The Writers' Block

[Funt Solo]

That Mills chap says some interesting things: but in a blog post about writing, he could have used some paragraphs, shurely?

[The Legendary Shark]

Paragraphs are for wimps.

[Greg M.]

Paragraphs are a tool wielded by the upper-classes to enforce artificial divisions on the text of society!

(Sorry, I've been reading Charley's War...)

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

I signed up to the E-Mail so there'll be plenty to chew over soon.

[Frank]

Lettering god Todd Klein's advice to writers. I would never have thought of something as simple as using a format that allows the letterer to grab text directly from the script.

I've only ever typed something in script format for parody purposes, but I'm pretty sure I committed Klein's cardinal sin of writing dialogue in UPPER CASE, because, you know, that's what it looks like on the page. I'm sure others make the same annoying goofs:


Thanks to Nikki Foxrobot, Ian Sharman, Hde Ponsonby-Jones, Bill Williams, Nic Wilkinson, Lucas Gattoni, Zen Hcmp, Annie Parkhouse, Lois Buhalis and Michael Stock for advice and suggestions

1. Prepare your script in a word processing program that the letterer can access easily. Microsoft Word is the usual standard but RTF format from any word processor works well too. PDF format from Adobe Acrobat should NEVER be used. It prevents the letterer from copying and pasting from the script, the most common method of getting words onto the comics page.

2. Captions, dialogue and anything that needs to be lettered should be in sentence case, like this document, not all caps. Do not use a double space after a period. Do not use tabs. Each section to be lettered should be separated from the rest of the script so it's easy to copy and paste. Such as:

1) BRAINIAC (SPECIAL STYLE):
I am the only solution to Earth's problems.

2) SUPERMAN:
That's what you think!

3) SOUND EFFECT:
WHAM!

3. The writer should decide which words to emphasize and indicate that consistently in the script. Bold italic is the best method, do not use all caps. Do not try to simulate special styles with different fonts in the script! Make suggestions for fonts if you like.

4. Internal dialogue captions (what used to be thought balloons) do not need quotes. Use quotes only when someone is off-panel and doing narration in captions, or when actually quoting what someone else said. Such spoken narration needs a beginning quote in each caption, but an end quote only on the last one in a series of continuous narration captions. Double/single quote rules apply to comics as well.

5. If someone is in the room but off-panel, let the letterer know which direction the balloon tail should go. Whenever possible, the character on the left should speak FIRST, the next one to the right should speak SECOND, and so on. Train your artists to do this and everyone will be happier!

6. Foreign phrases, movie titles, book titles, ship names and any other item needing special attention should be italic. Translated foreign languages should be inside lesser and greater symbols such as <this> with an asterisked footnote such as: *Translated from French.

7.Make sure any notes for the letterer are pulled out and separate from panel descriptions so they aren't missed.

8. If you are working plot-first, look carefully at the art when you are writing dialogue to make sure all the characters you asked for are present. Try to write to fit the space available for lettering. Large panels with open spaces are best for large or many balloons, small panels with little space should have little lettering.

9. Lettering placements are welcomed by some letterers (like me) as a time saver, are not wanted by others. Check with your letterer. The letterer should be given the freedom to make actual placement choices that differ from provided placements if they see a better way to do it. Placements can be done with markers on a printout of the art that is then scanned, or digitally. If you are providing placements, it's recommended that you number each item to be lettered in your script, as above, and use the corresponding numbers in your placements.

10. Remember that the letterer is part of your team, don't keep secrets from him. That mysterious character who turns out to be a returning villain? Let the letterer know when he first appears. It may be a secret surprise for the reader, but the letterer needs to know when you do in case it affects the lettering style. If your story has narration captions by a character who won't appear until the last page, the letterer still needs to know who is narrating. Every narration caption should be labeled by speaker just as word balloons are. Or if it's omniscient author narration, say that.

11. Perhaps most important of all, MAKE SURE THE SCRIPT IS A CLOSE TO FINAL AS POSSIBLE BEFORE SENDING TO THE LETTERER. It has become a common practice among newer writers to treat the lettering draft as a first draft, and then do major rewrites after the first round of lettering, or sometimes several rounds of rewrites. This is unfair to the letterer, taking up time they need for other jobs, and usually they are not paid for that extra work. Script and art editing and proofreading should be done BEFORE lettering, not after.

[Bolt-01]

Amen, testify...

[The Legendary Shark]

Amen, testify...

Wait... So all these years I've been typing dialogue in upper case, I've been wrong?

SHARKY (JAG):   NOOOOOOO!

[Bolt-01]

Ah, Sharkster- following on advice from m'learned colleague JimCampbell I have a handy dandy macro in my copy of word that does a lot of std transformations that format the text for me. It covers a lot of simple sins that writers commit, and believe me when I say that your script formatting is a loong way from the most awkward.

[The Legendary Shark]

Phew! But please let me know if there's any way I can make it easier - I have a couple of ideas brewing but am still in the planning (sitting around scratching myself) phase...

[Jim_Campbell]

believe me when I say that your script formatting is a loong way from the most awkward.

I can second this.

[Proudhuff]

Look, I'm right here...

[The Legendary Shark]

believe me when I say that your script formatting is a loong way from the most awkward.

I can second this.

Thanks, Jim - that's good to know. But, as I said, if there's any way I can make it better, please tell me. (Can't help with the content, though - I'm afraid you're stuck with that: )

[Lobo Baggins]

How odd - I've never seen that before, but it seems to produce a script that looks like one of mine!  I'd been concerned that my scripts don't look remotely like any other comic script I can find on-line... but then again, no two scripts I've found look remotely similar anyway.

Right... no more double spaces after a full stop, then - that's going to take a lot of un-learning...

[Jim_Campbell]

Right... no more double spaces after a full stop, then - that's going to take a lot of un-learning...

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over that — my script formatting macro strips out the double-spaces along with most of the unwanted capital 'I's and swaps out three periods ... for an ellipsis ...

I imagine most letterers are the same. At least, they should be, because I explain the process of script prep in tedious detail on my blog.

Avoiding tabs and typing all caps are both decent bits of advice, but I wouldn't worry too much about any one niggly bit of formatting.

The big one for me is PDF scripts, which I still see at least once a month. I just send them straight back — there are usually only two reasons for a writer sending a PDF script. One is that they're using CeltX to write their scripts, in which case they just need to stop because CeltX's 'comic script' format is garbage and it only produces PDFs. The other is that the writer is using Final Draft, in which case they can just change the export format to RTF.

The other reason, and this baffles me, is because the writer doesn't want their script messing with and if a writer's relationship with their editor is that poor then everyone else involved in the project should run a mile...

[The Legendary Shark]

...because the writer doesn't want their script messing with...

People do that? I always thought that scripts should be easily editable in case anyone else in the collaborative process wants to add notes, highlights, rearrangements or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, scripts are mostly just suggestions - maybe firm suggestions but suggestions nonetheless.