Crisis Weekly #19.
This one's another creative departure. When I began considering writing it as something other than the usual narrative, I wanted to go with eight separate perspectives, but then I wondered if it would be more interesting, and more impactful, if it followed a single person as they aged.
The story itself takes the place of a huge moment that will otherwise not be depicted (two more installments, after all, with two other big things left to do), which I thought I could get away with, since the character who dies already had a big fight earlier, and I didn't really want to cover the same narrative ground. The moments that stick out for me, in this thing, are the ones where I took risks, where I allowed myself to deviate, to try something different. I think if this were a comic book, that's what would stand out for readers, too.
This is the third installment this week, although technically only the second, as I delayed last week's for one of them. If you remember, I skipped a week at Thanksgiving, so I'm really just catching up. The first time I wrote a double-length script I told myself that's what I was doing, but as far as having the material for something that was supposed to be weekly, as advertised in the title, there really ought to have been, on average, enough scripts to cover every week. So now there are, and so we're back on track.
Not that you cared.
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Monday, February 18, 2019
Crisis Weekly seventeen and eighteen...
Because I had a three-day weekend, and the sister and niece were away, I decided to tackle Crisis Weekly a bit differently, with #17 and #18 both available today.
It's actually kind of funny, because the latter entry was always going to be my third and final double-length entry. To tackle writing it on the same day as writing another one meant writing twenty-four pages of comic book script in one day, tripling what I'd done nearly every other entry. I happened to have the time, and narratively the entries easily segued into each other, and perhaps even benefited from being written together.
Anyway, it's always nice to have a little extra writing time, any time at all to myself, any extended length of time. I may not always fill that time with writing, but it gives me a lot of room to play with, and hopefully I tend to use it wisely, even though I always want to do more and there always is more to do, so much I want to accomplish...
That leaves three entries to go, and then it's off to other projects. Since I knocked out a script early in the week, it leaves me wondering if I will actually write four scripts worth of pages this week, if I'll go back on the clock on Saturday morning, as regularly scheduled.
Ah, we'll see.
It's actually kind of funny, because the latter entry was always going to be my third and final double-length entry. To tackle writing it on the same day as writing another one meant writing twenty-four pages of comic book script in one day, tripling what I'd done nearly every other entry. I happened to have the time, and narratively the entries easily segued into each other, and perhaps even benefited from being written together.
Anyway, it's always nice to have a little extra writing time, any time at all to myself, any extended length of time. I may not always fill that time with writing, but it gives me a lot of room to play with, and hopefully I tend to use it wisely, even though I always want to do more and there always is more to do, so much I want to accomplish...
That leaves three entries to go, and then it's off to other projects. Since I knocked out a script early in the week, it leaves me wondering if I will actually write four scripts worth of pages this week, if I'll go back on the clock on Saturday morning, as regularly scheduled.
Ah, we'll see.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Crisis Weekly the sixteenth, Sapo Saga
This week is sort of an ode to Robin: Son of Batman, a short-lived spinoff of Batman & Robin, the New 52 iteration by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, which I loved and became one of my all-time favorite runs. Gleason tackled Robin on his own, and as you can see from that cover gave Damian Wayne a unique supporting cast, the daughter of someone he'd actually killed, and a humungous Man-Bat named Goliath.
Yesterday my novella Sapo Saga was in the spotlight! Thanks to its being written specifically for the A-to-Z Challenge back in 2016, it was eligible for a special book tour that's going on at the moment. Jemima Pett featured Sapo Saga on her blog yesterday, and also happened to give the book a glowing review! You can read it here.
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Crisis Weekly, the fifteenth.
Crisis Weekly #15.
Holy crap! I've been waiting to write the last line of dialogue in this one for months! That's one of the joys of writing any story, knowing what's coming up and then finally getting to write it. In that way, the writer's journey isn't so different from the reader's, they just get to get there first.
The whole thing will be explained later, but hopefully some of the clues will start to fall into place, and seem less like clues and more like bludgeons. I once remarked on someone else's blog that I haven't really tried writing mysteries, but mysteries can come in all kinds of shapes. We just tend to think of them almost exclusively as detective stories. But they aren't always. The Harry Potter books were, essentially, mysteries, so it was probably hugely natural for J.K. Rowling to write more traditional mysteries in the Cormoran Strike series, which I again evoke in this installment by returning the focus to Bloodwynd and his amputated leg. But there's a lot more in it, too! There's also a line of dialogue from one of the characters who hasn't really been featured a lot, but nonetheless has been playing a key role, and finally we get to see more of what that is, and again it's inspired by Rowling, something I wished she had done rather than what she did, in this instance. But more on that later.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Holy crap! I've been waiting to write the last line of dialogue in this one for months! That's one of the joys of writing any story, knowing what's coming up and then finally getting to write it. In that way, the writer's journey isn't so different from the reader's, they just get to get there first.
