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Writing resources

 

Writer Tip of the Day: It is okay to imitate your favorite writer but eventually you have to create a style of your own.

 

    • You can check out various articles that I have written on comic book writing at Suite101.com’s Writing Comic Books/Strips.

 

    • Here’s some short pieces written by some well known writers on how to break into writing comics: Dan Chichester, Peter David, Mark Evanier, Steve Lieber, and Len Strazewski.

 

    • Peter David also wrote an essay on “How I Write a Story”.

 

    • Another essay on writing comics is John Ostrander’s Plotting101.

 

    • Another interesting article is Kurt Busiek’s On Writing for Comics, which he wrote to give primarily prose style writers an idea of how to write for comics.

 

    • For an excellent view on writing comics read John Freeman’s (a former Marvel UK editor) article Breaking Into Comics.

 

    • With yet another view on comic writing Arthur G. Slade has an essay on the subject “So You want to Write Comics? Get Real!” on his Shea Publishing web site.

 

    • A great place to get started learning about comicbook writing is reading some chapters of Joe Erkin’s Writing for Comics. Joe also has various Sample scripts and plots, which are well worth viewing.

 

    • For various samples of published scripts check out 2000 AD’s script archieve.

 

    • Another spot to check out some essay’s on comic book writing is Absolute Write’s section on Comic Books.

 

    • For a good take on how to break into comics check out Mark Evanier’s article How I get a job writing comic books.

 

    • Check out James Hudnall’s Secrets of Writing Comics for good general guidelines of various writing subjects.

 

    • The Comic Writer’s mailing has been sending questions to various comic professionals. You have view the questions and answers on this site. Current questions include:
        • How do you find a balance when working with dialog within panels? How much is too much?

       

        • What’s your advice for overcoming writer’s block? What do you do to overcome it?

       

      • What makes the difference between staying in the slush pile for half a year and actually getting your submissions read?

 

    • While there is no one way to write a comic script, Bebe Williams has put one of his comic scripts on his artcomics web page for other writers to learn from. If you need an idea of how to write a comic script, this is one example.

 

    • To get your creative juices going you might want to try Avery Cohen’s Improvisation Games for Comics Writers and Illustrators.

 

    • A good site for researching through the Internet is The Comic Book Writer’s Info Page and a site for Submissions which has various links to useful information for comic book writers.

 

    • While there really isn’t many software programs for writers specifically for comic book writers you may find these handy:
        • Steve Gerber’s Word 95/97 comic book script templates

       

        • Idea Tracker – Use not lose your ideas – an idea organizing and tracking tool.

       

      • Write Again! – the world’s most affordable and powerful writing management and submission tracking software for professional writers and freelancers.

 

    • Here are a set of reference materials on the net:
        • Roget’s Thesaurus

       

        • Strunk’s Elements of Style

       

        • Your Dictionary – Tons of dictionary and tools for writers.

       

      • OneLook Dictionaries – Which offers various dictionaries in several languages.

 

  • A site that has all of this reference material and more is Research-It!. This site has dictionaries, thesaurus, acronym, translators, quotations, geographical tools, etc. This is the best one-stop site for quick reference searches.

 

This article is originally posted on members.shaw.ca

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