Authoring & Playwriting

Hey Fauna Chesterman cool of you coming to this community to share your work! Always requires so much bravery to be open up to feedback. I don't have experience in the comic book space either so hoping some others jump in, but have you looked to see if there is a local comic book club in your area? No matter if it's book, film, whatever, I always suggest centering the reader experience, so it could be helpful hearing directly from your target audience.

Not that am I aware of, not that I can't look, although I was recommended to come here for peer review. Plus it doesn't necessary need to have comic book experience since I don't have experience in that field either since my experience has been on short stories/novels and a bit of TV script writing. If possible, you can give feedback on the story pitch, how it comes across, etc. Anything that comes to mind that you think might help with the story

Welcome to the community, Fauna Chesterman. I don't have experience in the comic book space, but I posted some notes below from a screenwriter’s POV.

I don’t think you need to bold the logline.

Since you’re pitching the story as a comic book, I suggest mentioning that on the first page of your pitch.

The first sentence in the Thematic Concept section says, “In a city proud of being built on values of self freedom comes to decide how free one is in terms of identity…” I’m not sure what that part means. You might need to reword it.

I suggest removing the In other words section since it’s repeating what you said in the Project Sum-up section.

Add a brief writer’s statement about your connection to the story on the first page.

In the first paragraph of Brief Prologue, it says, “Redwood City Rooftops - Red shift is standing on top of a skyscraper in the near futuristic city of Redwood city, an artificially made island city off the coast of canada.” Capitalize “shift” and “canada.”

I like the parts on pages 2-5. You did a great job painting a picture of the story, but some producers, directors, etc. might not access a five-page pitch. There might be a page limit (like two pages for Stage 32’s Pitch Sessions). If you run into this issue with a producer, director, etc., I suggest replacing the parts on pages 2-5 with short bios for the major characters in the story and a short synopsis (about 5-6 sentences).

In the first paragraph of ACT 1, it says, “The scene shifts to a week ago, maintaining a visual view of where Red shift had been looking at her hands, but now, the scene is over a bridge connecting Redwood city with mainland Canada.” Capitalize “shift” and “city.”

On page 2 (toward the bottom), add a period at the end of “LUKE: Who are you? Don’t try to stop me, it’s…better this way”

On page 3 (toward the top), add a period at the end of “MAKER: Right now, you do”

On page 3 (toward the bottom), add a period at the end of “???: It’s real…I’m…the real me…I finally feel…like a girl”

In the last paragraph on page 3, it says, “she suddenly goes a lot faster then she was used to.” Change “then” to “than.”

In the second paragraph on page 4, it says, “she put her eye mask back on and ran off down the bridge.” Change “put” to “puts” and change “ran” to “runs.” Also, there are other times throughout the pitch when you switch from Present Tense to Past Tense. I suggest doing the entire pitch in Present Tense.

On page 4 (toward the middle), it says, “CROW MASTER: Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, who is this? I don’t recognise you. No matter, I won’t let a would-be heroine get in my way. The collector demands his due and I, Crow Master, shall ensure its delivery” Capitalize “collector” and add a period at the end of Crow Master’s dialogue.

In the last paragraph of ACT 2, it says, “Crow master gets frustrated with his crows.” Capitalize “master.”

Capitalize “master” throughout ACT 3.

In the second paragraph of ACT 3, it says, “only to reveal a empty crater.” Change “a” to “an.”

On page 5 (toward the top), add a period at the end of “RED SHIFT: Call me…Red Shift”

On page 5 (toward the middle), remove the quotation mark at the end of RED SHIFT: This time, you're not hurting anyone else, not when I’m around!

On page 5 (toward the middle), it says, “CROW MASTER: this cannot be! I am one of the collector’s chosen, I won’t be beaten by a wannabe!” Capitalize “this” and “collector’s.”

In the second from last paragraph (on page 5), it says, “He calls forth more crows to attack Red shift” Capitalize “shift.”

I'll do my best to revise as to your suggestions, although I should explain, for context, the layout was something I was given to follow with the logline, the project sum-up and the in other words section. I understand it is not exactly a excuse for sloppy excution, although I hope it can explain some of the strange layout designs and choices. For the Grammer errors and the other stuff, I'll get to that shortly :)

I attached the front part of the guide I was given to follow for context

How do you navigate work, writing, and marketing effectively?