The whole thing will be explained later, but hopefully some of the clues will start to fall into place, and seem less like clues and more like bludgeons. I once remarked on someone else's blog that I haven't really tried writing mysteries, but mysteries can come in all kinds of shapes. We just tend to think of them almost exclusively as detective stories. But they aren't always. The Harry Potter books were, essentially, mysteries, so it was probably hugely natural for J.K. Rowling to write more traditional mysteries in the Cormoran Strike series, which I again evoke in this installment by returning the focus to Bloodwynd and his amputated leg. But there's a lot more in it, too! There's also a line of dialogue from one of the characters who hasn't really been featured a lot, but nonetheless has been playing a key role, and finally we get to see more of what that is, and again it's inspired by Rowling, something I wished she had done rather than what she did, in this instance. But more on that later.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Crisis Weekly, the fourteenth.
Crisis Weekly #14.
I realize that sometimes these scripts are hard to read, as they don't seem to give enough visual description, or seem overly repetitive. This week's script has a series of repetitive images, and yes, it was deliberate.
Even if it's disappointing as a reader, as the writer I'm picturing generally what the illustrated page looks like, what the intended visual effect is supposed to be. I can't make readers of a script see the same thing I do, but as the writer, the result is what matters, even if these pages are never drawn. I'm not writing these to be read solely as an elaborate way to read a story, but as an exercise in comic book scriptwriting, easily the longest I've yet attempted.
The funny thing I learned, some time ago, is that in writing comic book scripts, I become a lot more interested in the visual progress of a story. I become a lot more interested in what characters are doing. When I write prose, I'm more interested in what they're thinking, in explaining their internal journeys. This may be unusual and perhaps even disorienting for readers who are far more used to popular writing that relies on action to build momentum, moments that build on each other whether they're mysteries or similar stories. But personally, I'm a little bored by writing that spends most of its time distracting the reader, that expands a story past the story so far that the story all but disappears behind narrative gloss.
My opinion, anyway. But comic books are inherently a visual medium, and it would be unnatural to try and approach them any other way. So, too, with film, which is why most visionary directors are known for, well, their visuals. Some are known for their dialogue, too, but that's because they've spent a good amount of time developing how their characters talk. A lot of writers, in any medium, mistake the ability to write with merely presenting the bare essentials, and not the ability to do it interestingly.
Again, perceptions will vary. You might look at what I did this week and say I wasted my time, and your time. But I had a character (the Caballero) who finally found himself in the spotlight, and there was a lot to accomplish in very little time, and there are bigger things yet to reveal about him, and so I had to be very deliberate in my approach.
So I made some creative decisions.
I realize that sometimes these scripts are hard to read, as they don't seem to give enough visual description, or seem overly repetitive. This week's script has a series of repetitive images, and yes, it was deliberate.
Even if it's disappointing as a reader, as the writer I'm picturing generally what the illustrated page looks like, what the intended visual effect is supposed to be. I can't make readers of a script see the same thing I do, but as the writer, the result is what matters, even if these pages are never drawn. I'm not writing these to be read solely as an elaborate way to read a story, but as an exercise in comic book scriptwriting, easily the longest I've yet attempted.
The funny thing I learned, some time ago, is that in writing comic book scripts, I become a lot more interested in the visual progress of a story. I become a lot more interested in what characters are doing. When I write prose, I'm more interested in what they're thinking, in explaining their internal journeys. This may be unusual and perhaps even disorienting for readers who are far more used to popular writing that relies on action to build momentum, moments that build on each other whether they're mysteries or similar stories. But personally, I'm a little bored by writing that spends most of its time distracting the reader, that expands a story past the story so far that the story all but disappears behind narrative gloss.
My opinion, anyway. But comic books are inherently a visual medium, and it would be unnatural to try and approach them any other way. So, too, with film, which is why most visionary directors are known for, well, their visuals. Some are known for their dialogue, too, but that's because they've spent a good amount of time developing how their characters talk. A lot of writers, in any medium, mistake the ability to write with merely presenting the bare essentials, and not the ability to do it interestingly.
Again, perceptions will vary. You might look at what I did this week and say I wasted my time, and your time. But I had a character (the Caballero) who finally found himself in the spotlight, and there was a lot to accomplish in very little time, and there are bigger things yet to reveal about him, and so I had to be very deliberate in my approach.
So I made some creative decisions.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Crisis Weekly, the thirteenth
Crisis Weekly #13.
It should come as no surprise that Crisis Weekly was inspired by 52, a weekly series DC did back in 2006-07. 52 was a big deal at the time, both for the fact that it took on the challenge of coordinating a weekly series featuring a continuous story, something that had never been done before, but brought together DC's best writers (Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid) to collaborate on it. I loved it. I thought and still do that it was a seminal achievement filled with great moments, archetypal storytelling that knew how to turn a dramatic corner and take bold risks with characters nobody would've ever expected to enjoy such results.
