Following on from tools of the trade, we will look at developing a story. Remember in english class when you you had those creative writing bits, where the teacher would ask you to write a story and then read it to the class ? Well that used to be my most favourite thing to do in english class. This tuition and these exercise are the basic fundamentals of developing a story and script for a comic book or movie. What are the basic things in a story ? A beginning , a middle and an end.

1) The Begining

The beginning of a story has to capture the readers attention, just like a good movie intro captures the audiences attention and drives them deep into the film. When we talk about a story, we can really translate this into a script, which in turn can be translated into a script for a comic book, or movie or both. A book, or novel in the entire story written in words, a script based on a novel or story is like a movie screen play combined with dialogue, a script for a comic book is similar yet, we are not shooting a movie, we are creating panel art, or storyboards which flow with a script in a manuscript which happens to be called a comic book.

2) The Middle

Ok, developing a story, going back to the fundamentals, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. The meat of the story is what actually happens in the middle, in writing terms this is called the climax, the pinnacle of  the story. This is the bit where " something happens " , that the start of the story builds up to, at the beginning this is the best way to develop a story, keep things simple. The climax is the result of the actions in the story, now this can be anything you can think of that has to do with your story, say your were writing a murder mystery ( Murder She Wrote ), the start ensures a detective chasing a murderer through all manner of obstacles and plot, to the point of climax which could be the detective has caught and cornered the murderer, or the murderer has murdered a significant character, this instance the story has reached a high point of tension in the flow, hence climax, what happens at this instance will result in the end, but this is the main point that the start builds up to.

3) The end.

What is that all ? Just kidding, no, the end of the story is very very important, in ancient greek literature and drama, the aspect of a play in theatre is classified as a tragedy or comedy, in simple terms, a sad or happy ending, so you have to decide when creating your story and plot, how you would like it to end. Now there are many different ways of telling a story, which effects the ending, you are the story teller, so it really lays in your mind how the story goes and how it ends, based on what happens throughout the story. Any story can have a happy or sad ending, if the outcome is a mystery, then the determining factor of the ending is determined by the actions preceding the end.

4) How to plot.

The plot of a story is developed through brainstorming, you know, you have this idea in your head, you grab  a piece of paper and write down this idea, then you write other things that pop into you mind about this idea, don't forget to add the nice fluffy clouds in your brain storming effort, once you have you brain storm, you create a synopsis, which is basically a paragraph of text that is a scaled down version of your story. A synopsis can be as simple as a couple of lines to begin with. Think of it as creating a television commercial, you basically have 15 or 30 seconds to tell a story, with a beginning, middle and an end, and also sell a product - but in this instance you are not selling a product , the story is the product.

5) Characters

Every story has characters, they can be anything and any one, character development is very similar to developing a plot for a story, which should be a part of your initial brainstorming initiative, once you have a set of characters, combined with your story plot, you can put your characters to work in the timeline events, the characters don't move the story, rather the over all story - which is the idea, is the substance which incorporates the characters and gives them direction for action.

6) Creating a timeline

A time line is a great way to plan your story in an analytical fashion, its simple, just get a sheet of paper, draw a line, plot the start point and end point and then create nodes with notes that plot out your story, so from the start to the end, a time line is great because it helps you visualise your story across time, you can move story components along a time line until you have a rough time line of events which occurs in your story, you can even add subplots to this time line to spice things up, but we will not get on the subject of subplots at this stage. Your time line becomes like a map of events which occur throughout your story, it is a very useful reference material for writing your story, in-fact as you progress, you may be able to combine, your idea, brainstorming, plot and characters with just a time line alone.

7) Alchemy

Now that you have thought of an idea, did a brainstorm,  written a synopsis, created a plot, a set of characters and created a timeline of events, you can get down to writing your story, as with the timeline, you can incorporate the story and the script into one medium for added efficiency, basically for a comic book, one script page per page of comic art is sufficient. You have to think how a comic is constructed, which means you have to visualise actions, then translate them into poses for characters, add backgrounds and other subtle things to bring your story to life in 2D. Now bake. If you have used the timeline then your story plot is pre plotted, what you do it take a node from the timeline and turn those notes into the script for a page, panel by panel. You can add dialogue, in the script pages as you proceed, panel by panel, you can also add action cues for characters. Once you have did that for 25 pages of a standard comic book format, you have written your script, you have the entire story planned thanks to the time line, so you can continue to write the next script for your next book.

That is pretty much how I can explain how I develop a story, it may not be a text book method but it works for me. Before I go, the MOST important thing for developing a story is to have imagination. Break away from confines of reality and limitations, imagination has no limitations, think grandiose, as I said before, it's your story and your are the creator. I have exercised my mind to the point where I can do pretty much all of the above on the fly, think of it as watching a movie in your head and recording that movie with your hand in text and pictures. The timeline helps you to achieve this manner of thinking and mindset, once you do it a couple of times, you will see how easy it can be. The other important thing is to research the elements in your story as a matter of detail, once you have the detail, then you can experiment with imagination. In your mind, no one says that the sky is blue. So from this post I have hoped that you have learned the merits of utilising a timeline in story development.

