Artist wants to make a one shot in a few weeks, how should I prepare?

[ueonts]

I have an artist friend who wants to make a one shot in a few weeks, or wants to see if my writing is at a level good enough to where he would be comfortable partnering. I feel a little unconfident about my writing and was wondering what ya'll think I should do to prepare.

[RedLenai]

If you're trying to use the opportunity to see your own abilities and see if your friend would be interested, here is some input from an artist that collaborates with their writer BF from time to time.

1- Do you have a close relationship to your artist friend? Like, casual and not that you barely talk with each other.
2- Did you ask your artist friend what they consider a one-shot?
3- Did you ask them how they envision it? Amount of panels, genre of the story and so on.
4- Are you sure they are seeking for a writer or are they trying to make a one-shot on their own about what they personally want?
5- Do your interests and your friends interest align enough to have something that'll motivate both of you equally?

Those are questions on the first hand that you may have to ask yourself first and then taint the terrain to see if your friend would be interested in doing with someone or if they want to go solo.
In the hypothetical case that they are seeking to work with someone and they seem to be ok to work with you, then:

1- Based on the info they provided you, you'll have to make a story that fits in the amount of panels/pages they consider a one-shot.
2- As you talk with your friend, you'll write the script, they'll have to revise it so both like what you're making and also that is viable to be drawn afterwards
3- Talking together about character designs and such, keeping ideas equal
4- Provide help when they start drawing, be it help them understand the script with storyboards, keeping dialogue and narration text clean and corrected so they simply have to copypaste it when the lettering phase starts.

If you feel unconfident about your writing, personally I would recommend to not involve another person or take them as a way to challenge yourself. Your friend is not going to be confident for the both of you, and they'll have quite the mayority of the work in their plate. If you feel the expectations and pressure are too much for you, then maybe it'll be ok to say no for now until you polish your abilities until you feel a bit more confident in them

[ueonts]

The idea is that we will touch base and he decides if my writing is good enough to be worthy of making something before we continue. Skill wise I wonder if I should grind out one story or try and make a few short ones?

[RedLenai]

I would recommend preparing the amount your friend is willing to accept from you, but make sure to be able to have 2-3 ideas first before suggesting your friend "Hey... would it be ok if I prepared a few different ideas for the one shot?" because if they expect just 1 offer from you, then having more will make you look a bit like a pushover or a tiny bit desperate.

So test the ground first, keep in mind what kind of stories or genres your friend likes and based on that try to come up with a story that could interest them and that leaves space for them to be able to put input in it.