The Writer's thread (Authors, Screenwriters, playwrights, etc.)) - Part 1

[Rodrigo90]

I'm looking to submit a Future Shocks script to 2000AD... can anybody, who has ever attempted to write comic book scripts with all the correct formatting, give me any instructions or links on how you do it? Because I can find nothing online that helps. I can't space/indent out the character and their dialogue from on the same line; I want the character's name to stay on the left and I want their dialogue to be in the middle, without having to tap the space button repeatedly that just ends up being wrong.

 

[Victarion]

Fun with a demon:

Spoiler

Veil and her Foreshi found the heart of the entertainment district dark. No hatchetmen impeded their entry into Boss Urai’s club. Within they found the main floor painted in blood and chewed viscera.

“It looks like the Boss had been neglecting his pet.” Veil nodded, sending her Foreshi to feed on the remains. Magical residue clung to the massacre. Best let her thralls deal with it. Lest the oni-demon get any ideas when it met its new mistress.

In Boss Urai’s office Veil saw the results of her intervention playing out on the scrying screens: the jungle elementals ripped through forts, barracks, and armories. Caches of weapons exploded in flames while the folk ran about trying to escape, to fight back, to make sense of the chaos.


A satiated growl drew Veil’s attention to Boss Urai’s desk. There a pair of black sais veined in jade had pinned the Boss to his velvety red chair: one through the bridge of his nose, one through the sternum. She grabbed them, felt the handles shiver under her touch. She jerked them out, letting Urai’s corpse slump to the office’s floor.

“Three tips for the oni’s three eyes. You’ve got a sense of humor.” Veil chuckled. “That’s good. Where we’re going, happiness is in short supply.”

Veil of Night left the entertainment district by way of the catacombs under the sewers. Her Foreshi knew the secret roads in the dark. The oni-turned-sais slapped against her hip.

Where are we going? The oni in the sais said.

Home – a place where neither of us will want for whatever we want, Veil said, stroking the sais’ handle. She imagined it was like ruffling an eager child’s hair. A child that could rip you in half at the drop of a hat.

Don’t you forget it! The oni said.

 

[Victarion]

New piece, first page.

The Jade Hell

Spoiler

Night fell over a jungle buried in roiling green mists whose phosphorescence lit the bizarre form of beasts from Flamedroi’s past. Torches whose flames were black and red flickered around the perimeter of the village surrounding the great ziggurat from which the beasts crawled. Beneath the cover of the mist the beasts brayed. Their savaged victims shrieked loud as the metals ripped from their scattered construction sites.

The lady in purple was right! Her night has brought us the dawn of a new day! The boy in bone armor backed away from the spectacle before him. A man-shaped thing whose angular face was mantled in a white mane drove his sabreteeth into an invading soldier’s throat. The creature’s rough tongue lapped the soldier’s gouting blood. It doubled back, swatted its screaming prey. The soldier fell back, twitching; his ripped face slapped the trunk of a nearby tree. Blooms along it opened and engulfed the shredded scrap of skin.

Dom scampered through the jungle. His mind, freed from the monotony of rituals that amounted to a hill of poop, He saw the promise reflected in the vibrant foliage, ripe fruits, and exotic creatures stalking the ruined gardens, temples and cities that had sought to bring order to their wild beauty.

Everything we need is here. Dom extended an arm, his fingers brushing against the new growth as he ran toward home. New medicines awaiting discovery, new goodies for the adult, plenty of food, maybe enough to sell…he shook his head. No, no, that’s the thinking that brought the war to our tribes.

At the borderland where the jungle surrendered to the manmade gardens that characterized Jungko stood the thicket that Dom shared with his siblings.

“Hup to! Hup to!” Dom shouted the commands he’d picked up from the foreign soldiers. He snickered at the memory that came with the commands. In the safety of a purple-leaved tree’s canopy he had watched as a frantic soldier screaming those words had them cut short – a nacatl sprang from its hiding place and smacked the soldier’s face off.

The pleasant memory of the mean men getting cut down fled when the reality of Dom’s life came ambling from the thicket. His second-oldest brother hadn’t gotten any better from the stuff they’d taken off the soldiers’ healing pouches. Stomach still swollen, skin still yellowish green.

“What?” the second-oldest said. Clutching his hands were a couple of younger ones, shaking and too small for their age.

Looking at his siblings, Dom found himself thinking in terms of scales. Needs, wants, why don’t they come together to form an order. They need what we can take from the jungle, I want them to have what they need.

