Right now I’m still in the process of brainstorming a script together. I’ve been working on it everyday, as I definitely feeling the clock ticking as July 22 slowly creeps up. I’m about halfway done with it now. I was having some difficulty with it because I had to find a new brainstorming style.
Back when I did the Niece Web series, I used to be able to script a comic as I went along. I would brainstorm, and write down the character notes, panel notes and dialogue all in one sitting. Here’s a sample of my old brainstorming style that I used when I worked on a comic 6 years ago. The comic I’m about to show you was a comic I worked on before Niece Web, called Trailblazers. It was about a strong boy named Zoan (not shown), a fairy named Kaira and a magical girl of destruction named Trina. They went on random adventures together.
My notes on a Trailblazers comic
I would sit down a script the comic as I brainstormed the ideas behind it. In my notes, I was only concerned about dialogue. The numbers in the margin was the panel number, and I wrote enough dialogue that could naturally fit into the panel. This was my idea of story writing back then.
My thumbnail sketch of a Trailblazers Comic
After I finished the script, I would turn the page over and draw out a thumbnail sketch. I took the dialogue and created the art around it. When I did the thumbnail sketch, all I was concerned about was facial expressions, visual effects, camera angles and speech balloon placement. Other stuff like body figures and background art, I figured out when I worked on the final artwork.
The finished Trailblazers comic
After the thumbnail sketch (it usually took one, and I was satisfied), I worked on the final artwork. All the other visual details not addressed in the thumbnail sketch, I worked out along the way as I completed the final artwork.
Right now if I was to try to create a comic using my old brainstorming style, I would immediately run into writers block. I think I figured out why. Now when I brainstorm, I’m juggling a lot more topics in my head than just straight dialogue. Topics such as characterization, visual details, plot, etc. I find that I can’t start out with doing dialogue anymore. I have to brainstorm other areas of the story first before I even begin to think about dialogue.
That’s where my current brainstorming style comes into play. I sit down and write down everything that’s going through my mind about the story, in a stream of consciousness writing style. For example, I need to figure out Spider’s motivation for doing a certain action….so I write down exactly that, and begin to write down every idea I have on that problem. This brainstorming style has been very effective for me, and my ideas are flowing onto the page. The only drawback to this brainstorming style is that it takes up more of my time to do. Not only that, but now I have to script the comic separately from my notes, which…again…takes up time. But its the best style I have going for me right now, and its getting results.
Chimeric Musings 