Several Writing Questions
 

If all goes well, a comic I tried to get going with someone about a year or more ago should be starting sometime soon, and I'll be sure to show you guys when it does, but in the meantime, I need some advice.

1. Different medium: I normally just write, so doing script stuff for a comic is still a new experience, and I've already noticed some differences, both good and bad. Good: This opens me up to whole new ways to sneak in stuff and characters that won't be showing up for a long time. I don't want to get too specific, but I'm planning on putting a very, very important character in the background in the prologue chapter, the comic will be split into chapters, as well as several times later on before introducing him. If my idea translates to the page as well as I hope, he should be noticeable in the background so you notice him, but don't pay him too much mind. As opposed to just plain writing where it'd be a lot harder to sneak something like that in without the reader noticing. Are there any other pros or cons I should know ahead of time for working in the comic medium?

2. Female characters: This has been a bit frustrating for me. I have two very important female characters, and I kind of lack confidence in my ability to write female characters. I'm postponing their introduction a little so I can make sure I have their characters worked out as well as I can. I don't want them, especially one of them as she is very important in relation to the main character, to fall into the two generic female character cliches. It seems they either fall in love with the main character and exist to be rescued or something similar, or they are a strong, independent ice queen who rescues the main character. I'm all for strong and independent, but I don't want her to be an ice queen. The main character loves her, but I don't want her to just be a plot device/romantic interest. Do you guys have any tips for writing female characters?

Those are the two main questions I have, though, doubtless, more will come to mind. However, I have a less important, third question.

3. Misused words: There's a character I've been doing some thought on, and one way I thought I could make him unique and maybe a little more interesting for the reader is having him semi-constantly misusing words, but the thing is, I wouldn't have anyone call him out on it. I think for those who knew the words and saw how he kept misusing them, this could be a bit entertaining, but since nobody calls him out on it, they might get the impression that I don't know the proper meaning of the words or something, which could detract from their enjoyment. Thoughts?

1 - Pros and cons nonwithstanding, things you should know about the comic medium is that it's very different from writing and takes lots of effort. If you're doing the art I can tell you something incredibly helpful - make each panel look different.

The later comics of 8-Bit Theater are a good example - usually, a character will look a different way, or go into a stance, or the camera will zoom in. Just make each panel look different. The opposite of this is the Control Alt Delete system of comics, where you have two characters staring at each other and talking.

As for any other advice? I'd need more than just "Hey what's good advice on doing comics?" But I can suggest that you pick up Scott McCloud's Making Comics. It really does contain lots of the information a person needs to do comics. It helped me while I was doing RID.

2 - I'm kind of at a passe here. To me I don't really know how to 'write women' because any time I have a woman character she has her own personality that does or doesn't conflict with her gender depending on her upbringing. Just pay attention and make your character not be the Ice Queen/Damsel in Distress. It isn't that difficult.

Just take a look at the clever female thieves or women dressed as men whom become knights in fantasy and take some inspiration from that. The only real way to know how to write women better is to read stories featuring well-written women.

And 3, that's easy. Don't explain it, then later he meets someone new and they look over at some of his companions and they just kind of shake their heads and go, just don't think about it.

Or if you don't want to do that, thought bubbles.
"The elfs are on their way!"
*...the man whom is our leader can't even speak right.*

I'm not doing the art, someone else is, I'm just the story guy. I do try and write the script though so that every panel is different. I think the only time I would have a similar panel, without much having changed, would be for some sort of emotional effect.

A lot of it is that my characters mean a lot to me and I try to think of things and feel things they would when planning out a part, and that is why I am so worried about writing it poorly, because the characters mean a lot to me and I don't want to screw them up when I put it to paper, which is kinda silly as they are my characters, but yeah...

To explain a little bit about the story, it is basically a superhero story, set after the "End of the World." Basically, the world froze over, and the first third-half of the story takes place inside a large shelter/city built near Washington D.C. The city is ruled by a dictator, and the majority of the populace is dirt poor. The government also supports a religion called the Church of Light, and basically uses it to keep most everyone happy. A lot of sci-fi stuff will play a part, as well as a form of magic.

Oh! Here's a question. There are some things I've thought about doing, and I'm wondering if they'd ruin the suspension of disbelief or whatever it's called. I'm tired, I forget. For example, one of the heroes has specialized magnets in his body, with two real powerful ones in his hands. Where a lot of the heroes and villains have nano-machines and metallic skeletons, as most are cyborgs, this makes him pretty powerful. Now one thing I've debated doing is having a part where he basically picks up a whole mess of guns with his magnet powers and aims and fires them with using them. Scientifically, that should be impossible, as magnets don't exactly have any sort of finess, at less like that, but then again, this world has several impossibilities in it already. Would something like that be taking it too far?

One piece of advice I've heard about female characters: For the most part, we're not really different from men, in our heads. It's not like we leap out of our woman-beds in the lady-morning and skip in a feminine way to the extra-specially-female bathroom and scrub our girly teeth, all the while thinking "Gosh howdy, vaginas are just the bestest things ever!" We have hopes and fears and favorite books and foods we can't stand, and all sorts of things like that that help to define us that are quite independent of our sexual identity. So maybe--and feel free to correct me if I'm being overly simplistic--it would help to just make up a character, and then mentally stick on boobs, as it were, when you're finished.

Fakedit: As I look over the thread in greater detail, Mirai Gen seems to be doing basically that. So, er, that. Pay attention to the character as a character, and don't sweat their sexual identity too hard. Depending on the character, they're not likely to think about it too often either.

I guess I probably worry about the female characters more because if I write a poor male character, people will just think I'm a poor writer. That's still really horrible and whatnot, but if I write a poor female character, I'm paranoid that everyone will think I'm sexist on top of thinking I'm a bad writer.

That sort of thing may seem silly to you guys, but I am always really paranoid that I'll accidentally offend people. Okay, I'm just plain paranoid, but especially about offending people.

I can understand being worried, but it's worth pointing out that the writers best known for being really, really sexist didn't get that label just because of one or two isolated incidents; generally, they earned it. So one or two poorly-constructed characters, by themselves, probably wouldn't be construed by most reasonable readers as sexist--not unless it was those on top of a big, fairly obvious pattern of plot incidents, themes, devices, and other things. Generally it's easy to tell the difference between "well, his characterization is a bit iffy, but with some practice he should become pretty good" and "Good Lord, this author has so many issues with women".

If it makes you feel any better, you'd have to work pretty goddamned hard to be more sexist than this book, sporked here =P . (It's also hilarious to read.)

In my somewhat limited experience, I'd have to agree with Satan's Onion in writing about girls. I usually just make my female characters either butch or a little tomboyish and throw in a hint of weakness to make them seem a little more real, like you would do with any other character. And bam, you got a girl.

Also, Onion, you're getting sigged.

Yay! My lifelong dream, realized at last! ^_^

Nooo, I wanted to sig her!



As far as girls go, I support what Satan's Onion and Bob said. If you want a strong female who is also a romantic lead, make her capable of being the hero's peer in fighting/whatever they do. Make her just as valuable as any of the other (competent)sidekicks. Give her a role other than "I sure love the hero". They can still be in love without all of the "I am such a weak female" and she can be strong without being a bitch.

Yeah, I'm not much help, I'm too busy bowing before Satan Onion's awesomeness.


For the first thing you talked about, about things to do with comic writing: be careful about making pages too wordy. Books are completely words, so that's fine, but once comics turn into giant walls of words, it can be tricky to do right.

For an example on the writing women who aren't damsels/ice queens, look up Angua from Discworld. Needs saving sometimes, not afraid to be one of the guys, still feminine, still kicks ass.