Soulless: The Graphic Novel

So we took a LONG break from Soulless, mainly because school ended and we wanted to relax. Well, I'm feeling too attached at this very moment to not work. I was about to watch an episode of Angel season 4 and saw that one particular episode, the start of the arc where the main character's soul is removes for a time, is called Soulless. Funny how that's all it took to get me off my lazy ass.

So here's the game plan: I'm going to read through Part 1 again and rewrite the whole thing. More scenes, some things probably cut, maybe even a new face or two. My main focus is the character interaction. Lidia told me that the girls needed more meat in their character, something I was holding out on because they're only really important in the second half of the story, but she's right. Also, Henry needs to think more. Watching someone more around and talk is one thing, but it feels like the change in his personality would hit harder when he starts thinking differently. Acting nicer is one thing, but I want to show through his mind where he's at. So expect a scene or two where Henry's just thinking to himself.

Well, that's what I'm doing right now. Be sure to read the new page I made, called WotW Draft 2, where my second draft will be posted and worked on for the next week or two.

And I'll try to post more things on the site later.

I finished my Passage, presented a speech about my process and had the exit interview with my teachers. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I'm graduating on Monday. I will keep the site up so we have everything in one place, though I am backing up all of my stuff with Google Docs and files on my personal computer. So yeah, I'll make some more posts soon.

So the final part of my project, after I make my second draft of the script, is a speech about my process and what I learned from the project. What I write below is an early version of that.

The first thing I learned about comic creation is that it helps to talk to people about it, bit by bit. If I never talked to Laura about it, the main character would have never been named Henry; if I never talked to my family, it would just be Henry and Johnny traveling together in a LoTR-esque manner. If all I did was read stuff online and not ever see where people work, what would I have really known about writing comics?

I didn't know how to write a script until I went to the editing area of a comic publishing company. When I only asked Matt Wagner, the man I interviewed, he told me that he doesn't do it the normal way, so I didn't know how to do it myself. Only by seeing who else looks at comics do I see how I want to write it myself.

I thought I would have the last say in making my story, but I'm the very first one to decide stuff. The artist decides what Henry looks like as he falls out of a window; the editor decides exactly what people say during a conversation; the ad department shows potential customers what they think the story's really about. Really, I'm like a screenplay writer. I make the first story, someone else decides what the setting looks like, the actors themselves choose exactly what they want the character to say, the people mixing the footage together even choose the sounds to go around the people. Hell, sometimes other people are hired to rewrite the stuff I first made in this analogy.

Things start with me, but I am anything but the last person to say what's going on. The reader, my real audience, may even leave the story with something other theme or moral in mind, something that has NOTHING to do with what I wanted.

My project, my characters and plot, have made minds of their own. There are people in the plot that I can't even relate to anymore, but people that feel real enough to be good characters. The story feels real to me now, like it's actually moving forward after a year of thinking about it. Laura's drawing the first scene, Henry has a face now, everything's being sewn together into some sort of world that I started but have no say in anymore, and I'm completely content because of it.

So the IPRC is open on Saturday, from Noon to 6, and we have everything ready. I'll try to find someone to interview on Saturday and on Sunday I'll have the questions ready. Also, I'll be making a short survey for the people that read the script. I'll post it on here when I'm done writing it.

Edit: Here's the survey

SECTION 1: COMIC BOOKS
1. What types of stories do you like? Circle all that apply.

A. Action.
B. Adventure.
C. Fantasy.
D. Sci-fi.
E. Drama.
F. Mystery.
G. Non-fiction/biographies.
H. Poetry.

2. How much do you read as a hobby?

A. Not at all.
B. Rarely.
C. Once a month.
D. Once a week.
E. 2-3 days a week.
F. 4-5 days a week.
G. 6-7 days a week.

3. Do you usually read comic books or graphic novels?

4. Do you like to write stories?

5. Do you think people write comic books differently now that a lot of comic stories are being turned into movies?

6. Are you more or less likely to read a comic book or graphic novel when there's a movie adaptation?

SECTION 2: SOULLESS SCALE

7. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being bad and 10 being amazing, how would you grade the script for Soulless?

