Plot Kills. Story first.
Plot comes from story. Post that on the wall. Many writers don’t even know the difference between plot and story, even more rely on plot to engage their readers. The […]
Author: nickmac
Writing Contest Results
Nick Braiden asked me to judge the writing on the 1 page comic contest he’s running on his Making Comics! Discord channel. Happy to help. And pleasantly impressed by the […]
Plot Points
I say this a lot around these parts, “You’ve got to know what you’re trying to say at any given moment in a story.” This is paramount in comics. Whether […]
How to Work With an Editor
Someone asked about the comic editing process, specifically; “How do you work with an editor?” “What does it cost and how can I tell if I’m getting ripped off?” “Will […]
Dialogue During Action
From the Writer’s Guide; “Strenuous activity (i.e. action) is not conductive to conversation. Dialogue during action sequences can quickly become campy and/or preachy.” When scripting important key fights, dialogue can […]
Panel Descriptions
Though I talk about Loose vs. Tight scripting on page 17 of the Working Writer’s Guide to Comics and Graphic Novels, I decided to make a fancy graph and continue […]
Effective Prologues
I think everyone is familiar with a prologue in long prose; in comics (or screenplays) a prologue arrives as a scene, or in comics (or animated series script), an entire […]
Don’t Use Captions as a Crutch
This also could have been titled, “Newer Comic Writers, Don’t use Captions.” While I’ve spoken to captions elsewhere and they are certainly a viable technique in comics, more often than […]
Combat Micro-Scenes
(This was originally part of the Ultimate Fight Scene, but that article covered so much material, I decided to chop this useful bit out and post to the free blog […]
The Ultimate Fight Scene
In Fight Scenes that Resonate I break down a half-dozen basic considerations for scripting effective fight scenes. Welcome to the Pro class where we go “a bit” further and break […]