TPG Week 159: When Exposition Goes Missing

| January 11, 2014

TPGFeatured_06

Not only is it a new year, but it’s also my birthday today! Now, as a present, I’m going to try not to add too much red to this script. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but you never know. Anyway, we have Nyisha Haynes as our new Brave One! We also have Sam LeBas back in purple! I’m still in red, and let’s see how Nyisha handles

Knights of Auran

Knights of Auran Issue #1 Beginnings Pt.1

Page 1 (4 Panels)

Panel 1:

Ext. Night – Fair Ground’s Parking Lot

Caption: Chesapeake, Georgia: 12 years Ago(Ago is not capitalized)

 

6 year old Kevin watches with wide eyed fear, helpless as his mother and father are held hostage by a black ops crew. The father struggles panicking as they carry away his terrified wife. The Sergeant points to Kevin.(This is all taking place in a dark parking lot, where is the lighting coming from? Also there is little to no detail in the description of this scene. How many men [or women for that matter] are in the crew? What does ‘being held hostage’ look like? How is the camera positioned so that we see Kevin’s expression and the full hostage scenario? Is the parking lot empty or full? Where is Tim in relationship to his parents? Where are the thugs carrying Mrs. Kevin’s Mom? There are more questions than answers here.) (And this right here? It just lost the Flawless Victory. Formatting is easy. Now, when the panel description elicits more questions than answers, then there is a huge problem.)

Kevin: Mom! Dad!

Mother: Ben!(I assume this is Kevin’s dad’s name? May want to put the parents names in the description to avoid confusion. She says ‘Ben’ in response to Kevin calling out to her. People are going to assume that is the kid’s name.)

Father: Get away from her!!

Sergeant: Get the boy!(Are the parents’ lines necessary? They don’t acknowledge Kevin at all seems like that could be cut.)

Panel 2: Kevin’s POV of the other troops coming towards him, he raises his hands up in defense. Behind the troops he sees his father held hostage calling out to him in fear.(So are his arms blocking out part of the scene? Is this over the shoulder or literally from his perspective? How many troops are coming toward him?)(If I wanted to be a jerk, I could call this a moving panel. There’s a fine line between motion and describing a static image. Here’s the thing: writing in still images is a learned trait. Actions generally are not happening now. They’re happening in the instant that just passed, so panel descriptions should generally be in the past tense. Take a photo, now accurately describe that photo. You’re describing actions already done, or in the act of being completed. You’re describing the past. Now, with that said, this skirts the line only a little bit. I can see this being drawn, after the questions Sam asked are answered. However, I’m also seeing a trait, and I have the feeling I’m going to be calling you on it soon.)

Soldier 1: Come on kid, it’s all right(suggest comma) we won’t hurt you.

Dad: Kevin(comma) run!

Panel 3: Int. – Kevin’s psyche(Curiouser and curiouser…)

Medium close up ofa SPIRIT presented as a small blue flame surrounded in darkness.(This seems really, really out of nowhere, how do we know this is Kevin’s psyche? How do we know anything about what this is?)

Caption: Do you wish for power?(Is this a caption, or is the spirit speaking at this moment?)

Panel 4: OTS shot of the soldiers surrounding the frightened Kevin preventing him from escaping.

Soldier 2: Take it easy(comma) kid.

Kevin: Get away from me!

(You have to let your creative team in on the joke here. I feel like you might have a perfect vision of where this is going and what it should look like, but my feeling is not supported by the words on the page. You have one character who has been named, Kevin. He is in a nondescript setting, facing a vague company of assailants. We are lacking motive, context, detail and supporting cast. Mom and Dad’s situation comes through pretty clearly, they are in trouble and they cannot get to their kid. However, what is actually being done to them is completely unclear.

The departure into the surreal psyche setting lacks context and impact where it is situated now. I wish there was some way for you to show Kevin interacting with the spirit, just so its unique connection to him is more clear. Maybe start with the voice outside his head and then reveal the psyche space? There has to be a better way to introduce this element. I am all for jumping into the action, but this is losing me.)

So, we have P1 on the books!

Formatting issues aside, I’m in a white void, and I don’t like it.

I have no real idea where I’m at, and because things aren’t explained well at all, I have no idea why we’re here. This page is ineffective. It doesn’t do enough to get the information across well.

And then there’s the flash into the a black place with a blue flame. How is the reader supposed to know what that is? How is the reader supposed to have any inkling as to what’s happening? Really, this is a four-panel page, but one panel is really apropos of nothing, so it is diminishing what’s going on.

