Tips for Non-Artists on Writing Your First Comic, part 3.
Part 1.
Part 2.
7. Pay attention to the format.
If your story is going to run in black and white, don't write plot points that require color. If the comic is going to appear in a digest-sized magazine, be aware that your artist won't have much space to draw, that the pictures may need to be simpler to read clearly, and you may need to write fewer panels per page.
If you're writing for a website that delivers stories one panel at a time as the reader scrolls down on their phone, that's a unique rhythm that will read very differently than a comic that puts multiple panels of differing sizes next to each other on the same sheet of paper.
8. Physical space is almost always at a premium.
The more words there are on a page, the less room there is for the pictures. Try to whittle down your captions and dialogue so they never take up more than a third of a typical panel. Cultivate brevity.
9. Always have a reason for the choices you make in your script.
If the answer is "because it's a comic," watch out. It's fine if that means you're paying attention to the mechanics of the medium. An example of this might be keeping your characters' speaking order consistent throughout a scene so that the artist can easily maintain left-right relationships without violating the 180 degree rule. But "because it's a comic" should never mean deploying clichés you remember from the reading you did as a kid. They were shopworn when you first saw them, and trotting them out now can leave your audience feeling condescended to.
10. First collaboration? Keep it short.
If you've got a big story in mind, it's tempting to dive right in and start telling it. This is usually a mistake. You're going to get a lot better as you work at this, and if your collaborator is new at this, so is she. 50 pages from now, you'll both be much better storytellers. After 100, better still. Why shackle your later, more skillful efforts to your early amateur fumblings? Start off with something short. Maybe an 8-pager? Your collaborator is much more likely to finish drawing a short story than a long one, and you'll both learn from the experience. You'll get a sense what it's like to work with each other, and find how well your approaches and sensibilities mesh.
