Music of the Page

SO! We have come to it, we have our, title, theme, sources of conflict, character interviews, and a broad strokes outline (pitch) for the new opus we’re about to unleash on the world.  All that’s left is the hard part, writing the script.

You said all this prep work would make the writing easy.

No, I said it’d make it easier, there is a difference. Writing is an incredibly involved process which only time and practice can improve. Writing for comics is difficult, because this is where craft becomes more important.  Writing traditional prose (books, etc) doesn’t require the economy of words that a script does. Also, you have to be constantly aware of what the final page will look like when you’re finished AND you have to understand pacing.

What do you mean by pacing?

The best comics are those where the reader forgets he’s reading, pacing is what accomplishes that lofty goal. I would define it as the writer’s control over how the reader experiences the flow of time in your book. In his, Comics and Sequential Art Will Eisner makes the point that a page of comic can only contain a certain amount of time. The panels on the page are a portion of that time and the gutters (space between the panels) constitutes the time between each moment. The number of panels (moments) is typically decided by the writer who knows what are the most important moments for the story. What moments you show determine how long a reader will linger on a page, what additional details they’ll absorb, and how they’ll perceive the action occurring on the page. That is pacing. It’s a powerful tool and how you use it will have a potent affect on how your story will be recived.

Maybe we should spend more time on it then if it’s so important.

You’re right we should.  Let’s use a favorite tool of mine the ANALOGY!! Consider a piece of music, any piece it doesn’t matter. As you leaf through the pages of the composition note how each page has staves of music and each staff is comprised of a series of bars. Inside each bar is a sequence of notes. For our purposes each note is a panel on a page and each bar of music is a page itself. These all add up to tell a greater story or mood the composer wanted to convey. He has carefully chosen notes that alter the pacing of the music and thus affect mood.  Say he wanted an ominous mood he might choose a deep whole note held out uncomfortably long.

You must be the composer, choose panels which tell the story you want and convey the mood as well.  Remember you can make color suggestions in your script as well or just say, “this page should feel sad.” Leave it to your artist, who is better versed in the language of color to express what you desire in the story, but you have control over the timing of the story.

A rule of thumb I like to follow is:

Whole note: Splash page, put as much dialogue as you like in there. These pages are used as a big shocking reveal or a desire to show an intense moment (ex a long kiss “goodbye.”)

Quarter note: Standard 1/4-1/6th page panel. No more than 25 words /panel (stolen from Alan Moore)

Eighth Note: Smalller panels, no dialogue there is simply not enough room. These panels are reserved for fight scenes or anytime a fast frenetic action is taking place.

So this is all there is to pacing?

I am afraid not. We haven’t even talked about the flow between pages. We’ve just covered (broadly) pacing for a single page. In order to get a real comfort level for your audience pacing needs to exist between each page as well. Typically you want to end each page with a panel that carries the energy over into the next page. Another way to do this is with imagery making the image from the final panel relate to the first on the next page. For example Iron comes in complains about how damaged his suit is. On the next page Pepper Potts is ironing his suit for a big business meeting.   not the best example I know, but I think it illustrates the point. You can also link dialogue into the next page to promote page turning.  This typically works well for reveals, “Luke, I am your…” turn the page “…father.” There are countless ways to acccomplish this linking of pages. It’s best to review your favorite books and see how the writers you enjoy accomplish this.  Another excellent source is Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics from Avatar Press. It’s a brilliant collection of essays where one of the masters shares his thought on “writing for comics.”

There is so much experimentation you can do with pacing and visual metaphor that you really should take time and experiment with it. You’ll feel more comfortable with your writing and I think that confidence will turn into better stories down the line.

Reccomendations for this week:

Writing for Comics, Alan Moore

Comics and Sequential Art, Will Eisner

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

See you in Seven!

Jamie