A bellow came from the jungle.

“Dom? What is it?”

“Oh, uh, Elri has summoned the Navajko tribes to the ziggurat.”

The second-oldest rolled his eyes. “Great, probably more Jade Hell stuff.”

“Where did you hear about that?” Dom said.

“Found some books in the dead soldiers’ medical kits.”

 

[Victarion]

Leaving this here for later.

Spoiler

“In my town, we didn’t hide from the past. We stared it full in the face.” Veil laughed. “Kicked it in its gaping maw of fangs, dragged it kicking and screaming into the abattoir.” She took the steak knife from the setting, turning it over in her hands. “We field dressed it like a fresh kill. And like a fresh kill,” she drove the blade into her eel flesh, “we grew stronger from it.”

“Not like these, then,” Kali said.

“No. We didn’t fluff ourselves up with silly lies.” Looking at Kali’s bone-white faceplate, Veil was reminded of the man she’d run into in Jungko. A lunatic in white claiming to be an angel; the creature opposite her was night and day to that borderline psychopath.

Kali’s lips peeled back, revealing double rows of sharpened teeth set into protruding gums that were scaled and scarred.

“You cross a pyromancer?” Veil said.

“Hmm?”

“Looks like a pyromancer socked you one.” Veil pointed Kali’s grin with a knife dripping eel.

“Its been tense here. Don’t let the barge fool you.” Kali’s split tongue licked his lips. “Passions are running high, all around. Here,” he snapped his fingers, ordered the most expensive drink on the menu. “Their world’s burning down – let’s drink to it.”

“Cheers!” Veil said. She sipped the expensive liquor, savoring its heavy, sweet and spicy cinnamon tang. Their world’s ending – poor babies. You ended mine long ago and look at me now. “Boss of Kargathdra’s largest underworld enterprise," she said in a throaty whisper.


“You’ve done well.” Kali extended his arm and toasted Veil. Seeing her confusion, he said, “Its writ plain across your face, Veil. You remembered where you came from, and how much it hurt – but all that matters now is what you’ve accomplished. I admire it.”

 

[ComicChick]

For those writing Superhero stories, does anyone else find that the regular Super stuff you see in comics isn't anywhere near as interesting as the day to day stuff that's rarely mentioned?

It's one of the reasons I love reading the movie novelizations and originals novels Marvel/DC/whoever put out. We get to see a bit more behind the curtain that we almost never get to see.

I'm much more interested in how the government is dealing with mutants in the X-Men movies than seeing Wolverine go stab more folks. How does insurance work when you can get your house demolished by a giant green rage monster when some random guy stubs his toe? What laws are in effect when Supers are involved?

I know Astro City did some stuff with the idea and it's one of the reasons I love the series.

Damage Control was kinda a parody comic, but i think the idea behind it was/is kinda interesting: who cleans up after heroes decimate the city? knock down buildings etc

i too find some of the down to earth stuff more interesting. to this day, X-Men 70 (new series) is one of my favorite comic issues. and there's an issue of X-Men Unlimited that came out a bit after Betsy died, that's pretty much Logan sitting at Harry's Hideaway ( i think some other people were with him) and they're reminiscing about her as a person, a teammate, a friend. it's just a pretty cool issue. edit: X-Men Unlimited #47

 

[ComicChick]

So I'm thinking of putting my book on Amazon but I'd like to get some reviews (not for amazon, just personal ones) on how it is and what people think about it. A few people on the Hype and that I know offline have a copy but I'd like to get some more feedback on it from people.

Right now it's in MS Word since I haven't gotten around to formatting it into an e-reader format.

If anyone's interested then let me know.

i got this email from Books A Million, which also offers self publishing that i'm posting in case you or anyone else is interested in it:
https://diy.bampublish.com/users/si...ublish_161104&ad=AD1611043&smrtrctid=91410202

 

[queendarkness12]

Has anyone scrapped any ideas or potential books because you didn't like them?

 

[Victarion]

Violence Only - A Fantasy

Spoiler

The copper-scaled Shadow Naga slithered through the razorgrass and ruins of the rugged prairie, an armor-clad rancher bound by her thick tail and gagged by the rattle at its tip. She dragged her struggling burden through a crevasse in the borderland separating Shadow’s Cerodon Holding from the Earthen Holding. These sacred places were three parts forge, prison, and meditation chamber. Throughout the forges were idols shaped like the Bloodfolk that had spewed from the shattered bones of the dying Primeval Dragons. Chambers holding the idols served as the magical prisons that kept the Bloodfolk bound beneath Shadow. At these cells of iron cast in the likeness of the Bloodfolk – something that kept them from slipping their bindings – the Shadow Naga came to shatter the Primeval Dragons’ hold on snared rancher.

