#144: Writer's Guidelines

Dec 29, 2024

Happy Holidays, folks! I had a great Christmas and…wait a minute, that’s a lie. Because I’m writing these words before any Christmas has happened, even though you’re reading them afterwards. So I have no idea how it went. It could have been a disaster. heck, what is there to even say that the world is still spinning by this point/ Could be that there’s nobody left to read these words at all! Still, we must all think positively and look to the future with hope. And so, I’m going to pull together another makeshift Newsletter for you all this week while I’m engaged presumably in merry-making and the like. Next time, though, we should be back to normal service.

Behind the Curtain

I have this sudden sinking feeling that I may have shared this with you before. And if I have, then consider this a great time-saving measure so that you don’t need to go digging back through my archives to read it! It’s the text of a document that I wrote up that gets send out to new writers who are working in my office, outlining just exactly what I’m looking for from them in their scripts and outlining where my emphasis is. I figure the more people that get a chance to read and absorb this stuff, the greater the likelihood that these areas will show improvement. Let’s hope so at any rate.

So here we go:

BREVOORT OFFICE WRITER GUIDELINES
If you’re receiving this document, then you’re writing material in my office, or have been asked to. What you will see below is very basic information that you likely already know. But I state it here so that we are all on the same page in terms of what my expectations are of you. The best writers in the field do all of this stuff automatically—so follow suit!
1) NAME THE CHARACTERS! I keep seeing scripts and lettering come across my desk in which the characters are never clearly named in the copy. Yes, there’s a recap page, but basic craft tells us that you need to name your characters every single issue, as close to when they first appear as possible. This should be done artfully, but it’s better to do it clunkily than not to do it at all. Also, when I say Name The Characters, I’m talking about their super hero/villain names. Calling them Ralph or Sam or Harvey is fine enough, but we need to hear Skull-Crusher and Bone-Mangler and The Stealinator on the page. Don’t assume that everybody knows who these people are already, they don’t unless you tell them! (And, secondarily, unless you establish the relationships between the characters, they don’t know that as well.)
2) “CLAREMONT” THE POWERS! In our comics, we have a lot of characters whose powers are not instantly visually understandable. So when they begin to do things with their weird abilities, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the readership can understand just what the hell it is they’re doing (and, by extension, what they cannot do.) Back when he was writing X-Men, Chris Claremont reduced this sort of thing to a series of well-worn phrases that became almost memes: “Flesh becomes Organic Steel!”, “The sum total of her psychic power focused into a blade”, “Nigh-invulnerable while blasting”, etc. And while they maybe became repetitive hearing them issue after issue after issue, they made sure that readers understood what the characters were doing and could do. This needs to happen with greater consistency. For example, the Human Torch is pretty visually self-explanatory, and you can look at the Thing and get that he’s strong. And Reed stretching is relatively clear just in the images as well. But you wind up needing to explain Sue Storm’s force-field powers every single time she uses them—because they are not readily apparent. We don’t need a Marvel handbook entry, but we do need to get across what people can do.
3) 20 PIECES OF COPY PER PAGE, MAXIMUM. That includes sound effects. More than that and the page looks daunting to read.
4) 25 WORDS PER BALLOON MAXIMUM. And push to that number only rarely. Beyond that, the balloon looks daunting to read and I’ll be looking for places where copy can be trimmed or split into two smaller connected balloons.
5) THE NAME OF THE GAME IS STORYTELLING! YOUR JOB IS TO TELL THE STORY! IT’S BETTER TO BE CLEAR THAN CLEVER! As Jim Shooter used to say, you know the story that you’re telling, the audience does not. And so they only understand what is going on as much as you show and tell them. Clarity is always the name of the game. Don’t make me work to understand what you’re getting at. Storytelling is communication! Clear! Direct! Say the thing that you’re saying!
6) IF IT AIN’T ON THE PAGE, IT AIN’T ON THE STAGE. Which is to say, if you write a lengthy panel description for the artist about what your characters are doing or feeling, but the only copy on the page is the character saying, “Ugh!”, then you’re counting an awful lot on the visuals carrying across the subtlety that you’re trying to achieve. Don’t mistake information being in the script document with it being in the final comic. Make sure that all key points, whether plot or emotional, get properly expressed in the copy.
7) WHAT ARE THE PICTURES? Comics are a visual medium, and we have an unlimited budget, so we should be trying to produce interesting-looking pages every single time. To use Allan Heinberg’s approach, think of yourself as an original art collector. What can you put on every single page of your story that would be cool or emotional or impactful enough that you’d want to buy the original art and hang it on your wall? There’s no excuse for dull pages. Think visually!
8) PUT A STORY IN EVERY ISSUE! We often wind up having issues that are simply a collection of scenes in which a lot of “stuff” happens, but nothing happens—there’s a lack of a story. These issues tend to be unsatisfying and even difficult to describe. I understand that we are often telling multi-issue epics, but even then, each unit, each individual comic, should contain a story in and of itself even within the larger context. I define a story as being the “Four C’s”: A Character has a Conflict, makes a Choice, and deals with the Consequences.
9) LARRY HAMA’S THREE RULES OF WRITING:

CHARACTER TRUMPS PLOT – If we care about the characters and can invest in them, we care about the story. Plot is important, but character comes first.
VISUAL STORYTELLING TRUMPS DIALOG – Showing is always better than telling. Dramatize information.
NO “MEH” SCENE CLOSES/PAGE CLOSES – Which is to say, scenes should typically end at the end of a page, and every final panel on a page should contain a mini-cliffhanger or crescendo of some sort to help drive the reader forward to the next page through the story.

Pimp My Wednesday

Once again, I’m not sure how many stores are going to be open on New Year’s Day—likely more of them than last week, but who knows. So you’ll have to grab these beauties whenever you can!

Right on the heels of last week’s TIMESLIDE book comes the first issue of CABLE: LOVE & CHROME by David Pepose and Mike Henderson. I deliberately tried to set aside all of the mutant characters who have complex, difficult-to-follow temporal backstories while we established the new landscape, but we’re in a solid enough place now that we can begin to get back into them. The thesis of this series is something that I worked out in conversation with Dan Slott, but Dan was too ~~chickenshit~~ busy to commit to writing the series. So instead I went to David to take it on, and he changed everything all around and made it his own thing. It’s intended as a Cable story for people who’ve never before read a Cable story, so hopefully it’ll be easy enough for people to get into. I kinda like it.

And Assistant Editor Martin Biro is dropping the first of his five WHAT IF issues this week, each one dealing with a different Marvel hero becoming the herald of the world-consuming Galactus. So what happens when you give teh Power Cosmic to teh Hulk? Nothing good I’d wager, but only Mat Groom and Lan Medina can tell you for certain.

And Claw-Office editor Mark Basso is releasing the first issue of DEADPOOL /WOLVERINE this week as well. I’m sure that you’re maybe feeling a hair Deadpool and Wolverine’d out after this past summer, but this book is the real deal. Combining the efforts of Ben Percy and Josh Cassara, it’s whip-fast and sure-footed, with a special secret villain at teh heart of the story. And come on, if you don’t pick it up this week, you’re going to end up buying the inevitable second printing a few weeks from now, so why wait?

A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

As with last week’s selection, I’m only talking about CAPTAIN AMERICA #613, which was released on December 29, 2010, because I have a specific point about it that I want to relate. See, this was a time at which we were having to raise the cover price on a bunch of our titles. To offset the additional cost a little bit and make the book more of a value to people, we started to run a back-up series dedicated to NOMAD, once the Heroes Reborn Bucky who had recently been featured in a limited series that helped to bridge her into the mainstream Marvel U. And, boy, almost every bit of mail we got for months was from fans complaining about how they were having to pay extra money for this back-up strip that they didn’t want. No matter how many times I’d explain that the cover price was going to go up either way, and so the Nomad back-up was like an extra free bonus, the fans simply weren’t having it—they felt they were being rooked out of cash and they were mad as hell. Eventually, we dropped the back-up, but kept the higher cover price—and the complaints immediately ceased. Which all goes a long way to explaining that people feel the way that they feel, and no amount of logic or reason is ever really going to convince them of anything.

Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I didn’t write anything. Or maybe I did, I don’t know, yesterday is still in my future. Leave me alone!

Five years ago, I wrote about the first three issues of Marvel's STAR WARS comic.

And ten years ago, I wrote about my earliest encounters with DOCTOR WHO

Well, that looks like a wrap for 2024. Thanks for sticking around, folks, it’s been great having you. Here’s hoping for better things ahead in 2025. And I’ll meet you there in just seven days!

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B