After all is said and done, there really is no formula to write a story, you just have to use your head, what I have described above a merely tools to help you realise and materialise  your story, I think dreams are a good starting point for a story more then people tell you, dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer . . . you got your hand on your head, oh no ! Dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer . . .

Up Next, Drawing the fun stuff

Getting back to production, so I had sorted the method in which I was going to go about developing this comic book, I had finalised that the fasted way to create it would be by hand, this time round I had to set up a workflow. So I had to create my DEPARTMENTS of the publishing work flow which I didn't have the luxury to have . . . just yet.

Department 1 - Script Writer - yeah, I did this, the story is in my head, the safest place to keep intellectual property.

Department 2 - Pencils - Vintage Rotoring Tikki from Germany, Staedtler  Clutch Pencil 2H / HB, Pacer eraser, Soft eraser block

Department 3 - Inking - Chinese / Japanese Brushs, Indian Ink, Tachikawa pen holder with custom grips, G Pen, Saji, Maru Nibs, Vintage Rotoring Variant Tech Pens from Turkey & Germany ( which I brought to do engineering drawings with ages ago . . . ) , Adobe Illustrator - Thanks to my mate Rant over in Japan who sent over some of the Brushes - Thanks Rant !

Pen Holders and nibs were sourced from : www.mangaarts.com.au - Thanks Keiko !

Other Nibs were sourced from : www.jetpens.com - Thanks Jet Pens !

Department 4 - Finished Art - Scanned images @ 600 dpi / Line art, Toned in Photoshop

Department 5 - Lettering - Type Set in Adobe Photoshop with Blambot fonts, effect type created in Adobe Illustrator

Department 6 - Desktop Publishing - Layed out in Adobe Indesign

Department 7 - Legal - Lots of reading, copyright etc.

Department 8 - Output - Digitally published document ( Epub ) with Adobe Indesign 5 / XML editing in Apple Text Edit

Department 9 - Distribution - Apple iTunes iBookstore ( TBA )

Marketing 10 - Viral Marketing via Internet / word of mouth.

All work carried out on Apple Mac platform - so thanks Apple !

So there you have it my departments and tools of the trade. My quick, ten easy steps to self publishing, I'll elaborate in detail on each of the departments later on.

What about the paper ? Ok trying to find Bristol Board ( traditional cold pressed illustration board ) in sheets was a nightmare !! Drawing pads from art supply stores are horrendously expensive ! Buying them off ebay is not much better, THERE IS NO SHEETS - you only find PADS - mostly in A4 - A3 is harder to find and way more expensive ! I eventually tracked down a art supply store in Mornington ( Melbourne, Australia ) ( a loooooong way from where I live ) that still bought in sheets of bristol board - but I had to buy bulk sheets, which then had to be cut down to the required size, approx. A3 size, at $5.80 per sheet - I was like NO THANKS ! Then I read . . . and read . . . and read . . . and read . . . hmmm . . . I found something even better, it's called ivory board - but no one brings this stuff in either - the difference ? Nothing at all really, except that bristol board comes in smooth or vellum . . . wait a minute . . . so does ivory board . . .  heeeyyyy, wait a minute . . . so thats how I solved the paper dilemma. I'll set up a section on this very site where you can buy this paper a bit later on.

So basically, these are the tools of the trade, I won't tell you how much these overheads cost me in time and materials, lets just say that the research bit cost way more then the materials and we'll leave it at that.

Up Next, Developing a Story

Ok, guys and dolls, this is the one you have been waiting for, it was a long time coming, but I had to do a lot of things in order to get here. Years and years of work, sacrifice, meeting, thinking, creating, talking,  to build up to the occasion, not to mention timing the event when technology had caught up to allow one to create. I thank Apple® for giving us the iTunes platform and the new iBook store, which has truly democratised publishing.

A lot has happened in the past years, some saw me as hiding in a cave, broken or dead. Some saw little progress, all I got was , " Aldo you know all this shit and you're working in a factory ?, you should be making a lot of money ", yes in an ideal situation. Saying something is very easy, but to put it into action is a lot more difficult, there are many many factors which try and govern, persuade or even down right shape the path you are travelling, but destiny is not predetermined as most think, you are born an empty vessel and it is by your own choices and actions which determines your destiny. You have to overcome all these obstacles, clear your path, wipe aside and separate the truth from the bullshit and only then will the path which you wish to follow materialises. Then you think, in retrospect , " I should have done  that back when " - but no use dwelling on the past, it's like a kid crying over spilt milk. Move on, the path is clear now and besides the time was not right, you had to do all of the above to arrive at this point, read above about destiny and making choices.

So here I sit at the end of 2010, exhausted, with a comic book in my hand, the culmination of over ten years worth of experience and living life, god knows how many packets of cigarettes I have consumed and how much money I have spent on said cigarettes, at least I haven't lost any hair over all of this.

