Producing a twice weekly comic requires a significant amount of dedication and commitment. Having an organized approach really helps to keep the creative chaos to a minimum. So any tool that helps to provide an organizational foundation for creative work becomes an important ally. In producing BugPudding, I have found a non-traditional use for a creative writing software application called Scrivener . Scrivener is a powerful organizational tool for writers. It’s main usage is as a central point of management for writing long complex documents such as a novel or screenplay. But I use it as a tool to collect and organize all the aspects of creating my comic.
BugPudding as a comic consists of long story arcs that are subdivided into chapters which are further subdivided into individual comic strips. In general, I begin by determining the theme and major plot points of the story. Then I determine logical chapter break points. My normal approach is to have four chapters. I typically try to have somewhere between 12 and 16 comic strips per chapter. So the average BugPudding story is spread out over approximately 30 weeks.
I can view the story organization as a cork board or as an outline.
As you can see above, I have two major sections for a story. The first section is for notes and ideas and actual scripts for each comic. The second section is for copies of the finished comic strips themselves.
This organization in a single location facilitates my work and makes it easy to refer back to previous scripts or strips.
Below is a view of a typical script. It is usually at the script writing level of story planning where I work out the details of the humor for that strip, the gags. The storytelling aspect of the strip comes from the plot points that were subdivided previously into strips.
All the finished strips can be viewed in context of their order of publication on a cork board.
And it is easy to refer back to any finished strip for quick reference when working on later strips.
The logical question you might ask is whether or not all this organization is absolutely necessary? And my answer is “not really” but it sure makes my life easier. I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes view of how BugPudding is created.
8 Comments
Interesting insight into how you keep organized. I don’t really have story arcs so it might not work for me and I usually scribble strip ideas on scraps of paper (see my recent blog entry) so copying everything to a computer would be like twice the work.
I do see the advantage of using Scrivener for a story driven project. I am toying with the idea of a long format comic… hmmm. More to come…
Leroy, Thanks for the comment. Actually, I started out working on an idea for a gag a day style strip more like your Ice Cubes comic before doing BugPudding. I used Scrivener as my development tool mainly because it helps to act as a repository of lots of related but disconnected documents. I had pages of gags, and pages of situations that would support a series of gags, and pages of character ideas, and pages of character names and characteristics etc.
As I said, lots of related thoughts that were not directly connected but all assembled for easy recall and to spur on other creative brainstorming. I use to work on scraps of paper an napkins and I occasionally do when my computer is not handy but in general I felt like that approach caused me to lose ideas or at least lose track of them where a single repository really helped.
If I don’t write ideas down ASAP I lose some of the best thoughts, and if I don’t organize those ideas for easy recall, I tend to misplace them. Out of sight out of mind, so organization for me is essential even for one shot style of cartooning.
So glad i found this post. I had never heard of Scrivener before and i must say that i am quite curious about it after reading your post.
I am not creating comics like you as i am a 3d artist and webmaster at my own hours but i can clearly see some use for that software for creating my 3d sequences. I have looked at the features of the software and the corkboard and mostly the scriptwriting will be of great use. And best of all, it’s a Mac application….gotta love the Mac 🙂
Thanks for a great post, i am downlaoding the free trial and see what i can make of it.
Mark Hunter
Webmaster, DarkSteelReplica.com
Glad to see someone else using Scrivener for comic production. I use it as an overall repository for random ideas. I organize notecards based on how soon I want to do them or how fast the idea will get stale, in the case of current events.
Then once I pick a strip to do, I can use that same entry to write the script and make notes. LOVE Scrivener.
Wow! I’d never heard of Scrivener, but I am intrigued. Will have to look into it a bit more.
GREAT TOOL!!!
I’m glad that readers are enjoying this post and finding the info useful and interesting. Comic production is often tedious and labor intensive, so any tools that help to make the process easier are always welcomed.
Found your site through Bearman. Never heard of Scrivener before but it sounds like a really good tool. Will give it a try see if it can help me with a novel I’ve been writing off and on for a while now