Lots of yelling, and then the one strange panel. It doesn’t make the reader want to go in further, it just confuses them. Confusion isn’t the goal, Nyisha. Intriguing them is, getting them to want to turn the page is, but this isn’t doing that.

The panel descriptions are too vague by far, to be almost useless. The artist doesn’t have nearly enough information to do their job, and so they’ll have to ask a lot of questions that they shouldn’t. That’s a no-no.

Page 2 (5 Panels)

Panel 1: White text over black

Spirit: Do you wish for power?(I’m meh on this panel.)

Panel 2: Full shot of Kevin crouching down and holding his head. With his eyes closed tight tears roll down his face as he wishes for this nightmare to end.(We need to know that he is wishing for his nightmare to end, but any actual detail of the hostage taking is left out. You may be focusing on the wrong things in your descriptions.)

Kevin: (small) Yes, I want them to disappear (Is he saying this out loud or just thinking it?)

Panel 3: Int. – Kevin’s psyche

The flame of the spirit grows glowing bright with energy.

Caption: If power is what you seek (He never said he wanted power, or that he wanted to make the soldiers disappear, just that he wanted them gone. Maybe changing Kevin’s previous line to ‘I want to make them disappear’ would make this smoother?)

Panel 4: Blue sparks of energy surrounds Kevin’s body causing the soldiers to back away.(Where is the camera here?) (And where did the soldiers come from, how many of them are there, are they heavily armed…things like that.)

Kevin: I want to them to go away!

Panel 5: Mid shot of the soldiers reacting in fear, unsure of what’s happening to Kevin. The Sergeant yells at his soldiers from behind in anger as he still holds the Mother hostage.

Sergeant: Don’t just stand there cowards, stop him!(Stop him or get him?) (Stop him how?)

(I am really not sold on this depiction of the spiritual energy. It’s not very dynamic, and doesn’t make a great deal of sense. You have to imagine reading this in a visual form, without the luxury of scene headers. Does a disembodied voice appearing alongside a blue flame, tell a reader anything at all? I think the panel of white text on black background may exacerbate this problem. Why are you showing this element in two different ways? What’s the best way to communicate the idea of Kevin’s psyche to readers?)

P2 down and I’m still unimpressed.

So, we have a more normal panel count, but we still have the loose panel that doesn’t do all that much for the story.

I’m not caring. I’m not feeling the plight of the family, I’m not feeling the danger they’re in, I’m not feeling the struggle of any of the characters. Is that a good thing? No, not at all.

I like stories that start in media res. However, when you do that, you also have to catch the reader up, and you should be doing it as soon as possible.

I’m not a slow burn type of person. Not when it comes to comics. For me, slow burns are wastes of time. Some people like them.

But here’s the thing: we’re only 2 pages in. It doesn’t feel like it. It feels slow, but we’re only 2 pages in. That’s not a good thing at all. This is a fast read, both in a low panel count as well as a lack of dialogue, but it still feels like it’s crawling along. That’s some dichotomy to have for P2.

What’s going on? I don’t know. There’s no inkling, and there should be. That needs to be fixed.

Page 3 (4 Panels)

Panel 1: Close up of Kevin’s eyes open and glowing with blue energy

Caption: Then I shall help you.

Panel 2: Full shot of Kevin standing as he emits a massive surge of an EMP pushing the soldiers and Kevin’s parents to the ground and turning over several vehicles.(First mention of the vehicles here…) (Well, it IS a parking lot…)

Soldiers: AHHHHH!!!

SFX: BOOM

Panel 3: Wide shot of everyone sitting up in amazement at what they were witnessing off panel.(Everyone except Kevin right?)

Kevin: (OP) I want to protect my Mom and Dad!(Mom and Dad are not capitalized here, because they come after a possessive) (It doesn’t matter, because this will more than likely be in an all-caps font. The real travesty here is the line of dialogue itself.)

Panel 4: Full shot of Kevin standing tall engulfed in energy. He looks down at the soldiers fearless (fearlessly).

(The on this page dialogue does not marry well with what is happening on panel. Why does he announce that he wants to protect his parents after the energy blast? Also I am not sure that descriptions are adequate. The information is so minimal it’s difficult to construct this scene visually using what is here.)

P4, and look here, more non-information!

Okay, that’s me being a jerk. Let’s drag this back.

This page, again, doesn’t do what it needs to do.