Debbie Elicksen making that list was profound. It became what I researched for my PhD dissertation about happiness and the chapters of my book, Take a Shot at Happiness: How to Write, Direct & Produce the Life You Want. When I first made my list, I pinned it to my bulletin board for about a year. A few years later, I found the list when I was going through some papers. I realized the list was still valid and pinned it again on my bulletin board where it still hangs. The only thing I changed was the word God to faith, feeling that it was more encompassing. My list is Faith, Love, Health, Gratitude, Forgiveness, Peace, Detachment, Abundance in this order — one giving rise to the next. I call them Happiness Essentials. They guide me every day from the moment I wake up. I hope these can guide you and others as well. I encourage everyone to become happiness explorers, someone who better understands what makes them happy, or at least happier. My book and Take a Shot companion app can help guide this inner exploration. Thank you for your comment and making your list or exploring mine will serve you.

@Parker- How do you navigate work, writing, and marketing effectively? A. Good question! Candidly, I find it challenging to do all of these at the same time. My flip answer is that I spin the plate that needs to be spun.

However, here are the strategies I have found helpful when I am on a mission to get a project done:

1) I block-time. I schedule my writing time, marketing time, and any other life items I need to get done, including exercising. Taking care of my health is a non—negotiable.

2) I tend to work in 1.5 hour chunks. Research shows after this amount of time, your energy and focus start to fade. Your mind and body need a break, even if it is just ten minutes. I wrote my book using this method.

3) Prioritize what is most important and do that first. Each day, Steve Jobs would spend three hours on his most important project. Look where that got him.

4) Try not to overwhelm yourself with a long to do list. Break that list into “do now,” “do later,” and “do not do at all.” Sometimes we think we have to do something and we really do not need to. Recognize when you can let something go. Example, while you feel you have to wash your kitchen floor, do you really? Is it more important than finishing your script? If the answer is no, take it off your “to-do” list. Save yourself the anxiety of feeling you need to wash your floor (or whatever the task.)

5) If you have a daunting project, whether it is writing, marketing, cleaning out your closet, whatever, do it in 20 minute chunks. It will make your task seem more doable.

6) Set aside a chunk of time to create your marketing content — this can be daily, weekly of monthly. Figure out what is realistic for you to manage.

7) Cut yourself some slack. Instead of feeling bad or guilty about what you did not get done, prize yourself for what you did. Writing, marketing, work…life! It all takes time. Give yourself the grace of this understanding. If it is truly important to you, it will get done. It just might taken longer than you thought and that is okay as long as you are consistently taking steps forward.

In a nutshell, navigating writing, marketing, and work comes down to prioritizing what is importance, scheduling time for it, and letting go of what is unnecessary.

I hope this helps. You got this ;)

Thank you so much!

You are so welcome Parker J. Cole

Ultimately, I think it's better to develop your own routine than follow someone else's. I can't do King's because I've got 2 kids and client calls. Believe me, taking a nap in the middle of the day sounds awesome. I also think some people commit self-sabotage with the word count/page count goals. Better to make 10 words of progress than zero and it's too tempting for most people to say, "Well, I can't hit ten pages today, so I'm just not going to do anything." King's real point in the book is not to follow his routine, but to find what works for YOU.

I think the pace of your writing work is really an individual thing. It depends on what else you have going on. As one guy wrote, King has money up the dying yang and where he lives, there is nothing else to do. So of course, he produced 6 pages a day. It's an individual thing. I never let someone else's pacing dictate what I do.

I agree with Johnathan and Solange. Sandra Rhymes tells writers that anybody can find ten minutes each day to write something.

I suppose it's a different life for spec script writers aka Screenwriting Ronin vice Mr. King, but similar in the regard that we can write whatever (whenever) we want...him for a different reason obviously... The only deadlines I have had to-date (i.e. not getting paid to write) are self-imposed ones due to competition deadlines. I wrote fifty+ pages in less than two days to make one such final entry date, and don't plan on EVER doing that again. Since I am not rushing my current stuff I feel like a good daily range for me would be between more then zero and at least a page or two, unless the Spirit of Bukowski possesses me that is, and I crank out a good ten, schedule-dependent... Also I think I am one of those who pours over works as they are being written so I may not write a ton one day, but likely did proofreads and edits.

As the police commissioner in Miller's GN The Dark Night said about The Batman, "He's too big." Same for Mr King, who can and does write as he pleases, and evidently never tires of telling other writers to follow his example in everything.

This is a good question, Brian. If you think about your manuscript as a treatment for the script, then you can create an outline to figure out the structure for the screenplay and what you will need to cut to make the cinematic story flow properly. Also, by creating an outline first, you can really see if your novel is the type of story that would make a good movie.

Thank you. Appreciate the insight.

I love Terrence Sellers's suggestions! If you have an original outline for the book, it would definitely be a great starting point that you can use to guide your script outline and beat sheet! There may even be elements of the book in your original outline that you decided against when writing, but would make more sense for a script adaptation and can be revisited at this stage!

