end. I’m still going to make comics and this will unquestionably make me raise my game because the stakes have gone up. It also mean though, there is no room for error and you may need lady luck on your side a bit more too. When even popular, award-winning creators and products step away from the industry due to this turn of events, it says loud and clear that there is absolutely no learning period for new creators. Got a quirky little gem hoping to find a niche? Good luck with that. With a lot more on the line every time a project is conceived I think a major concern for the industry has to be that the type of title on offer doesn’t narrow to spandex and superhero derivatives. There’s far too many of them about as it is and the loss of range in the indie and alternative comics sections would be a real disaster for creativity. Or, if you like, the potential for creativity with people thinking in a narrower mindset.

Tom Spurgeon’s article at the Comics Reporter here explains why this situation is bad far better than I can. I guess all eyes will be on the DM for the foreseeable future, to understand what exactly the changes mean and how it will affect the industry.

Breaking it down

I was lucky enough to get a look at another writer’s, Chad Michael Ward, project bible a few weeks ago. I have started one for Heartless, as you may have seen below, but as with all things writing his and mine were quite different. What I found most interesting were his scene breakdowns. Working as I had been in beats within a single issue (or the equivalent of page wise), I was used to smaller units of story at that stage. Seeing five or six large blocks of story with specific beats inside, as the scene breakdowns were, made a whole lot more sense. Although technically it is adding another stage to the process, what it does do is allow a smoother breakdown from a single paragraph for that block of story, to several segments that make it easier to script.

Luckily this came before I’d fully understood and broken down Heartless’ storyline, so that issues 2-4 and possibly 5 if there is one, are going to be easier to work out. Looking at how it works now, it seems like an obvious step, which makes me wonder what else I’m missing on the road to a final draft. Obviously learning is part of the process and in some cases can only be achieved by doing, but I am concerned that I may not have enough of the theory and basics in my head to think I can write a decent script at this moment. That’s not going to stop me trying but [note to self] I’m going to try and spend an equal amount of time reading up on writing.

So if anyone does have suggestions on good books/articles/resources, please let me know.

Back with a Bitch

My best intentions were defeated by a series of shitty events called Life. It tends to get in the way of planning occasionally and last month it chose to obstruct me no end. So rather than write I ended up doing critiques of other creator’s writing they'd sent me, something that ended up being both enoyable and valuable. The crazy thing about looking at someone else’s work is how clear everything seems to be up to a certain level. Why a medium shot here when a wide shot gives much more scope to the artist, do you need a caption there? etc Removed from the involvement of creation, analysis seems comparatively easy. I guess that's why there are so many critics :)

I’ve found it quite enlightning, both in gaining knowledge of how to tell my stories and understanding how narrow-sighted the initial creation process is. Given my own scripts to analyse in the same way I would fail miserably because I have not yet become as discerning and dispassionately cutthroat about my own work as I can be about others. Inevitably you’re attached to your work while it’s being formed, or I imagine you should be, so one of the hardest things to do is judge it’s worth commensurate with your present ability. Harder still is that I like my stories and the frustration that I’m not able to just sit down and put the whole piece to bed in one sitting, kills me sometimes.

Partly, I think my attention span has just dwindled badly since university, my own fault no doubt, and also I haven’t found a means that I’m happy with of turning story idea into script quickly enough to not get distracted or frustrated. Despite my lengthy process post earlier, it’s not proving as fertile and conducive as I’d like. But I have recently found out a few things that helped in altering ‘my way’ and I’ll detail these later in the week. [/End Bitch … hopefully]

Back Soon

Blog Under Reconstruction - Back Soon

Just doing a bit of fiddling under the hood. I wanted to see if I could maintain a blog and I'm kinda happy I can, so now I want to pimp it out.

Heartless the Workblog part 4

Another workblog update, the last five days have been slow going apart from a gradually building Heartless momentum that will hopefully mean something more interesting to post soon. Until something shiny appears this is a brief catch-up on some of the issues I'm having.

Problems:

Threw out the high concept until I can say something that immediately grabs you, citing influences is all well and good but if very few people have heard of them it defeats the object completely.

The dream plane name and idea is too bland, I’m thinking of renaming it the One Dream as a start. All names of characters are made up because I liked the sounds, not exactly the scientific method I know, I haven’t yet looked into what they mean and whether I’ve called a character dog poo through my lack of research. Googling as I type.

Most of all though the sword is giving me issues because I can’t fit it into what I need it to be … yet. It may take a little grease and simply ignoring a certain problem with how it works, though I’m hoping not. I’m also struggling a little with the whole heart thing, I wonder where Mari puts it while he is out hunting. They must have found some method of sustaining it during the night.

Have also discovered my fight-scene-fu is weak and am spending too long breaking them down. May avoid one in particular for now, I know how it starts and ends so I can fill in the details once the rest is locked down ... I hope.

On a separate thought trail I started a bible for Heartless today to keep track of a lot of detail, which may only be seen in passing in the actual comic but I hope will add a level of depth to the story. I'm also worryingly discarding a lot of ideas I like, they don't fit the story and I know that, having tried to force them in, but I'm hoping they'll find a home in other Tales of the Two Planes stories.