26th August 2009 / Musings / Wasteland

It was my birthday yesterday. I spent it working, as is often the case, but I’m off to Paris next weekend, so that’ll do me. Briefly, then:

WASTELAND: THE APOCALYPTIC EDITION, Vol I is en route from the printers. The Oni web site had it scheduled for arrival in stores today, but with hardcovers (which are printed outside the US) these dates are only ever an estimate, especially as the books have to clear customs. But it’s definitely on the way, and of course I’ll announce it the moment we know when it will reach stores.

I finished the script for WASTELAND #29 this week, and we sent WASTELAND #26 to press, so expect that in stores soon. Issue #29 is all about Dexus, and he’s always fun to write.

I’m also very close to finishing the ‘Zero Draft’ of cold war spy thriller THE COLDEST CITY, which I’ve mentioned before.

Allow me to explain what a ‘Zero Draft’ is.

The first stage of any story is the outline. I tend to lengthier outlines than some writers, but it’s inevitable that things will change as I write, no matter how detailed the outline is.

The next stage is writing basic dialogue and blocking out major scene directions; this often consists of rough, on-the-nose speech and just an indication of where the scene takes place. It’s the writing equivalent of a guide vocal, if you will. If something major happens, like a character shooting someone, I include that. But if it’s a talking heads scene, with no real need for detailed action description, I just write the dialogue.

Why not write all the panels in full? Because things change. I might get halfway through, then come up with a great idea that necessitates altering scenes in the first half. I might get to the end, only to realise I need to set something up halfway through. Whole characters and scenes can appear, disappear or be changed wholesale. But if you start making those changes immediately, before finishing the rest of the script, more often than not you’ll get bogged down, lose momentum, and never finish. Instead, I just make a note about what I want to change and press on.

So the Zero Draft allows me to get the skeleton of the script finished. It’s much easier to look at a story and see what needs revising once the whole thing is in place, even if you know a lot of it will change.

And a big advantage of this method is speed; in the Zero Draft stage, I can power through twenty pages in a good day. Of course, it’s a complete mess, and not fit for anyone but me to read. It wouldn’t even make sense to most people. But it gives me a whole story to look at and start revising… which is the next stage, followed by writing all the panels out in full, then polishing and polishing again until the first true draft is ready.

Anyway. Happy birthday to me; have an amusing Internet site to celebrate.

 

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