Traits of a good writer?

What are the traits of a good comic script writer?

Hmmmm.... based on my experiences working with writers:

• They respect the artist as the other half of the storytelling duo and know when to hold off adding dialogue or narration and just let the art do the talking. They listen when the artist makes suggestions about panelling, character design or other areas where the artist is probably more experienced, instead of treating the artist like an art monkey who just illustrates their amazing words. Oh and they don't think their name should be the only one on the cover.

• They use clear, consistent formatting for their scripts. Doesn't need to be industry standard, just easy to follow.

• They have studied panel layout and visual storytelling so that even if their drawing isn't the best so they'd probably never be an artist, they don't try to dictate the panelling to the artist while clearly not understanding how panels work. So they don't try to fit things that ought to be 2-3 panels into one like "John enters the room and sighs as he drops his briefcase, noticing the smell from the kitchen," or put a complex establishing shot on a page that has 7+ panels on it.

• They don't put too much text per panel or speech bubble. They understand that a sentence or two is enough, and that more writing doesn't equal better writing.

Very good answer again, especially point number 3.

A good comic script writer has to understand comics, know about storyboarding etc.
and has to empathize with the artist who is reading the script

I’ll just try to mention something I haven’t seen mentioned yet: a daily writing schedule. I read a book a while back that just described the work habits of famous writers and artists and it didn’t surprise me to see that most of them (in all categories of creatives) maintained strict working hours. Even some of the outwardly chaotic and artsy seeming still maintained a very orderly work flow. It was actually kinda rare to find one that was like “I write whenever the muse strikes me.” A lot of em were more like “I write every morning no matter what.”

An article: https://jamesclear.com/daily-routines-writers

The book I read: https://www.masoncurrey.com/daily-rituals

to me a good trait for a writer to have is serving the story. They, the writer, comes second, you don't think about yourself or how people will want to meet you or what people will think of you. You want them to want to meet your characters, to know more about them, to think about them, not you. You're just a sidekick who's along for the ride. You're always thinking: will this turn of events serve the story, will it further it, will it flesh it out more. If I change this will it lessen the impact of what happens to the characters or will is strengthen them. It's all about the story.

For me, what really separates a good writer from a bad writer is the element of respect. These writers respect their readers as human beings and their characters as human beings, too. Good writers are usually straight to the point, too.

I think I have a short list of traits I can think of.

1. Self awareness- the ability to not only understand ourselves in reality but also how our mindsets feelings and experiences control what and how we write.

2. Dedicated- Anyone can be a writer, but you're not an author until you finish an actual book. It's not always easy but we have to push ourselves to work and eventually complete our work.

3. Creativity- so many people think that Creativity is the ability to make anything, but I'd argue Creativity is the ability to make something good while working under restrictions and guidelines. Showing that you can craft a world with rules and keep your characters restricted to those rules while telling a good story is something I feel a lot of people struggle with.

4. Confidence- It's easy to write a story about something controversial like race, sex, politics, so on and so on, but you need Confidence to actually present that story to the world.

5. Self motivation- there is no guarantee that your book will become popular. Yes, you should probably write for an audience, but commit to finishing your projects for you first. You need the strength to put out book after book regardless of whether or not anyone is reading yet.