Violence only.

The Bloodfolk’s command dragged itself through the coiled Shadow Naga’s thoughts. Its statement manifested in her mind as a Primeval spawning Regent Dragons that fell upon one another. Their storm of claw, fang, and combustible venom shredded one another as easily as the questions nesting in the Shadow Naga’s conscience.

“We didn’t mean to kill the Navajko.” The voice was frantic. She was close to the necessary breaking. “They attacked with their beast-gods, the gun was in my hand, the nacatl, it slapped his face –” a weak chuckle turned into a sob. “Slapped it against a tree! Ripped it clean off with a slap of its claws! What was I supposed to do?”

The Shadow Naga didn’t dignify the murdering synapsid with her acknowledgment. Synapsid – one whose broodmothers rutted with a pit dragon; that’s all they are for their shiny shells and steel scales.

Instead her red eyes went to the synapsid’s device. A serpentine length of iron capable of discharging a powdery form of the Primevals’ venom; in her mind’s eye the Shadow Naga saw the venom raining from Primevals wheeling above the landbridge that had linked Shadow to her sister continent Eberrai. Screams rose from the savages and their patron oni as the clinging stuff burned them alive. With the bridge’s breaking came a breaking of the Naga – leaving the Eberrai Naga to the exploitive claws of the savages and demons that haunted Eberrai’s jungles.

Violence only.

Memories of Flamedroi’s foundling years swelled the Shadow Naga’s venom glands. Anger that the Primevals had left the Eberrai Naga a broken, self-hating race tightened the muscles that would squeeze the glands. Her jaw unhinged to accommodate the sleek white fangs descending with the venom glands’ growth.

The Shadow Naga slithered around in a hiss of copper scale. She left the safety of the shadows– the namesake of this continent – cast by the prairie ruins and her forked tongue sampled the chemicals bleeding from the synapsid’s pores.

She fears me as much as we fear the long reach of the Primevals. The Shadow Naga saw herself in the synapsid’s iron venom-spitter. Her fangs were sliding back in, the bulge of her venom sacs shrinking. Across the ages, in the form of this hollow, stillborn dragon whelp, their bloody talons seek to throttle my compassion. Her diamond-shaped scales rattled as she snatched the iron-casted whelp’s corpse. She flung it into the flames of the forge.

“P-please, have mercy on me, we only wanted to protect our ranches!” the synapsid’s speech became rapid. Her voice trembled as she said, “we’ve seen Bloodfolk lurking in the ruined cities of the Navajko and we only wanted to help the beast-worshippers so that they would help us!” She jerked her head down, averting her eyes from the looming Shadow Naga.

The bloodborn sickness of the Primevals has already taken root – destroying the whelp has done nothing. This justification of her bloodshed is evidence that the even death can’t defeat the Primevals in their quest to bring our world to ruin. The Shadow Naga pulled back from the shivering synapsid.

The Shadow Naga sprang, charged by heat from the lances of sunlight piercing the foundry’s shadows. Fire from the forge enervated her muscles as the fangs pierced the synapsid. Hot venom pumped from the Shadow Naga’s fangs. She rattled with pleasure as her venom tore through the synapsid’s veins, flooding the poor dragon-servant’s brain. A long hiss joined the Shadow Naga’s rattle at the storm of sensation triggered by the venom – she felt the synapsid thrashing in her grip, her body and mind experiencing the horrors of the Primeval Dragons.

The pleasure fled the Shadow Naga as quickly as it came. In the hollows of her mind satisfaction had slithered in to nest. Compassion had triumphed over violence. She drew back from the kneeling synapsid. The gleam of low cunning common to the synapsid’s kind had been replaced with something purer.

Hunger is what I see. The Shadow Naga’s forked tongue tasted it in the chemicals bleeding turgid from the synapsid’s sweat-drenched skin. A desire to free her synapsid kin from the grip of the Primevals; her desires are delicious.