Over the course of time I asked many many people to partake and share the development of this series of books, to the point where I rounded up the best and brightest minds which I had access to, to teach them the ways so as to create a team of super talented specialist who could be called upon, but as the story goes, this never eventuated to anything, as we know, we are all individuals and we all have individual thoughts, there were other factors influencing what I was trying to create, but lets just put it down to human error instead of other things I could go on about.

So there I was, sitting, with the burning urge to create, the task at hand was akin to a individual looking up a very steep mountain top to reach the summit, a lot of research, testing and so forth had to be carried out, which I did, trying this, reading that, doing  little experiments, I came to the conclusion that this was like the story of the Little Red Hen. So the task seemed daunting at first. More research was needed to be carried out. I read and read, trawled through forums, how did companies like Marvel, Image and DC create, what I uncovered was that they had teams, there were specific people for each tier of the project involved in creating a comic book, much like a movie production team, there was a person who wrote the script, there was a person who did pencil drawings and then there was a person who inked the pencils, a team to colour the inked drawing on a computer, there were type setters who did the lettering, a publishing department which laid out the book, an art director to over see all of the production and then a prepress department and finally the publishing and marketing teams with all the business mumbo jumbo. Yes, the mountain peak seemed even more difficult to access.

As I sat and thought, all of the above were a luxury for me, so what I HAD to do was improvise on the fly, I would have to make super efficient ways and production systems in which a lone person could cover the tasks of over 4 teams and a couple of directors, then more research, then putting the research into a experiment. Everything had to be sourced from nothing. I read specifically about manga artists in japan who create massive amounts of material alone, I thought, yes this is the way to go about it from their example. The most difficult aspect of creating a comic is the story, but more importantly the style - yes the style. The style is the key element which gives the material a consistent look and flow, this is the most difficult part, this took me over six months to create the style. After which market research was carried out, a showing of a a couple of finished pages to professionals and general public, Facebook was great for this. The feedback was great. I had hit the nail on the head. My favourite comment ? " Dude, this looks bitchin ! "

To computer or to not computer that is the question & the business.

During my research and developing of the style, I experimented on utilising the computer to illustrate the comic on, unfortunately, the look and the traditional style which I was trying to achieve just didn't cut it digitally. Aside from that, it was more time consuming to create on a computer for some reason. Some more experiments followed, until the conclusion yielded that if I were to be efficient in production workflow, then the ONLY way to go was to draw traditionally - an aspect which is shared unanimously by industry professionals and the dinosaurs. So luckily in spite of the mostly digital workflow of modern times, I had always set aside a little time each week to keep my traditional skills intact, which now paid me dividends in time management and creating me that workflow. I had to go back to the drawing board ! ( Sorry )

I treated production in a business sense, I had to know what was costing me, so in the work flow I managed to calculate that on average, it took six hours to create a page from pencils to finished art, pretty good considering Jim Lee from Marvel and Image fame considers eight hours to be an average time for one page to be produced. I allowed my self  to do a page in six hours due to the style. I went right back to the old school, black and white baby, I borrowed a little from how manga artists produced their work, line work and shading with letraset tones - this was in fact one of the elements of the style which helped me achieve the look I was after. I dwelled on this for quite some time, to the point of frustration, until I drew a page and finished it did I realise my style. My thing is to do a piece of artwork, leave it on the drawing board, go to sleep and wake up the next morning and look at it with fresh eyes - if the drawing gives me the same feeling of satisfaction at the time I created it and finished it the night before, then it has passed my test. When  I show the said drawing to people for feedback and they give me back the same comments, then I know that I have hit the nail on the head and that I am on a winner.

So production time had been settled. So thirty two pages should take me approximately  192 hours or if I did a page a day, 32 days. Happy with that. So if I paid myself as an artist alone at the standard industry rate of $55 per hour, it would cost me or rather I would be paying myself $10,560 per issue for development. Why is this so important ? Well self producing a comic book is an investment of your time and we all know the old saying of " time is money " . A comic book is commercial art, so the business side of it is most important to understand.

These are just some of the things off the top of my head about developing the basics of a comic book. There is much much more to it than that. Over the coming months I will share more thoughts and information on this page and I will be selling my services in the digital publishing section for people and companies who wish to develop and produce content for Digital Publishing in epub format, so stay tuned.

I hope this has shed some light on what it takes to create something from nothing. Oh wait. You want the story or synopsis ? I've told you heaps but I have told you nothing ? Sure I have told you something, how to make something from nothing. My greatest inspiration to do this cam from a man called Edward Leedskalnin, who built the Coral Castle in Florida USA, my favourite quote from Ed ?  " It's easy if you know how ". If he can build a castle by himself, then why the hell can't I build a comic book by myself.

Most people which I have spoken to in many aspects practice what I call the " self defeat syndrome ", like I said, when looking up at the mountain top, don't be daunted that it's too far and dangerous or " IT'S TOO HARD " - I really hate that saying, rather THINK, HOW you can get to the top, use your head and a complex issue suddenly becomes a trivial matter.

More next . . . The tools of the trade.