Kevin is 6, right? Well, personally, I have yet to run into a six year old who’s able to give me trouble. I’m bigger, taller, faster, stronger, smarter. I have a longer reach. I can open the cabinet over the sink without having to climb up on the counter. I have yet to understand how six year olds give adults a run for their money. I have yet to understand how any child that has not yet hit their double-digits give adults a run for their money. Home Alone is a fantasy that can never happen. (And that child was 8.)

It’s a story device that I’m not happy with in the hands of anyone that is not Stephen King.

So, it’s P3 and we have some action and some bad dialogue. Does a six year old really understand the meaning of the word protect to use it in a sentence? I don’t think so. Could be a precocious child, though, so I’m willing to give you that benefit of the doubt.

I’m still waiting for explanations, though. They should have started coming by now.

Page 4

Splash page:

Title: It All Starts Here (I thought the title of this issue was beginnings?) (This information needs to go with the credits. What credits? The credits that should be on this page. And it’s in the wrong place, making this another formatting error.)

Int. Day – Madison High School

 

The bell rings announcing the end of school. Students gather in the hall way, some gathering their things, others standing around and talking, and still others leaving the building. A teenage Kevin with his back to the reader walks down the hall of his high school, carrying his book bag on his right shoulder towards the exit of the school.

Caption: I want to protect.(Is this Kevin’s caption?)

SFX: BRRRIIIINNNGGG!!!!!

(Oh well, this is a jump. Where are we going here?)

Not just a jump, but P4 is a total waste of space.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is called padding, as well as writing toward a page count. This page does nothing at all, and it’s almost infuriating.

Here’s what’s screwed up about it (besides everything): this is a splash page, but it doesn’t tell us anything that pushes the story forward in a way that warrants the use of the space. Where’s the caption that tells us there’s been a jump in time? How is the reader supposed to know that the person walking away from them is the same boy we were just watching on the previous page? Why is this character walking away from the reader? What storytelling purpose does that serve?

And there’s still no explanation as to what’s going on with the story. Where is this going? Why is there no explanation as of yet?

You can be sparse with details for only so long before the reader says screw it and moves on. You reached that limit on P2. We’re now 3 pages beyond that. Hopefully, we’ll start to get some answers.

Page 5 (4 Panels)

Panel 1:

Ext. Day – Madison High School

Caption: Present Time: Madison, West Virginia (Again, this is in the wrong place. The letterer shouldn’t have to be looking all around the script to find what they need. Formatting is easy. It has to be logical. This isn’t logical. Also, this information should have been on the previous page.)

 

Behind the school, Duncan and his friends corner Billy, a scared and defenseless freshman.(How many friends? What is in the scene?)

Duncan: Hey, I saw you checking out my girl in class.(This seems like an exclamation, not a statement.)

Billy: I swear man, I wasn’t lookin’!

Panel 2: Mid shot of Duncan punching Billy in the stomach with such force that Billy buckles over in pain. (Because, you know, a soft punch just wouldn’t do it. A bit prosaic, and unnecessarily so. If someone is going to go through with the effort of punching someone in the gut, then then of course the punch will be enough to double the person over. Otherwise, there’s no point.)

Billy: OOF

SFX: Bow(Pow?)(Yeah, that’s just a bad sound effect.)

Panel 3: A worm view of Billy on the ground in the fetal position in pain. Duncan crouches over Billy looking down at him with a satisfied grin. A glare from the sun shines on a security camera attached to the building behind Duncan watching their activity.

Duncan: See what you made me do? You forced my hand, that wasn’t very smart.

Kevin: (OP) Hey! Leave him alone.

Panel 4: High angle on Duncan and his friends looking back to see a teenage Kevin with his backpack on the ground looking back at them sternly.(Why is his backpack on the ground? Are there bystanders? How do we know that this is Kevin?)

Duncan: Back off! This is none of your business.

Kevin: I’m warning you, walk away.

(This sequence feels pointless. What is happening here that we haven’t seen play out a thousand times before? The central character is defending the weaker kid from a bully. What makes this iteration of the trope matter?)

No, there’s nothing informational about P5. We know that we’re now in the present, and that’s it. There’s nothing here that tells the reader why they should continue to read. So far, it’s all just cliché. We’ve seen this a billion times already, and this isn’t interesting yet. None of this is interesting yet, because there’s no explanation for anything.

Why is the reader reading? What is the story about? I know I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else knows, because you haven’t said.