“Into the forge.” The Shadow Naga slammed a trembling arm against the synapsid’s legs. Bones cracked, tendons snapped. She hit the floor crying. “Crawl on as we crawled—”

The synapsid dragged herself to the forge’s roaring fire. She lifted herself, turned her head from side to side slowly. Her eyes locked onto a protrusion from the Bloodfolk idol. She slammed her head against the idol before the Shadow Naga could stop her.
I will not give up on you, poor synapsid – you don’t know better. The Shadow Naga stripped her of her armor. You mantle yourself in these blood-drenched dragon whelp hides, that must be where the iron comes from, so I cannot blame you for yourself. She threw the armor into the darkness beyond the idol, then shoved the corpse into the forge. Your soul will yet find peace, the Shadow Naga thought as she called metals from the stone and soil surrounding the foundry. Under her touch they formed a blade that she thrust into the forge.

Reflected in the Shadow Naga’s red eyes, the synapsid’s soul ensnared by the forge’s prison-fires. It clung, shrieking, to the steel of the sword. Slowly the soul pulled the word into itself, entering the blade. Along the blade green glyphs appeared in an language that the Shadow Naga could not read.

This blade, these glyphs, this is you, synapsid – tempered by compassion, you shall soon find purpose in the hands of our servitors. The Shadow Naga slithered into the darkness of the foundry, leaving the sword in the armory. Green light danced at the corner of the Shadow Naga’s vision. She turned, saw it writ clearly along the blade:

Violence is the only language they speak

Then the statement was a jumble of green glyphs.

It’s the language of the synapsids, the Shadow Naga thought as she locked the armory. And, it’s a sign – more compassion must be dealt if I’m to sate my firing nerves.

 

[ComicChick]

I'm looking to submit a Future Shocks script to 2000AD... can anybody, who has ever attempted to write comic book scripts with all the correct formatting, give me any instructions or links on how you do it? Because I can find nothing online that helps. I can't space/indent out the character and their dialogue from on the same line; I want the character's name to stay on the left and I want their dialogue to be in the middle, without having to tap the space button repeatedly that just ends up being wrong.

what program are you typing it in? maybe you could set tabs, depending on what you're using

 

[Rodrigo90]

what program are you typing it in? maybe you could set tabs, depending on what you're using

I'm using Word. I haven't a clue how to do all that, but I've remedied the problem by copying and pasting somebody else's script format and using that, then deleting that to insert my dialogue

 

[Hellion]

I'm looking to submit a Future Shocks script to 2000AD... can anybody, who has ever attempted to write comic book scripts with all the correct formatting, give me any instructions or links on how you do it? Because I can find nothing online that helps. I can't space/indent out the character and their dialogue from on the same line; I want the character's name to stay on the left and I want their dialogue to be in the middle, without having to tap the space button repeatedly that just ends up being wrong.

I'm using Word. I haven't a clue how to do all that, but I've remedied the problem by copying and pasting somebody else's script format and using that, then deleting that to insert my dialogue

Having had a comic book writing course a few months back, the biggest thing I learned was there is no correct "formatting", all the example given, each script was different in formatting, there might have been a couple set in stone in elements. I'm not that confident with my comic book writing there isn't much I can say...

...I'd probably just stick with your second quote though, that sounds good.

I've never used it, but I do think Final Draft has comic/graphic novel templates?

Good Luck with your script!

 

[queendarkness12]

I'm almost finished with my book, only one chapter to go.

 

[Hellion]

Did a free short story collection eBook back in August as part of class and now I'm thinking of rewriting a script into an eBook format.

 

[Victarion]

First page from my current fantasy project.

Spoiler

The temples rising along the twisting eastern coast of Eberrai were as the jewel-scaled serpents of the Najukai Jungles. Beneath their scintillating exteriors that cast the marshes in shades of green, purple, and red hid dangers to which the temple-goers were unaware. The rattle of dice, the whir of gaming wheels spinning and the thrum of music were excellent isolation against the unpleasantries undoubtedly echoing from the temples’ backrooms.

I wish I could lose myself in the boss’s bounty of opiates. Veil’s soft features hardened as she and her Krolothrai bodyguard disembarked at a ramshackle dock in a no-name town no different from the hundreds of others like it that had sprung up along the coast. Instead, I lost it all to their thugs.

Making her way through the town, Veil noted an uptick in shrines to gods local and foreign. Robed beggars asked offerings, while others fell on their divine enemies with rusted ritual blades to appease their thirsty gods. Looking beyond the gory spectacle she saw a people driven into a corner by the bosses, forced to resort to bloody sacrifice for protection against their depredations.

