Chapter Two Writing Process: New Strategy

I'm in the middle of writing Chapter Two. Here's how things have gone so far and how I'm planning to proceed.

1) POST-ITS. You've seen these before. They serve two purposes: they let me keep a simple birds-eye view of the whole storyline, and this space serves to let me add in new ideas when they occur to me. I have an absolute mess of them for Chapter Two; there are a lot of fun ideas in there, but they're all disordered. So…

2) SENSE-MAKING. I take the post-its for Chapter Two, and I transcribe them. While doing so, I am condensing redundant notes and filling in placeholders and that sort of thing. I'm starring ideas that I definitely want to keep and/or elaborate upon. Sometimes I cross out ideas if they don't fit.

3) ORDERING. I put the disordered ideas into order. This is the first step that (to me) involves "writing-writing." I'm jotting down imagery ideas, I'm writing dialogue, I'm doing "but…therefore…", I'm noting motivations and causes and effects. And I'm writing a song (more on that below).

4) EXPANDING. This is the new bit! I'm starting this step this afternoon. I've never tried it before. My "Ordering" writing is on 8x11 sheets of paper. I'm going to transcribe exactly what I have on each 8x11 sheet onto a new 11x17 sheet, which will leave me lots of margin room. Then I'll use that margin room to expand on what I've written so far. The goal is to allow room to try stupider/funnier/contradictory/more powerful approaches to the same story beat. I can explore some gags, play with dialogue, try different options for the way scenes go. That's the idea, at least. I think that will give me something that will let me start thumbnails with confidence, but still leave looseness and options. 

5) DOUBLE-CHECKING (not pictured). I gotta remember to check that writing against my post-it notes for the rest of the storyline, just to see if I'm putting myself in any sort of trouble, or to see if I can spot any almost-missed opportunities. 

EDIT: All of this is in service of understanding what I have. One of my weaknesses is that I am prone to focusing on details at the expense of the greater scope of the project. By iterating on the writing process like this, I hope to build in my mind a little sandcastle that represents the total shape of the story (or chapter, in this case), before some detail sweeps in like the tide to wash it away. The better I can see that sandcastle, and the more angles I can see it from, the better off I am. If I know I have all the sandcastle's windows in the right place, I can more confidently noodle away on the decorative trim around those windows.

Decorative trim like, say, a musical sequence…

NOTES ON WRITING A "WANT SONG."

A "Want Song" is the song in every stage musical or Disney princess movie where the protagonist says explicitly, exactly what they want. I'm writing one for Alexandra, because I think it will be fun. And funny. And I want to know how difficult it will be.

Dear Reader, it is very difficult. (Surprise!) I have spent a disproportionate amount of my writing time on it. Everything else has gone by smoothly, quickly, and satisfyingly. This song has been arduous, slow, and I'm not sure it's any good. Here, then, are some things I learned which I could probably have picked up if I had cared to ask any knowledgeable professional but alas I am cursed by my character to just jump in blindly:

• YOU GET TO SAY EXACTLY WHAT THE CHARACTERS MEAN (YOU HAVE TO). I hate having my characters ever speak straight at you. It seems so artificial, and it never pleases my ear. (It makes me think that one sign of an exceptional writer would be the ability to write directly and make it sound natural.) In a Want Song, the singer doesn't beat around the bush or speak sideways or joke or try to be clever. They are being dreadfully forthright with the audience.

• SO MANY DEAD ENDS. I spent a lot of time chasing an idea for a line or a rhyme, only to come up with nothing. E.G., I couldn't find a satisfying rhyme for "lady," at least not in the context I needed one. Then you have to start back at the top of the section and see if you can rephrase the idea in a way that fits the metre or rhyme.

• MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT. When you see video of songwriters writing songs, they're always sitting at a piano, hashing things out. I am not, because what's the point? It's a comic. Unless we do something weird, there won't actually be any music for the reader. I end up wondering: does that make it easier or harder? I look at the lyrics for big huge hit Want Songs and I am surprised at their simplicity. In text, these songs don't look like much. They have only a fraction of the appeal that I find in the music. I can imagine myself writing next to a piano, with the tune simultaneously doing a lot of heavy lifting and providing a constraint that I need to write to. But I don't have that. So…

• SINCE THERE'S NO MUSIC, HOW DO I ADAPT? I can't emphasize enough how much a good song depends on its music. It's almost a crime to separate the lyrics. Which means that technically, I don't think my song-in-a-comic will look like lyrics to a song. Popular songs are beautiful, but on paper, they can feel disjointed; do I aim for something that looks more like poetry? How to I make this comic-book Want Song pleasing to read? Reading a repeated chorus is not as satisfying as hearing it sung, so do I avoid that? Popular songs play fast and loose with metre, but strong, disciplined metre contributes a lot of the appeal of reading poetry, I think. Slant rhymes work better in voice than they do on paper; can I get away with them? :)

• THEY'RE SHORT. Mine is too long. It's, like, the length of five songs. But then, it's not a song (even though it is a song). Should I boil it down? Do I need to, since again there's no music?

• THE MUSIC DOES SO MUCH OF THE WORK. So much.

Writing continues! I look forward to showing you how this sequence (and the rest of Chapter Two) comes together—I think it's going to be a treat to read. Eventually.