8. On a scale of 1 to 10, grade the spelling, grammar and punctuation of the script.

9. On a scale of 1 to 10, grade the storyline of the script.

10. On a scale of 1 to 10, grade the artwork of Soulless.

SECTION 3: WRITTEN REVIEW

11. What did you like about the story?

12. What should be improved or changed in the story?

13. Which characters and scenes did you like?

14. Which characters and scenes did you hate?

15. What would you like to happen next in the story?

16. Would you read Part 2?

17. Would you recommend the graphic novel to anyone?

18. Would you buy a colored, finished copy of Soulless Part One: Weight of the World?

So I recently learned that I need a total of 25 hours of community experience, not just 20. That means I need 13 more hours, but that's fine. I know where I'm going: the IPRC.

Last Sunday, Laura, two other friends and I went to a place called the Independent Publishing Resource Center, which is a small workspace in Portland that has all the supplies for a prospective comic or zine project. The four of us hung out, talked to other artist and writers and got to know the area. Now we're going hope that more comic creators are there next weekend, because not that many were around on Sunday.

In other news: Laura's artwork for the comic looks AWESOME! I'll try to get it on the computer when she's done with it. This project finally has a face (even if it doesn't have a soul; yes, that joke was awful, I know). So I guess we're at a good place.

Alright, I'll write more later. Bye for now.

See, the title makes it sound like I'm at a really good place with everything, that the whole business is squared away. It is, almost.

So I'm done with the script for Weight of the World. What next? Well, the obvious answer would be to work on Who Am I, which is the new Part Two. That's not what I'm going to do. See, one of the biggest parts of the project is having others read the script and tell me what they think about it. I have a bunch of friends, and a teacher, reading it, and I also have college professor/publishing company owner/coolest hippie ever (seriously, she says phrases like 'far out' and it sounds legit) 

Script's first draft done. Am going to sleep now. Go check it out.

So I was stuck on a scene a while ago, where Henry is talking to Julia on the phone, and found myself able to write super-quick after finally finishing their conversation. Problem was, I didn't know exactly what should happen next. Originally the plan was a montage of bad things happening in his life in the wake of him being fired, but having him be kidnapped and soulless-iffied at the end of this day sounded better and make the story more at a nice pace.

With the knowledge that I never really did just flesh out EXACTLY what happens in the story, I wrote up a list of every single scene and found something amazing. My original point where Part One ended was too far into the story, and parts two and three would be small when compared to the giant first part. I had exactly 44 scenes in this story, not including the prologue and epilogue, and needed fairness. What can 44 easily be divided by? FOUR! So Part one, which was about half the story, will now be Parts One and Two. The new Part Two will be called 'Who Am I?' The best part about that is that it will follow the W theme of the titles and that's comforting.


Also, a former teacher of mine (college class, not grade school) said she would edit my script in an email I got today (or yesterday, I don't know). Also, she called me a dork, but it's fine.

Oh yeah, and Part One's script will be done today, so that's nice.

So I just did some more work, and now everything is going very well for me. I'm about to edit the site's text formatting so the links will no longer be pink, and maybe I'll change the format as well. Either way, the site will become very PRETTY.

The script's prologue is done (a draft, anyway), and I will writing the script right on the site for now on. So, if you take a  gander RIGHT NOW at the Weight of the World page, you'll notice that it ends abruptly, right in the middle of Scott MacIntire (or the protagonist's brother-in-law) talking. I'll write more in a bit, but that's what's going on RIGHT F-ING NOW. Yeah, caps are the bomb.

I'm thinking about getting rid of the Plot and Posters pages and replacing them with a large 'artwork' page, where the story's summary (up to the end of part one) is written along with some pictures of stuff and what Laura has drawn so far. Also, when the prologue is done, the scanned pages will be on the prologue page. Maybe I'll have the script for each page under the page itself, so you see that I wrote and what Laura turned it into. Sounds bad-ass, right? I know.

Well, I'm going to go do stuffs now, so I'll write more later. Also, the game. 8D