Desperate and hungry, that’s good, Veil thought. Probably nurturing a hatred for the cultists. In her hand she clutched an algae-coated idol dredged from a lagoon in the Chain of Fire. Within it she felt the vital pulse and beat of something waiting to be born. There’s no telling what kind of sacrament this new weapon will require.

“Lawless drake****s,” said the hulking Krolothrai trailing Veil. She glanced back at the eight-foot slab of scarified muscle and shrugged. “The cults are frightened. What do you expect?”

“Not them.” The Krolothrai’s eyes flickered in the dark sockets of his Thragtusk-skull mask. His vestments of matted fur and quills hissed as he lifted an arm and swept the townspeople. “The lamed ones – they wouldn’t even merit a hobbling if this were the Bivouacs of my homeland.” A snuffling sound came from beneath the mask. “I doubt there’s even enough self-respect in these sad sacks for the feast of souls.”

“I imagine they appreciate the fact that you won’t skewer and roast them,” Veil said, smiling at the reaction she provoked from her bodyguard.

“Weep with me, necromancer.” the Krolothrai rumbled.

“I’m night and day from necromancy.”

“Look around – everything’s dead –” the Krolothrai shrugged his broad shoulders. “You want to thrash these corpses into submission, make them yours…sounds like necromancy.”

“No.” Veil’s voice became hard as steel. “Demon Wind’s reckoners brought death in the form of corrupt lawmen. I’m here to bring life.” A cruel smile twisted her plump face. She drummed her fingers on the idol containing the unborn entity. “Life in abundance.”

 

[KevanG]

Has anyone scrapped any ideas or potential books because you didn't like them?

For my second book I was planning to make the whole thing about two villain teams working together, about 8 people in all, and work with the various dynamics they would have but after I realized that it was way beyond me to work that much in one book due to my general inexperience, I scaled it back to more of a personal thing with one main guy, his second in command and the issues the main guy has.

Maybe for something in the future I'd try something that big. Right now I'd prefer to expand how my world works and the gears behind it than try to do too much too soon.

 

[Ruth Fisher]

Okay so i read over my movie script so far and was HORRIFIED. It did not flow or work as good as i thought it did when i was writing it at all! So i am making changes for the better

Btw, i want a scene to be in slow motion. Do i get to write at the beginning of the scene that this should be in slow motion or do you let the people who make the movie make those decisions? If anyone answers me thanks!

Like see how this scene is all in slow motion. i want a scene like this...
[YT]UHP2QavTSUA[/YT]

 

[Hellion]

Okay so i read over my movie script so far and was HORRIFIED. It did not flow or work as good as i thought it did when i was writing it at all! So i am making changes for the better

Btw, i want a scene to be in slow motion. Do i get to write at the beginning of the scene that this should be in slow motion or do you let the people who make the movie make those decisions? If anyone answers me thanks!

I don't think you would write it in... in any way... for slow motion? I'm trying to think.

As far as scripts to film and such go, I'm still a little green, but I know we have some more knowledgeable members. I don't think you would format, or write that in.

That seems more like a shooting script thing... or a director, cinematographer thing.

I'm trying to think from a formatting perspective.

Good luck on your revisions and editing though.

 

[Ruth Fisher]

I don't think you would write it in... in any way... for slow motion? I'm trying to think.

As far as scripts to film and such go, I'm still a little green, but I know we have some more knowledgeable members. I don't think you would format, or write that in.

That seems more like a shooting script thing.

Good luck on your revisions and editing though.

Thanks

I am unsure too. When I a writing it i can envision the scene and it works really well in slow motion but I don't know if that is like a directors decision or camera persons choice or mine! Oh well. I am still working on it

 

[KevanG]

Someone I know who put some books on Amazon and they directed me to Fiverr.com

They do translations, editing, graphics design, marketing, ect for various prices as it's all done by various folks all over from $5 and up, hence the name. I'm going to check it out some more but it looks good.

 

[KevanG]

Finished the outline on my second book.

 

[ComicChick]

anyone using Final Draft or Scrivener? looking for some opinions on them

 

[KevanG]

I haven't but this reddit thread seems to know what they're talking about.

EDIT: I've also gotten around to making Calibre convert my first book to Epub.

 

[ComicChick]

thanks for that link, i'll check it out

 

[writer0327]

Surprised I've never came across this thread before. Gonna have to keep an eye on this one.

Published one book on Amazon so far. Currently working on a fantasy adventure novel, middle grade to young adult. In the second draft stages.

 

[KevanG]

When you published on Amazon did you choose the 35% or 70% option?