Along the way, 52 introduced new characters. Batwoman had the greatest sticking power. She's starred in a few ongoing series of her own since then, and even made a spectacular live action debut in the "Arrowverse" TV crossover event last year, "Elseworlds." There was also Supernova, who was ultimately revealed to be Booster Gold all along, a fact that was a little disappointing to fans who hoped there was another standout newcomer in the mix. (Later, DC attempted to draft Booster's present-day ancestor into the role, but the idea had little staying power.)
This week's installment of Crisis Weekly plays with the legacy of Supernova. I had introduced the character of Boxer (meant to be a representative of a competing space cop organization to the Green Lantern Corps) early on, but hadn't featured him since, knowing that he had little other purpose than to be eventually exposed as one of the White Martians. So, rather than letting readers bond with the guy, I saved him for the moment he gets revealed. Hopefully he still works as interesting in and of himself, what he attempted to represent, above and beyond what he actually is.
This week I also sketched out the rest of the story. Assuming all goes according to plan, Crisis Weekly will end with #21, eight installments later. When I originally conceived of it, I thought the story might go longer, but I didn't want something that eventually just sort of existed. I wanted a story that kept hitting its beats at a reasonable pace. Readers will tell me whether or not I'll have succeeded.
Along the way, 52 introduced new characters. Batwoman had the greatest sticking power. She's starred in a few ongoing series of her own since then, and even made a spectacular live action debut in the "Arrowverse" TV crossover event last year, "Elseworlds." There was also Supernova, who was ultimately revealed to be Booster Gold all along, a fact that was a little disappointing to fans who hoped there was another standout newcomer in the mix. (Later, DC attempted to draft Booster's present-day ancestor into the role, but the idea had little staying power.)
This week's installment of Crisis Weekly plays with the legacy of Supernova. I had introduced the character of Boxer (meant to be a representative of a competing space cop organization to the Green Lantern Corps) early on, but hadn't featured him since, knowing that he had little other purpose than to be eventually exposed as one of the White Martians. So, rather than letting readers bond with the guy, I saved him for the moment he gets revealed. Hopefully he still works as interesting in and of himself, what he attempted to represent, above and beyond what he actually is.
This week I also sketched out the rest of the story. Assuming all goes according to plan, Crisis Weekly will end with #21, eight installments later. When I originally conceived of it, I thought the story might go longer, but I didn't want something that eventually just sort of existed. I wanted a story that kept hitting its beats at a reasonable pace. Readers will tell me whether or not I'll have succeeded.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Crisis Weekly, the twelfth
Crisis Weekly #12.
This is one of the moments I've been building toward, one of the ones I've been eagerly anticipating writing. President Reilly, a.k.a. Firehawk, finally gets to command the spotlight, in the most dramatic fashion possible. In a way, it's a reprise of her earlier battle against a legion of Man-Bats, but it's also the State of the Union address! And it's her confronting, head-on, the challenges of the public's negative perception of superheroes, allowing herself to be viewed as the first time, as president, as a superhero.
I didn't invent the concept of Firehawk as a politician. I first came across her in that regard in the pages of Firestorm. Her secret origin is actually horrifying. The daughter of a US senator, Lorraine is kidnapped as forcibly experimented on, in the hopes of duplicating Firestorm's powers. The results aren't quite as intended, but she does in fact gain superpowers, and eventually a reputation as a bona fide superhero, who eventually for a time joins the odd "Firestorm matrix," in effect finally becoming Firestorm. But not before becoming herself a US senator.
She doesn't even rate her own Wikipedia page, however. She's lumped in for one of those group pages of miscellaneous characters, with a fairly brief entry even at that. Yet Firehawk has fascinated me since, as I've previously mentioned, I first learned about her on the back of a trading card, and then her later appearances in Firestorm, as a senator, as part of the Firestorm matrix (there's usually two individuals who comprise Firestorm: the one who represents the body and the one who in effect represents the mind, the role Firehawk assumed).
Her major role in Crisis Weekly is a small indication of what I consider to be her vast potential.
I didn't invent the concept of Firehawk as a politician. I first came across her in that regard in the pages of Firestorm. Her secret origin is actually horrifying. The daughter of a US senator, Lorraine is kidnapped as forcibly experimented on, in the hopes of duplicating Firestorm's powers. The results aren't quite as intended, but she does in fact gain superpowers, and eventually a reputation as a bona fide superhero, who eventually for a time joins the odd "Firestorm matrix," in effect finally becoming Firestorm. But not before becoming herself a US senator.
She doesn't even rate her own Wikipedia page, however. She's lumped in for one of those group pages of miscellaneous characters, with a fairly brief entry even at that. Yet Firehawk has fascinated me since, as I've previously mentioned, I first learned about her on the back of a trading card, and then her later appearances in Firestorm, as a senator, as part of the Firestorm matrix (there's usually two individuals who comprise Firestorm: the one who represents the body and the one who in effect represents the mind, the role Firehawk assumed).
Her major role in Crisis Weekly is a small indication of what I consider to be her vast potential.
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