Here’s what the reader knows: the character wants to protect. That’s all we know, really. Is it enough? Not nearly.

So, what is this page doing, besides repeating itself? Nothing. It’s telling us what we already know. Unless this scene does something new, it’s repetitive and useless, meaning it is padding and can be cut.

Page 6 (6 Panels)

Panels 3-6 are the security camera’s point of view. (Good note.)

Panel 1: Mid shot of Duncan’s friends standing in front of their confident leader who stands up looking at Kevin off panel.

Duncan: You lookin’ for a death wish or something? Guys, take care of this foo’(No ending punctuation here. One has a death wish, one does not look for a death wish. Also I hate the dialect choice foo’. )(If I had hair, I’d have pulled it out over this line of dialogue.)

Panel 2: Wide angle shot of Duncan’s friends surrounding Kevin all charging at once towards him with fists in the air. Kevin remains calm and positions himself to fight.

Panel 3-6: POV of the security camera capturing Kevin fighting Duncan’s friends easily defeating them. The camera records Kevin’s personal info, heart rate, body temperature, and speed.(Why do we need three panels of this? Also why have you put the note about the last three panels at the beginning of this page? You need to decide what his vitals are, and why it matters.) (A security camera that records vitals? That’s some system! This must be some school here.)

(Only one panel on this page has dialogue. Everything that happens is predictable. The security camera angle is interesting, is there a better way showcase this information? Maybe use the security camera perspective on a later page? Can this page and the next be combined? The pacing is off. This is going to be a really quick page.)

The only thing interesting about this page is the fact that the camera is recording vitals. Why only one person’s vitals and not anyone else’s is beyond me, but there it is. This brings up interesting questions that more than likely won’t be answered. What kind of school is this? Is the school wealthy? I don’t know. All I know is that if there’s a security camera, there should be security guards, and if there are security guards, then someone should already been on the way since someone got punched in the gut and it was caught on camera. So, this isn’t making sense in a couple of ways..if this is a regular-type of school. If it isn’t, we should be getting some of that information on the next page. I, for one, am not holding my breath expecting it, though.

Other than the camera thing, like Sam said, this is predictable. Is it enough to hold a reader’s interest? No, I don’t think so. You squandered whatever good will you had by P3.

Page 7: (6 Panels)

Panel 1: High angle of a bruise less(one word) Kevin standing among Duncan’s friends who were(are) on their knees defeated and in pain.

Panel 2: Ots shot of Duncan looking at Kevin who looks at him with a stern face ready to fight.

Panel 3: Reverse angle of Kevin looking at Duncan who looks at him with disgust.

Panel 4: Mid shot of Duncan walking towards Kevin.

Panel 5: Mid profile shot of Duncan stopping behind Kevin with a sarcastic grin.

Duncan: Man chill, you ain’t worth my time.(Duncan’s dialogue feels so inauthentic. I suggest that you reconsider this dialect.) (Inauthentic? It’s worse than that, really. It’s criminal. It’s like a white guy from now trying to speak 70s jive, after watching Airplane a couple of times, you dig? I ain’t NO snitch, you dig me? I’m going back to the STREETS, where I come from! Let’s go, momma! (Actually, now I want to watch Black Dynamite again. Great movie.))

Panel 6: Full shot of Duncan and his crew leaving. Kevin turns his attention to Billy who is up on his knees recovering from the wind knocked out of him.

Kevin: You’re alright? (Let’s break this down a bit. There are two words here, because of the contraction. Breaking out the contraction into its component words, the sentence now reads You are alright? While it isn’t incorrect, it does sound powerful strange. Something to look out for. But to be honest, the dialect of the dialogue seems to be all over the place.)

Billy: I’ll be fine.

(Yes, these two pages can indeed be combined. This is another fast read. There is nothing compelling here. How can this be so quick and so slow at the same time?)

It’s P7, and like I said, there were no answers given. No answers, no security guard(s), no nothing. Just a continuance of the cliché.

The problem with this story, as of P7, is that there is no exposition at all.

Exposition is never a bad thing. It’s what keeps the story moving, because it gives reasons to the audience. It just needs to be handled with care. Exposition has to come out organically through the story. There are many places where exposition could be used in this tale, but not a single one of the opportunities are used.

It’s that lack of exposition that will have readers closing the book. That’s for this time around. Next time around, I want to see this same story, but I want to see exposition. I also want to see passable dialogue. I won’t hope for too much, but adding the exposition in places where it should be would show me that you’ve learned. No, I won’t tell you where to put it. You’re a storyteller. You should have an idea as to where you think it should go.

