S.C.A.L.A.P.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, Rapid City is comic that is largely based on my life. The characters are based on people I know, and the events are often versions of things that actually happened. Of course, it is seen through a thick lens of metaphor.
Add to that the fact that I have been working on it, in one form or another, for about 4 years.
I know these characters pretty well. In fact, I can just put them in a scene and stand back and let them talk. It comes so naturally at this point that I have to actually slow them down a little to catch it all.
My task as writer, when it comes to dialog, is not so much like construction anymore. It is more like sculpting. I take the huge messy glob of language and I trim it back and tease it until it fits the shape I need it to fit. And I am really getting into it.
It makes me feel like a writer to just open up the creative flood gates and write down everything that comes out. But it makes me feel like a good writer, a professional writer, to surgically triage which lines get to live and which lines must die.
To guide me in this I am turning back to some of the harsh, mechanical, writing principles I have picked up in books and classes over the years. To apply these ideas as more than just theoretical guidelines, i have given myself some rules.
At the top of each notebook page, I have written S.C.A.L.A.P. Start Scene As Late As Possible.
If you can start a scene without some detail, then get rid of the detail. You don’t need it. I imagine the scene, and then I pick a starting point for it. I keep moving that scene forward until it doesn’t make any sense. Then I move the start back about 1/2 a second.
Done.
Or rather, begun.
Possibly Related Posts:
- The Suburbs of Rapid City
- 24 Hours of Comic Insanity
- Process.
- [SKETCHBOOK] Mira and Hector
- Break it down now…