Thursday, April 2, 2009

Comic Book in the Works, II

Right now the book is divided into three really basic parts: the beginning, middle, and end.

I just finished writing the script for the beginning and I'm so excited. It really is torture to sleep, and know that I can't just plow through the middle and end and get that much closer to seeing the finished book.

It's a lot of fun, though, just focusing on the writing. I get to think of the whole story in terms of which characters and parts of the story get the most attention, and if that attention is positive or negative, and making the story interesting by showing the contrast between characters and situations they are in, and concentrating on dialogue and the dynamics of actions and responses...oh man. 

One of my mistakes in story-making in the past has been to build the world I want to show. Then keep building it and building it and building it. It's easy to get excited about and sucked into the world, but if I don't structure it and turn it into something I can share with people, the world only exists for myself, and that's pretty depressing. With this story, I'm being really brutal with keeping only the essentials of the story, and cutting out the distractions. This is really tough for me because I'm finding I make lots of distractions and I like 'em! Part of the game of writing this story is seeing how simplifying the story makes it so much better. 

By the end of this week I plan to have finished the first draft of the whole story, and then I'll change pace a little bit. 


1 comment:

Becky said...

Hey Jess - I've been meaning to tell you thanks for all the nice things you say about my art! :) For some reason whenever I go to your blog it goes really slow & then freezes firefox...

Hey have you ever heard of Mike Perry? (We visited his studio in NY) His art reminded me of you :)