Reddit reviews Alan Moore's Writing For Comics Volume 1
We found 9 Reddit comments about Alan Moore's Writing For Comics Volume 1. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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Best place to start. The man teaches writing for comics at an art school and most of his notes are online for free. Enjoy. Great advice.
EDIT: Alan Moore wrote a book on writing (it's an essay in book form really) that is helpful. That can be found here. There's also a DC Writing Guide. In terms of format, if you know about three act structure and such (a knowledge of screenwriting would be VERY helpful) you are on your way. A pdf. template for writing in comic scripts can be found at the BBC's writers room (cool writing resource all around) and at Darkhorse Comic's submission page. Finally, there is a free (from what I can tell) cloud based writing page called Five Sprockets which has templates for writing screenplays and comics.
Anything by Scott McCloud for sure.
And I can't vouch for them, but Alan Moore wrote a book on it, and Brian Michael Bendis so those might be helpful.
There's a ton of advice I could give you - and I'll try to throw a bunch of it at you - but keep in mind I've barely begun this process myself. This is what I can tell you based on what I've observed, take it as you will.
My first piece of advice is to do the thing you said you never do. Put them down to paper. These little scenes and random thoughts you have swimming through your head are exactly where "we all find ideas to start from." It could be a simple scene in the middle of a larger story, it could be the very last words you want to someone to hear. Regardless of what it is, put it down on paper. I always carry a small moleskin notebook with me and have gotten into the habit of just jotting down something whenever it goes through my head. When you're used to just thinking of things, it's a little jarring at first to stop and write it down, but believe me - it will be worth it. This is the fountain of ideas you're looking for.
Arguably the most important thing I can tell you, is to write. Don't worry about whether it's formatted right, if you've structured your characters enough, or if you've done a good outline. Write. Whenever, wherever, as much as you can. You're only going to get better at writing by writing.
That being said, worry about format, structure, and outlines. And what I mean by that, is look back on the work you did, figure out where you could have done better and the next time try to do that. The first thing I ever wrote, I did without thinking about my characters, what they really meant, their back story, the environment they lived in, and said to hell with an outline. After it was finished, I knew for my next project that this had to change.
Consume the media you want to create. Not only should you actively read comics, you should try to consume anything that gives you insight to the business and how other people work. This is a list of books I bought and think have been extremely helpful. They give insight into the importance of creating characters, environments, etc before you even begin a script. I've listed them in the order I personally liked from best to still pretty damn good
The last one is great because you get to see the various script styles of in-the-business writers. For comics, I also actively listen to these podcasts:
In addition to all that, I follow /r/writing and try to stay active on this subreddit. We've done a few writing prompts, which I think are great ways to get you writing - though I wish more people would take part.
JoshLees has compiled a larger list of resources, definitely take a look at that. The above listed things are what I consume personally.
That's all I have for now, and the community can feel free to correct me or add to it, but other than that good luck!
You might also enjoy this: Alan-Moores-Writing-Comics
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There seem to be some pdf version on scribd, but I can't see them behind my company's firewall.
Learn from the masters.
Off the top of my head, I tend to refer to these four the most:
Self-Editing For Fiction Writers -- When it comes to editing, this book is what helped me break things down and showed me how to get the most out of my writing in a way that clicked.
Alan Moore's writing for Comics -- Nifty if you're really into comics or want to write your own. Spotted this in a thrift store. Best $1.00 I ever spent.
On Writing Horror -- Writer's Digest has quite a few of books on writing. And they all have exercises and excerpts, but out of the small collection that I have this one is my favorite. Kind of gave me an idea of what to watch out for. It's like reading bits of advice from different authors.
The negative Trait Thesaurus -- Actually, I love the entire series as a resource. The kindle has to be good for something. (Much cheaper) But it helps keep my traits together and my character's reactions from getting stale. Out of everything I'm always pulling these books out.
*Started with three, but I really had to mention the trait thesauruses.
Excellent suggestions!
I would also recommend Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative - Comics and Sequential Art is essential reading, and this later volume complements it nicely.
Ivan Brunetti has produced an excellent book called Cartooning, which is based on the content of a course he teaches - a set schedule of exercises to follow and some excellent guidance.
Lynda Barry is another wonderful comics creator who teaches, and I can't recommend her books What It Is and Picture This highly enough - previews here. They're often more about creativity in general than comics specifically, but they do use and discuss comics and are among my very favourite books, comics-related or otherwise. They're certainly more artefact than textbook, but they're priceless.
Turning to the writing side, there's a small volume reprinting (and revising) advice from a younger Alan Moore in Alan Moore's Writing for Comics Volume 1 (don't bother looking for further volumes, though).
There are probably some more titles on the shelves back home I've forgotten about - I'll check after work. It's mostly going to be independent-oriented, but good advice is good advice.
edit - I totally misread their post and thought they were full on asking how to write a comic book. We get that kind of question a lot more than you'd think! I did link them to a handy site for outlining further in our comments though. :)
"How do I build a house?"
"How do I drive a car?"
"How do I perform a knee replacement surgery?"
The complexity of the thing you are asking cannot be answered in a few sentances...
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.*
If you're really interested in committing to this, you must learn first to research. Asking here is a great first step! We won't have the answers you're looking for, because those answers are book-length text books that will teach you a craft that takes years and decades to learn well.
If you want a fast answer that feels like you learned something, here's Geek and Sundry's help on the topic.
If you want to actually learn something deeply, here's (Volume 1) Alan Moore's two cents.
What comic writers do you like? Seek out any teaching they have to offer.
You'll never make money unless you get into Diamond and they take a decent chunk.
Here's some links:
https://www.amazon.com/Alan-Moores-Writing-Comics-1/dp/1592910122
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Comics-Graphic-Novels-Peter/dp/1600616879