Page 8 (5 Panels) Panel 1 and 2 are the same shot.

Panel 1: Close of Billy looking up to see Kevin.

Panel 2: Billy reacts in fear realizing who helped him.

Panel 3: Mid shot of Billy pushing Kevin aside as he runs for his life.(You need to have Billy react directly to the realization that Kevin helped him. I would add something to the dialogue that follows this description that alludes to that idea.)

Billy: Get away from me!(Consider something like: ‘you freak,’ or ‘You?’ at the beginning of this line.)

Panel 4: Medium close up of Kevin watching Billy off panel.

Panel 5: Close of Kevin looking down disappointed and disgusted.

Kevin: You’re welcome.

(Again does this need to be a page all to itself? I like the intent here, and the storytelling is subtle. However, you could probably condense this page with another without losing that little bit of finesse.)

Padding. That’s all this is. That’s all this entire story is, so far. Writing towards a page count.

Page 9 (8 Panels)

Panel 1: POV of the security camera as it records Kevin leaving with his book bag in hand.

Scientist(Let’s name this scientist): (VO): Just a spike of adrenaline, no sign of spiritual energy.

Panel 2: Int. Day- Secret Military Facility (You are killing me here, this is barely a setting.)

Full shot of a female scientist(Name her, maybe describe her?) sitting at a large monitor along with Phillip, a gentleman in his 50s wearing a black suit, matching fedora and brown trench coat standing behind her. (This is the most description of a character that I’ve seen. No one else has had as many words used to describe them as Phillip. This leads me to believe that he is the only character you have that isn’t a cookie cutter mock up. He might actually have some depth. Now, with that being said, let me say this: No no no no no no no no no no. No. No no. No. You have a secret military base, which makes me puke up the delicious t-bone steak I just had for dinner, but I don’t care much about that. I don’t care much about the fact that we’re now at a secret military base, location classified, as it orbits Neptune. [Where is Europa? One of Jupiter’s moons?] No, what I care about is the placement of the camera. It’s supposedly a security camera. What’s it securing? Is it owned by the school, and the rogue military element is now tapping in, or is it owned by the military, and no one has noticed them because they’re hidden? These are important questions that need to be answered. I’m going to say the military owns it, because no guard has come up. But if the military owns the cameras, then where are they placed, and how were they put in place so that no one sees them? Problems abound when you don’t put any thought into how things get done.)

Phillip: Nevertheless, we need to keep a close eye on the boy. He’s too valuable to lose.

Panel 3: Close on Phillip looking at the monitor. (What’s his expression?)

Panel 4: A POV of Phillip closely observing the previous recording of Kevin fighting Duncan’s men.

Inset Panel 5: Extreme close up of Phillip’s eyes looking closely at the frame.

Panel 6: Close of Kevin’s face as his right eye is glowing.

Panel 7: Extreme close up of Phillip smiling.(5 panels of looking at Phillip looking at video of Kevin. Is this necessary?)

Panel 8: Phillip leaves the room continuing to smile. (Room? What room? You said they were on a base, but you never said anything about the room they were in.)

Phillip: In fact, tell the higher ups I’ll monitor the kid from now on.

(You actually make a pretty smooth transition here. I like the security camera thing. I am stopping here because you jump to a new scene on the next page.

This is at once painfully slow and breakneck fast. I am almost half way into a first issue and I have very little idea where you are going with this. From what I understand, Kevin has a spiritual superpower, and a secret military agency knows about it.

What makes your story unique or special? I think we should have some vague idea of that by now.)

Let’s just run this down.

Format: You could have had a Flawless Victory. Formatting is simple, as long as you’re logical and consistent. You were consistent, but not logical.

Panel Descriptions: Some of them were damned useless. Actually, everything that has to deal with a place setting? Useless. None of it is described adequately enough. So most of this is happening in a white void, and I hate white voids. Someone, please explain the questions that need to be answered for an establishing shot. Thank you.

Pacing: Horrible. Absolutely, positively horrible. Why? Because we don’t have one single shred of reasoning for any of the actions. That’s first. Second, some of the pages could be either combined or cut altogether. Third, there isn’t enough dialogue on the page to keep the reader moving through the story while holding their interest. This is an extremely fast read, because there’s no dialogue to slow the reader down some. Dialogue helps anchor the reader to the page for a bit. The art alone isn’t going to do it.

