This is from the book I posted about earlier, the script book from my comic Alma.
I write long hand. I start off on a notebook and write. This page can be neat, with Page number, panels, etc. but more than likely it’s going to end up with a little page drawn at the top with panels drawn in, to give me an idea of how I think the panels should look and give me an idea if what i’m writing would actually fit in the panel. Cross outs, scribbles, arrows moving one panel to the other side of the other panel. My pages can be a hodge podge of things.
I take that page and sit down and transfer it to my computer. As I write on the keyboard I take those notes and scribbles and arrows that are all over my hand written page and hopefully make sense of them and use them to guide how I’m typing the script into the computer. This gives me a chance to edit as I go also.
The following is a page from the Script Book featuring a page from Alma and the two versions of a page.
ALMA
PAGE SIX
Panel l: Alma, 72 year old widowed woman, in her yard, doing yard work. She’s kneeling on a stand with handles along the side for using to push oneself up, to help her get back up. She’s working in her flower garden. She’s got a small spade in her hand, diffing in the dirt. ON the corner of the flower bed is one of those garden gnomes.
Cap: Six months later.
Panel 2: Alma with the spade in the dirt. Her body lights up. There is no obvious outside source but her body looks like it’s experiencing a huge surge of electricity running through it.
Alma: oh…
Panel 3: Alma falls forward in the her flower bed, the spade falling from her hand.
Panel 4: Her body laying in the flower bed, not moving, we can’t tell if she’s alive or dead at this point.
Panel 5: A cat is sniffing at her body.
Panel 6: The cat is startled by a voice from off panel. We don’t see who’s chasing the cat away yet.
Voice: Scat, cat!
One of the biggest chances you might notice is that originally this was page one of the script. After I wrote a page of two I realized I needed some more back story, I needed to show who came before Alma. And that ended up being the first five pages.
Writing likes this gives me more freedom. Once I start typing words in the computer I always feel like I’m more locked down. I know I’m not and I can change things just as easy, but for me it doesn’t feel like it. I like the idea of jotting notes down on the page as I write the script, ideas for what might be coming up that I don’t want to forget. I can’t do that on the computer.
Everyone works different and I know a lot of people like to write straight into the computer. Some of it might be a generational thing, I grew up before computers, so I learned by writing by hand. A lot of people grew up with computers and feel more comfortable writing straight into them.
Whatever works for you is what’s best. I’m definitely not here to try to tell you my idea is best. It works for me, but I know it won’t work for a lot of others. You need to find what you feel good with, there’s enough reasons to find not to write, you don’t want to feel uncomfortable how you put the words down.