Over the last three or four weeks I’ve been faced with a personal journey that has taught me a lot about writing, a lot about editing, and a lot about letting stuff go and being okay with changing stuff completely. This post is more personal but the lessons I learned are worth putting out there. Many, as you shall see, are point that you must have heard other authors and creators talk about.
In summary I am writing and producing my own original graphic novel entitled “Raven Nevermore”. The complications came about after completing issue #2. The Editor/Letterer I have on board, Thomas Moore of the Pop Gun anthologies and much much more, made a comment about the abrupt and unfullfilling… ness… of how it resolves the tale thus far. This comment aligned with my personal thoughts about some plot points I planned on bringing up later via flashbacks and such. I also wanted something left a mystery in case I could put a second collection together later on.
What Thomas accomplished then was something greater than just suggesting I expand issue #2 by 6 pages to fill out the ending. I was faced with coming to terms with some much more profound change to the entire production. The bonus to the difficult journey is that I get a new kick ass fight scene focusing on Dante, Corvan’s son–seeing the pages always makes the hardship worth it!
Here is a summary of the lessons learned:
Adding More Pages
I needed to go back to issue #1 and add pages to set up earlier plot points that would be resolved through the 6-part series instead of left hanging for a possible second collected trade. The fact that I had to go back to material written a year ago became more daunting than I would have imagined. Writing NEW pages, which I thought would be fun and easy, turned out to be much harder to do because it involved thinking about all 6 issues in a complete, closed, fashion. Issue #1 and #2 will now be 28-pages long instead of 22-pages. Issues #3 to #6 will likely go to 28-pages as well now that they will just be collected into one book. Issue #4 has been expanded into issue #5 and the entire origin plot will be fully resolved in issue #6 which deals with the “big bad” that was going to carry through maybe 24 issues.
Change Plot Flow
I needed to change plot flow because I’m removing some flashbacks and executing these scenes in the present timeline which required me to deliver seeds differently, more cautiously, but still drop the seeds required for future payoff later. I had to decide what needed to get introduced faster and ensure I could deliver a payoff. I had about 24-issue summaries planned out. Parts and pieces of those 24 issue summaries are now within the SIX issues. Instead of each issue buffering main plot points between other side-stories with the main/major payoff at issue #24, plot points were all condensed, simplified, and delivered as the final complete trade payoff.
Production Length and Cost
On the production level, I had to come to terms with the additional 30% financial investment. I committed to expanding the series to 6 issues instead of 4 issues, and make each issue a 28-page standard instead of 22-page, which causes me to re-structure the financial framework and ensure the project remains within my financial means! Seeing as I am choosing to be jobless to see much of my projects through to the end this year, this additional cash flow arrangement demanded I really look at me commitment to the project, my willingness to believe in the final product, and my determination to persevere against the odds.
Close the Series
Finally, and most importantly, I decided to tell a CLOSED story that ends at issue #6 and complete the collected trade book as a stand alone origin story… because, well, I could never know if this series WOULD continue and that wouldn’t be fair to those who supported it, nor to me for all the work done thus far. Many creators have trouble letting things go, or changing things; this too proved to be a hard lesson in self-editing.
Ultimately, the BIG PICTURE needs to be kept in mind: The final goal of the big picture needs to be greater than individual elements.
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Lone Stranger Pitch: Page 5 of 8
The Claytons don’t know how do make friends. You know what they say: It’s harder to make friends than it is to make enemies… actually I also have no idea if “that’s what they say”, but I’d like to imagine it’s true if they don’t. Whoever “they” are.
I’m pretty sure somewhere while working on Lone Stranger notes and such I picked up Deadwood Season 1. I lost a week of doing anything productive after that, including writing. I watched all the extras, all the commentary, I devoured it all and was still hungry. That experience locked down that comfy feeling a writer kind of needs in order to confidently tackle a new genres and subjects they are unfamiliar with.
Deadwood is brilliant and I recommend it for lovers of westerns and NON-lovers of westerns… probably because it’s not really about cowboys and indians (although there was that one episode…), it’s about the formation of a town during the gold rush and the dynamics the developed between the people in that town who had money to spend, and business to run, and no government getting in the way of how the power figures wanted to run things.
The way the series was put together on a writing level was a great inspiration to me and my personal writing tendencies. You can watch the extras and listen to the commentary for all three seasons and learn how David Milch (creator) would dynamically alter scenes even during production and filming. He let the character goals dictate the scene even if it wasn’t scripted at first, then he and his team would work to incorporate the changes for the next set of days filming. It was mad genius, it required guts, and it required confidence in your characters (and actors who portrayed them, of course).
The inspiration and knowledge gleaned from watching and listening to Milch during all three seasons ensured me that it’s ok to let go of plot points for the greater good. Let the characters guide the story, don’t force the story onto the characters. Character development can tell a story all by itself!
I do wish sometimes, during writing and re-writing Raven Nevermore issues 1-8, that I had a team of writers to bounce ideas off of about continuity and structure much faster and more efficiently…