Dialogue: What’s there is horrible, and the second bad thing about it is there isn’t enough of it.

It’s a strange thing when there isn’t enough bad dialogue in a script, but that’s where we are.

First, let’s talk about the bad: in some cases, the dialogue itself makes me want to go out and push old ladies into traffic and piledrive their little dogs, too. Sam says inauthentic , and while I agree, I think it goes much deeper than that. I don’t think you know how people speak. I don’t think you’ve done enough listening.

In order to have conversations with yourself in other characters voices, you need to have a larger sampling of characters to choose from. Tom Cruise is not the world’s greatest actor (he may win a lifetime achievement award when he’s 80, but I don’t think he’ll win one based solely on his acting), but he’s able to do characters when he tries. Jack Reacher may be Ethan Hawk, but his character in Tropic Thunder definitely wasn’t. And that was as different as Days of Thunder, which I hope was as different from Rock of Ages (I didn’t see it), which was different from Born on the 4th of July. All the Right Moves is different from Risky Business. There’s a wide sampling.

You have to have a wider selection of characters in order to come off as authentic. Watch more movies and tv, read more books, go out and actually listen to people as they speak.

Now, on to Kevin.

Do you have any children of that age? Nieces or nephews? Friends who have children that age? My kids were that old, and I have grandkids that are that old, and I have friends who have kids that are as old as Kevin was in the beginning, and I have to tell you: I haven’t met one who really understood English the way you have him using the language in the beginning. He doesn’t sound like a six year old. He sounds like a 10 year old. Maybe a bit younger, but not six.

So your characterization is off.

Next, we have the lack of exposition. Why are we reading this? Most readers are going to stop at P3, because they don’t know what’s going on, or why anything is happening. There are storytelling devices that will allow you to get the information across in an organic way. Think of them, research them, and then implement them. I don’t know if the story is interesting without the necessary information. If only you have it, what’s the point of writing the story?

Let’s say you bought a book entitled Secrets of the Universe: How To Make A Million Dollars in Five Hours. Now you start reading the book, thinking to get some secrets, and you don’t get anything except some vague talk about imagination being powerful, you create your own reality, and if you build it they will come. You’d believe you’ve wasted money, yes? Same thing here. The readers want to get what they paid for. They paid for a story that they can understand. They can’t understand this, because you haven’t given them any information. You didn’t hold up your end of the dialogue deal.

Finally, the only character named in a place where the reader can see it is Kevin. He’s only named once, and after that, nothing. Oops. Excuse me. Kevin’s father is named, but since he doesn’t come into play after P1, it doesn’t matter that much.

However, there are at least four other people named in the panel descriptions and by their dialogue headings. However, none of that information actually made it to a place where the reader can see it. So we have 9 pages of no-name characters. That’s not good, either. The dialogue is supposed to work for you, not against the reader.

Content: It’s watered down crap, which is kind of nasty when you think about it. You actually only have about four pages of actual story here, which means five pages of padding. That’s terrible, and as a reader, I’d call you on it.

I once read an ashcan that was so badly done that I wrote to the creator and told him about it. I told him all the problems I saw, and I offered my editing services. How that turned out was neither here nor there. The point of the story is that if you were to publish this as it is, you would do well to expect nasty-grams from readers. This is the opposite of good.

Editorially, this needs a rewrite. There’s too much wrong here to do anything else besides start again from the beginning. Starting over will let you see what you’ve done wrong, and can hopefully do better in the next draft.

And I do want to see a new draft. Take what was said here, and make a new draft, making it interesting. Or at least learn from these mistakes and make new ones. Making new mistakes is never a bad thing as long as you’ve learned from the old ones.

And that’s it for this week! Check the calendar to see who’s next!

Also, we’re still close to running out of scripts. If you want to have your script critiqued and don’t want to wait, now is the perfect time to do so!

Like what you see? Steve and Sam are available for your editing needs. You can email Steve here, and Sam here. My info is below.

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Category: Columns, The Proving Grounds

About the Author ()

Steven is an editor/writer with such credits as Fallen Justice, the award nominated The Standard, and Bullet Time under his belt, as well as work published by DC Comics. Between he and his wife, there are 10 kids (!), so there is a lot of creativity all around him. Steven is also the editor in chief and co-creator of ComixTribe, whose mission statement is Creators Helping Creators Make Better Comics. If you're looking for editing, contact him at stevedforbes@gmail.com for rate inquiries.

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