Editors are your Friends

I have been chronicling writing our creator owned book, Sword of Freyja. Sharing the things that I have figured out along the way.  Today, I want to talk about getting a story editor.

When you think of an editor, you probably think of the person who manages all the deadlines on the book and makes sure the story/character integrity remains intact but I want to talk about a story editor.

If you are new to writing comics, a story editor can help you avoid some common mistakes that can really sabotage your story. You may have the greatest story in the world, The Iliad meets Star Wars with plot twists that rival The Usual Suspects but if you can't translate it to a series of two dimensional panels on a page, no one will care.

You have to remember writing is more than putting down some snappy dialog, the writer is responsible for setting the scene, pace and page transitions of the story. If you are lucky; you team up with an artist that is also a storyteller and they can help with the scene, pace and transition. If you rely on your artist to clean up your storytelling, you are putting extra work on your artist.  You don't want to do that to the person who is responsible for brilliantly creating 22 pages of magic each month.

I got lucky and the great Ron Marz agreed to edit my stories. Ron is one of the most accomplished storytellers in the industry so I implicitly trust his judgement. One of the best things about working with Ron is, he allows me to still tell my story but he makes sure the script makes sense to the artist and ultimately the reader.

Letting the characters breath is one of my biggest challenges in writing. I have lived with these characters for so long, I know there personalities and back stories. I tend to focus on the big plot point and forget to have the characters react like normal (or in some cases, abnormal) people. If you think about your favorite stories you have read or scene, the thing you like about them is how the characters react to the event and not the event itself (unless it's an alien bursting out of a chest, that's just awesome).

To summarize, if you are a new writer, I highly recommend getting a story editor. If you can't afford one, at least get a friend who is familiar with comics to read your script. One last nugget, take their criticism fairly. If a person agrees to read your script they are trying to help you, so if they tell you that your scene doesn't make sense because you have 14 actions going on in a two shot, you may want to listen to them.

On a final note, if you live in Dallas, come out and see me at Dallas Comic Show in Richardson this weekend. I will have copies of my various books there.

See you in the funny books,
Allen