The Story Genie #1!
More numbering shenanigans! Also, let’s make a comic!
Welcome back to the Story Genie! You may have noticed that this is issue #1! Now actually it’s the fourth newsletter I’ve sent out but since I didn’t number the first this would only be #3. But I thought I could boost sales by putting out a new #1! Just like in the comics!
Hold on a sec…my wife just told me that I’m not selling these things so renumbering will only confuse people. Well dang. Let me start over…
Welcome back to the Story Genie! This is newsletter number 3! Actually the fourth but I didn’t number the first so we were are.
This vain attempt at humor has probably failed so let’s get on with the newsletter! Today I talk about how I make comics!
Ever since I was a kid I have loved to read comics. I never owned many but I really enjoyed reading the ones I did. I liked to trade them much like I did with baseball cards. (One “friend” of mine traded me four comics for one which I later realized was the first appearance of Spidey’s black suit. But that’s a story for another time.)
As I got to the point where I started to write, first with screenplays, I knew I wanted to one day write a comic. I first started with a few one pagers through The Comic Jam and then had a 5-page comic included in an issue of Okie Comics, a local quarterly magazine that featured Oklahoma artists and writers. Not long after I started writing for New Star Comics. Through this experience and through the reading of other comics I developed my own process for writing them. That’s’ what I’m sharing today, using a comic I sold to Dren Productions’ Tales of the Bizarre anthology as an example.
THE IDEA
It all starts with the initial idea or premise. In this case the anthology provided the prompt for anyone wishing to submit. They pointed applicants to a couple websites that would randomly generate a B-movie title. I was to take one of these titles and craft an 8 page comic from it. The title given to me was THE DOLPHIN MAN FROM HELL MEETS THE IMPOSSIBLE PIRANHA-MEN. Catchy title huh?
BRAINSTORMING
Once I had the prompt, in this case the title above, I start brainstorming any and all ideas that come to mind. I write all of these down in a notebook with no regard to order. Possible beginnings, endings, middles, whatever I can think of. I basically do this until I run out of ideas. In a regular situation if I run out of ideas rather quickly then my beginning premise is probably not something I would continue to pursue. Fortunately, I had plenty to work with here.
OUTLINE
I next go through my list of brainstormed ideas and organize them into a hopefully coherent story. I rearrange the elements into a bullet point-type list with each point representing a scene in the story. I usually jettison a lot of my original ideas in the process while adding new ones that come to mind.
PLOTTING
I call this next part plotting even though that’s probably not the most accurate term. I basically go through each bullet point and decide how many pages it would take to accurate show that part of the story. I notate that number out to the side. Once that is complete I count how many pages I’ve come up with. If it matches the number I’m looking for, 8 in this example, then I move on. If I’ve gone over the needed number of pages then I look for stuff I can cut or combine to reduce the number. If I’m short pages then I look for the areas where I can expand.
THUMBNAILS
Next, I draw small thumbnails for each page. Now I am a terrible artist, as you’ll see below, but I do this to see if my thoughts will actually fit in a panel. They don’t look good but it helps me with the actual script writing in the next step. I also try to figure out panel placement beyond the traditional three rows of two panels each. It doesn’t always work out too well but that’s why I don’t draw the actual comic!
WRITING
Now I finally write the script itself. I use Fred Lentz’s template [http://www.fredvanlente.com/comix.html] which I found to work best for me. I like the template in Scrivener but I’ve had a lot of trouble with that software trying to get the pages complied so I generally just use Van Lente’s in Word. At this step I basically just write what I see from my thumbnails. This is the easiest part for me because of the work I have already put in. I add in the dialog to help tell the story. Once I finish I will print the script off and do a read through, looking for better panel placement, better images, and better dialog. I might do a couple rewrites before I’m satisfied with the script.
ARTIST
And that pretty much concludes my portion of a comic! I send it off to the artist and wait for the true magic to happen. It’s pretty cool to see your words become visual. Dolphin Man was wonderfully drawn by KVGIR. Check out his website at https://kvgir19899.wixsite.com/kvgir. Also find him on Instagram at KVGir, and on Twitter (sorry, X) at KVGir. Tom Lynott did the lettering, you can find his work at https://tomlynottcomiclettering.myportfolio.com/.
Without further ado, I present to you THE DOLPHIN-MAN FROM HELL MEETS THE IMPOSSIBLE PIRANHA-MEN!
WHAT I’VE BEEN WORKING ON
Novel: The typing on Without Magic rolls along. I got maybe another 5,000 words typed. Still slow going but I hope to have it all typed by the end of November.
Short Story: I wrote a story for an anthology through the website A Rock and Hard Place. They specialize in dark fiction, crime, and noir. This anthology called for stories about a dinner with dire consequences. I had a lot of fun with this and I hope it gets selected!
Pentober: Every year I see artists participating in Inktober and other drawing similar challenges. Never really seen any for writers til this year. I found Pentober on Substack in which a prompt is given each day (mostly related to spooky stuff) and the writer has to handwrite a story inspired by it. The story is supposed to be exactly 100 words. I’ve written 13 of these so far and though challenging, it’s been fun. I hope to group them all together by the end of the month.
Screenplay Rewrites: I got to a point where I no longer needed to go through the scene cards I had made because I was jettisoning about the last quarter of them. I’m rewriting most of that part of the screenplay from scratch to add to the changes and scene shuffling I have already done. I’m starting on that process next week!
WHAT I’VE WATCHED
Ahsoka: This has been a great show. I didn’t watch a lot of Clone Wars or Rebels (never much liked the CGI animation) but this show seems to flow from those pretty well. The story is good and is has some great action. The first expanded universe books I read were the Heir to the Empire trilogy and to finally see Thrawn in live action…pretty cool. You should all check it out!
Gangs of London: If you want some great action, you need to check this show out. From the guy who made The Raid this thing is full of some great, and brutal, hand to hand fights. We are looking to someday make a film from our Garbage Man comic and hope to shoot a short, 3-4 minute proof-of-concept scene this Fall and I want our fights to be like those in this show.
SCIENCE ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
There are really only three truly valuable things in this world: food, air, and water. And the issues of water availability, rights, and usage will become more and more important as time goes on. It wouldn’t hurt, and would be smart, to start figuring out now how to deal with such issues in the future. This article lays out some great arguments for looking to the past for those answers. Pretty fascinating what the Mayans were able to do way back when with their water supply. Things didn’t work out for them forever but there’s some valuable lessons there anyway. Check it out!
I thought I’d end this newsletter with a look at the upcoming Story Genie schedule! Hopefully this will give you guys something to look forward to.
October 20th – Bonus Newsletter! This will serve as a primer for The Disaster Dogs, my series of middle grade novels. They will be featured in some short stories going forward here on The Story Genie.
October 27th – Regular newsletter all about Halloween! Scary movies! Will include a Disaster Dogs Halloween Tail (see what I did there?)
October 31st – Bonus newsletter featuring a bonus scary story!
November 10th – Regular newsletter dedicated to the military and our veterans! Will include a military-themed short story.
November 24th – Regular newsletter all about what I’m thankful for. Will include a Thanksgiving-themed short story.
December 8th – Regular newsletter all about Christmas! Traditions! Merriment! Hallmark Movies (that’s right)! Will include the first part of a Disaster Dogs Christmas Story.
December 15th – Last newsletter of the year. Will include the second part of the Disaster Dogs Christmas story.
That’s all for now! Thank you so much for reading. Please share with someone and I’ll see you in two weeks. Bye!!