The Craft of Writing
There's no general thread about theory and craft of scriptwriting. So I thought I'd kick things off with an interview of Peter Weller at a film festival recently. He begins by talking a bit about Robocop, then veers off around the 10 minute mark into a spirited rant about directing and how actors need to be doing things when the drama happens. When someone walks into the room with the gun, what is the other person doing?
He makes a good point that the vigor of loading a dishwasher is directly proportional to how angry you are with the person in the room.
How can this be applied to comics? Have your characters doing things before, during and after the conversation. One of the worst writing sins you can commit is to have talking heads doing nothing but standing and talking, arms at sides. One, readers hate that and two, artists hate that. The Sorkin walk and talk is one way. Having character fidget is one way. Or have them doing something else important to them while carrying on the conversation. Simple things like that will hold reader's attention in amazing ways.
He makes a good point that the vigor of loading a dishwasher is directly proportional to how angry you are with the person in the room.
How can this be applied to comics? Have your characters doing things before, during and after the conversation. One of the worst writing sins you can commit is to have talking heads doing nothing but standing and talking, arms at sides. One, readers hate that and two, artists hate that. The Sorkin walk and talk is one way. Having character fidget is one way. Or have them doing something else important to them while carrying on the conversation. Simple things like that will hold reader's attention in amazing ways.
Anyhow, here's the interview. Worth watching all 17 minutes. It's even safe for work.
Comments
void CraftOfWriting( Writer& writer )
10 STORY$=WRITE(IDEA)
20 GOTO 10
Stephen King had a pretty strict "no flashbacks" rule. If anything happened to a character in the past, it was drawn out by his actions in the present. The novel Bag of Bones is a good example of this, as it opens with a widower who has crippling writer's block ever since his wife died years ago. Yet we never go back to that time, not once.
Rather than it was all a dream, I prefer to simply have god step in at the end and resolve things.
Oh... If any of you write an "it was all just a dream" story, I will hunt you down and break your fingers.
Now, I'm not sure who here actually read the first volume of my webcomic/graphic novel THE UTOPIAN, but it includes both "dream" sequences AND what MAY appear to be an "it was (somewhat) just a dream" aspect, so @RussellLissau and @SteveHorton might hate me, BUT ... they were carefully designed to leave the reader unsure of what was ever "real" or not purposely, to because ALL OF IT "actually" happened - just at the end, you're left unsure of how reliable the narrative is.
By way of a for instance: On Longmire, a surprisingly excellent modern western show, there have been a series of flashbacks, basically one in each episode. By the time they get to season's end and you put them all into context, what they reveal changes your perspective on virtually everything one of the characters has done and why they do what they do. It's brilliantly executed.
I'm not as big of a fan if they're just there for naked exposition, but that can work, too. Like narration and everything else, it's all how you use them.
I think the rule is supposed to be that commas basically bracket a phrase that could be taken out and have what remains of the sentence still parse. I think.
(And yeah, if you've read me writing on here, that's pretty much exactly what I sound like in real life, except I avoid words that I can spell but have no idea how to pronounce.)
In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a
comma after each term except the last
Thus write
Red, white, and blue.
Honest, energetic, but headstrong.
He opened the letter, read it and made a note of its contents.
The last one is what gives me the most trouble.
I would write it as:
He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents.
This follows the rules shown in the first two examples. It's also three independent actions. Open. Read. Note. Yet, I write this and my editor hammers me. Nonetheless, I like the Strunk style and I'll study it. I already follow most of it, but there are a few style rules that continue to throw me.
http://thegloss.com/beauty/why-the-oxford-comma-is-something-you-should-care-about-392/
Bottom line: using the extra comma Is Not Wrong. And it's arguably better.