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Returning to his home one eveming, an Indian discovered that his venison which he had hung up to dry had been stolen. His sharp indian eyes studied the surroundings, and then he began tracking the robber through the forest. Crossing a raod he saw a man driving a wagon and motioned him to stop.
"Have you seen a little old white man, carrying a shot gun, follow by a bobtail dog?"
"Yes, I passed him a mile or so north. He a friend of yours?"
"No." The indian admitted. "I've never seen him. He stole my venison."
"But how could you describe him, if you've never seen the man?"
"Easy. I read the signs. He was a little man because he rolled up a stone to stand on to reach the venison. His short steps showed him to be old, and his toes turned out as a white man's do when walking. His gun left a mark on the tree where he stood it up. The dog's tracks were small and close together and when he sat on the ground, his bobtail marked the dust."
This is seeing with perception. You not only look at the thing itself, but you look at the signs that leave the telltale path behind. These are the things you must learn to interpret. Go to a cafe or bus station and watch people. Don't listen to their words as much as you study their faces (and their body language.)
At the very least, this is one thing you must do. Loglines are typically talked about in terms of pitching a screenplay and this often gets a logline confused with a tagline (a marketing tool.) However, the logline is an indispensable part of pre-writing for the simple fact it gets you thinking about the most important parts of your story.
The goal.
The conflicts.
and The characters.
The best loglines I've seen, and the ones that best serve the writing they are representing are loglines with irony. Irony IS conflict, and there is half your battle.
For example: A kid hating paleontologist must work with two children to escape an island infested with man eating dinosaurs. A bad pitch rendition of Jurrasic Park, but it describes the protagonist succinctly, it describes the conflict of both dealing with the children (and most likely not very well) along with the conflict of the dinosaurs and the goal of getting off the island.
This is a description by Blake Snyder:
"On the verge of An Emotional Starting Point Needing Change, a Flawed Protagonist Breaks Into Act Two; but when the Midpoint happens, he/she must learn the Theme Stated, before All Is Lost."
Some more formula examples.
"An ADJECTIVE (describing a defect that must be filled in, your B STORY) NOUN (protagonist) must ACTIVE VERB the ANTAGONIST before THINGS ANTAGONIST OR ANTAGONISTS WILL DO TO STOP PROTAGONIST FROM REACHING THEIR GOAL."
"Who is the Protagonist? (describe with adjective)
What do they want? (goal)
Who is keeping them from it? (and how.)"
Aim for 40 words or less to keep it succinct and exercise the superfluous writing elementary and high school creative writing classes ingrained in you.
Write and rewrite your logline, use those ideas that you didn't plan out but started scripting from page one. You may find you need to change some things! This will get you in the habit of thinking with the goal in mind and the conflicts you need. Remember, a story is meant to be an exaggeration of real life but still relate-able. It's the oldest form of sharing wisdom. The parable.
After all, in your day to day, you don't just walk outside and stand there till you figure out what you want to do for the day. You decide to go to the grocery store, or hang out with friends. Every slow person, every stray animals, every incompetent employee you encounter before you reach that goal is a conflict.
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Implementing 3 act structure in a cartoon with only 4 panels.
http://timstout.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/how-to-use-3-act-story-structure-in-comic-strips/
Read MoreYou will find that the main Beats hit nearly perfectly with most books. Opening image, theme, point of no return, mid point, and closing image.
NOTE: 2 page spread counts as one page/beat of storytelling.
PAGE 1 Opening image. This sets the tone for the issue. Typically a splash page with an element of suspense that makes you want to turn the page and foreshadows the issues main conflict.
PAGE 2 Theme Stated.
Comics by the good writers will always state the books theme on page 2.
Page 3 Big Bad News/Inciting incident
News is delivered or an event requiring action has occurred.
Towards the end of page 3 the tangible goal is recognized.
page 5 end act 1. Point of no return.
page 6 is B story.
Typically the background story is explored here, bringing the reader up to speed on the details necessary to appreciate the weight of the A story.
11-15 bad guys closing in.
(if 22 page book.) Page 11. Turning point/mid point. Small action changes characters reaction to world around them or The heroes arrive/the bad guys arrive. Also the "BIG REVEAL." See PLANETARY.
TESTING (typically at the beginning of movies, in comics usually during big fight sequence but can float.): Old methods of dealing with problems fail. Protagonist must try new methods.
Page 15 is BIG PIT.
Things look bleak.
Page 17 is rock bottom/epiphany end act 2 start act 3.
Shit just got real. Protagonist cannot see any way out or an important event has occurred.
page 18 or NEW WORLD ORDER begins.
The new norm after the end of act 2.
CLOSING IMAGE last page.
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http://hilobrow.com/tag/kirb-enthusiasm/
http://parrish.artpassions.net/
http://parrish.artsycraftsy.com/
Read Morehttp://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/pl_prototype_radiation
Read MoreThis website gave me a chuckle.
http://www.writepop.com/science-fiction-story-ideas/
Read MoreComics are all about working smooth, quick, and clearly.
"Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up."
Read MoreSo what do you do with that script you crafted in Celtx? I'm not about to speculate on the tools people use to craft their comics in the digital age, so let's say you opted to throw down your life savings on a copy of photoshop. You discover Photoshop is great for images, but lettering comics is clunky and looks atrocious. (If you don't know, it really does. Take my word for it.) So what do you do? Well in place of Illustrator there is a great open source program called INKSCAPE. The process for creating word balloons in Inkscape differs a bit from Illustrator, but the end result is the same. You can find Inkscape here: http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en It's free to download and use.
If you're using Illustrator, a great resource is http://www.ninjalettering.com/
Read MoreThis is a fantastic free software that makes it a heck of a lot easier to write compared to the method of trying to find Templates or fighting with MSWord or OPENOFFICE for formatting. There's an add on you can purchase that utilizes virtual post it notes for timelines and such. I suggest it but it's not essential to get started.
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