As a writer, sometimes I forget that this is a post MTV generation with "show me the money shot NOW because my clicker finger is itching" mentality. And the biggest complaint we got with GAAK is that we (I) spent far too long world building and introducing characters and that it took too long (for some people) for the invasion to begin. Knowing that, there was a danger of "dumbing down" The Continentals to appeal to the "money shot" mindset in order to make it move. But there was a better way to do this.
Being MUCH denser a story then GAAK ever was in scope, plot, and range of characters, the best way I could tell the story of The Continentals was not to dumb it down, but to lean it out. To make sure every word on the page meant something to the story and wasn't just filling out space. And strike a balance between storytelling and world building. So within the first five pages of The Continentals you are not only neck deep in the story but totally immersed in the world of 19th century England. And what better way to do that in a mystery/detective/adventure story then with the prison break of a socio-path that leads to a murder spree.
SCRIPT EXCERPT:
PAGE ONE: ONE PANEL
PANEL ONE: Ext. Shot: Countryside. Night CLOSE SHOT: Donny aka The Mangler, a powerfully built, imposing man in his late 20's, dressed in a drab prison uniform runs frantically into the foreground. In mid-ground, the silhouetted figures of a group of orderlies and security guards carrying lanterns, and guns, and struggling to hold onto the leashes of guard dogs follow Donny. In background, lit by the glow of full moon in the night sky above it, the hauntingly medieval structure of the criminal asylum TimbreDark Manor sits on the country side behind it's high brick walls.
NARRATIVE: TimbreDark Manor.
NARRATIVE #2: Asylum for the criminally insane.
If you're going to open with a prison break, it has to be dramatic. Visceral. Eye catching. When Donny aka The Mangler escapes from the criminal asylum TimbreDark Manor, which is essentially a medieval house of horrors, it should make the reader sit back and say, "Oh yeah. This is going to be good!". Monique's first attempt at it, a pencil sketch shown at a distance from a high angle (picture not shown here) lacked a certain punch to the gut that I was hoping for. It lacked the desperation of Donny's flight to freedom. The adjustment was a fairly simple one. I told Monique that Donny should look as if he was running right at the reader. As if in his desperation to escape TimbreDark he was actually trying to run right off the page, out of the panel, and into the readers homes. The second try was the charm. That's the great thing about Monique. Things go from your lips (or email, as it were) to her hands. :)
Next week we put some flesh on our characters comic bones in Making the Page, Part Two
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