Your outline can definitely be a good starting point, but also, take a look at other films in the genre. Do they stick closer to the story? What kind of adjustments do they have to make so that the audience can "see" what the character is thinking/feeling? First, become a student of how great adaptations happen. It's tough for an author to adapt their own work because you've been with the story for so long, so you might also consider having a collaborator as that second set of eyes.

Thank you!

Depends on the genre. Dashell Hammett enjoyed great success with his The Maltese Falcon (1929), a classic noir detective thriller written entirely in fly-on-the-wall 3rd person omniscient past-tense: purely blow-by-blow visuals, no delving into a character's thoughts or emotions (and therefore no risk of head-hopping), with minimal intrusion by a punchy-voiced narrator recounting a tale that has already happened.

The great thing about first person is that you can jump back and forth between tenses, since you're mimicking a narrator telling their own story. It sounds more conversational and natural that way, almost like transcribing an interview. I like your idea of having your 3 protagonists switch as narrator between chapters -- as long as they don't switch within the same chapter, as that would be "head-hopping" and confusing for the reader to follow.

I think it's impressive that you're challenging yourself in this way, Terrence Sellers! It's not easy to approach a book from a different POV when you're so experienced as a writer already. Whatever you decide to do, it's admirable that you pushed yourself in this way at all.

Only one of my novels was 1st person, past tense, book #1 in my 9 book mystery/crime series, so it was fairly easy. I just wrote as if I were the protagonist. Only switched to third person, past tense, in later books, because I wanted to get into some supportring characters views of events.

William Joseph Hill Definitely not changing POV mid chapter. That would be just as hard to write as it would be to read for this. LOL

I also loved the thought that books are a kind of time travel device, connecting us to minds of authors who are long gone from planet earth.

"Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"There is no friend as loyal as a book." – Ernest Hemingway

I love this!

I've always loved that Stephen King quote, Tom Lapke! Great share, Geoff Hall!

Travis Seppala You just highlighted an excellent point about subjectiveness in reading/judging. How many readers in the multitude of screenwriting competitions in existence are also going to subtract points for a writer using caps for unexpected sound effects when that was seemingly the standard previously? Like anything screenwriting appears to have different schools of thought about MANY different format protocols, and the problem, in perpetuity, is you have imperfect information re: exactly WHO is reading/judging your script. For me, because I am attempting to effectively get the reader to visualize my words as efficiently as possible, capitalizing that BANG or THUD just seems to be utterly and absolutely logical. And sometimes the capitalizations are re-added?! I think Susan made an excellent point re: "writing organically" and then kind of letting your authentic self dictate some of the minutiae in writing.

Mike Childress OH! You're referring to Onomatopoeia (BANG! THUD! etc). I was talking about things like the PHONE RINGS or the ENGINE ROARS (which is what I thought you were referring to).

Travis Seppala Ahhhh. One thing about screenwriting after writing in other realms, e.g. academia, different professional environments, short story fiction, etc. is you bring ALL those habits (good or bad) with you. My brain muscle memory wants me to write full on novels in Action Lines. So I am forcing myself to start thinking more like a screenwriter, and taking cues from what I read on proper format (outside of what Final Draft steers me to). As you know the competition rules are usually just like, 'Make sure it's an actual screenplay, and in PDF format!"

Don’t struggle with writing per sae, though plot can take a while depending on story & re writes can be riddled with choice/indecision I enjoy the ride. However regards format I sometimes stumble on “technical” glitches to do with varying types of software.

Notice in thread list 1,2,3 is plot, concept, characters. The Holy Trinity! Agree with order of importance & kinda think of them as the bones.. In the past I’d a problem with dialogue in that I wrote too much having come from a theatrical background. That slowly changed over the years. I’m currently doing a fun challenge to write a non dialogue short.

PS Guess I’m No 8 on list!

1000% agree, Jonathan Jordan! But it's definitely something that I need to remind myself of while I'm writing. I often get too in my head overthinking things.

Thanks, Ashley Renee Smith. I might have to write that script one day.

So true, Ashley Renee Smith - it's your voice that makes things different. Thousands of years of human storytelling means everything has been done before, but your unique experiences and background means that what comes from you as an author can be fresh and new.

Please do, Maurice Vaughan! =)

Absolutely! No one person could ever deliver the same final product, William Joseph Hill.

The article was written by Taylar Dawn Stagner - an Arapaho and Shoshone writer and artist living in rural Wyoming. A graduate of the University of Wyoming, she has written for National Public Radio, Grist, and High Country News.