Good writers:
1.All writers have to learn set-up/pay-off. Everything should either be setting something up or paying something off. Everything else is literally wasted time. Nothing is worst that having plot lines disappear or have a chapter/episode introduce something and it's never mentioned again.
2. Don't have characters for characters sake. If the character doesn't have a purpose for the story, they shouldn't be there. If you have to look for something for a character to do, they really shouldn't be there.
3. Characters should not be an absolute mess of a personality unless you are writing an over the top comedy. Most sitcom characters could never exist in the real world. They have borderline personality disorders that wouldn't allow them to function in society.
4. Dialogue should be short and "punchy". No one really talks in monologues or explains what they are doing while they do it.
5. Understand a panel can only usually have one form of action. "the bad guy punches the good guy while circling him to get behind him and the good guy falls to the ground". That is going to be a mess of a panel.
6. Respect panel space. Whether you have scrolling panel problems (you can't do splash pages well or big landscapes because of dpi limitations) or traditional panel problems (having 9 panels on a page, then having one of those panels have 4 main characters and a villain in it. They will be tiny stick figures).
7. Understand reveal. If you want a surprise, you need to find out what page its on so the read turns to it. Too many artist give away the reveal by having it on the right hand page (traditional comic left to right) where the readers eye has already wondered a glace over to it. This is a basic structure thing.
8. Finally, every episode/issue has to have something happen. The story must move forward. Even if it's setting something up, it has to be there. Filler episodes are lazy writing. Treat your audience's time with respect. They are giving you their attention, make it worth their time doing that.

-A genuine love for how stories work
-Respect for your readers
-Ability to understand people and question your own assumptions

Description of what I mean by the last thing stolen from my own blogpost below

I got a good quote from a comic book script writer. He puts a sentence like this into every script
and I think every comic book script writer should think about this.

"As always, ANYTHING you think could be better, anything you want to tweak, do your way, GO FOR IT.
Take the script as a blueprint and build a rock temple all your own"

I think that this is a great mindset

Oh, oh, I remember! There is something I felt really helped me become a better writer, and that's having a 'loose tongue' (loose pen? loose keyboard? hopefully you get what I'm trying to say XD)

Basically the ability to write down your thoughts, even if you can't find the right words for them. To just get stuff down and be okay with it sounding cringy, or not quite what you envisioned.

I used to have these ideas floating in my head but I couldn't think of the perfect way to describe them, so I thought 'if I don't know what actual words I'd be writing, why bother pulling out a notebook just to stare at it for 10 minutes?' And I'd tell myself my lack of motivation to write down the idea can be used as a selection process; if it was really such a great idea, I'd still be thinking about it days later and eventually muster up the motivation to write it down. If I forget about it, then it wasn't such a great idea to begin with and nothing of value was lost. Basically survival of the fittest, but for ideas XD

But what actually happens is you have a great idea, and days later you remember that you had a great idea, but you forgot what it was! But you remember the idea was definitely great, and oh if only you could remember just what was so great about it, and you regret not writing it down because you just know it was a good idea, even if you wanted to believe you'd only forget things that aren't worth remembering.

This is why people recommend journaling, at least for a little while - to loosen up your inhibitions about putting words down on the page. You don't have to stick with it forever; I dropped it like a hot rock because daily life is boring and I have absolutely no motivation to record it XD But after that period of journaling, there was just this sense of momentum where, whenever I had a thought I felt was interesting, I just feel a force pushing me to get out my laptop and write it down, to the point where sitting still and not writing it down or trying to focus on a different task before I've written it down takes active effort. There's still a bit of inertia; I don't instinctively and immediately reach for the keyboard, but it nags at me strongly enough that more often than not, I eventually do XD Basically it's to get you into the habit of braindumping :]

This might also be why I've never managed to write anything substantial with pen and paper. I need to play fast and loose with my format; to add and delete paragraphs on a whim, to 'comment out' obsolete pieces of script but leave it where it is in the document in case I change my mind about it being obsolete. Being secure in the knowledge that anything I do can be easily undone is huge for me in letting go of inhibitions.

I also find it helpful to not worry too much about grammar, actually. Being comfortable with typing down a grammatically incorrect sentence that nevertheless describes what you're thinking in a way you can understand is essential, because sometimes a certain way of phrasing things captures the spirit of what you're trying to write, but if you prioritise grammar, you might change the sentence structure in a way that fundamentally changes the spirit of the line and then it's lost. It's easier to have a grammatically incorrect line and fix its grammar than to have a line that has lost the spirit of your vision, and later trying to recapture that vision!