Story of a Small Publisher

Last Updated: 5-28-06

Have you ever read a book that seemed to plod on and on, with a plot that built so slowly that you lost interest before the end? How about a book that started fast and never let up, almost overwhelming you with its relentless pace and action that happened too rapidly to soak up and savor? Or what about a book that had one or two great action scenes, but required you to wade through chapter after chapter of meticulous detail before you got to the good stuff?

All three books are affected by problems with pacing, one of the most difficult aspects of storytelling. A well-paced story feels like a roller coaster, taking its audience through highs and lows as it builds towards the final climax and the big finish. But finding the right pace is also a writer’s biggest obstacle, and many good stories have been ruined because the writer has chosen the wrong pace to tell the story.

A large part of the problem is that writers are often more interested in writing and creating than they are in finding the right way to tell their story. Unfortunately, comic books are a commercial endeavor, and they require the writer to consider his or her audience in the process. As a result, comic book writing requires something of a formula approach to deliver the sort of story that readers are looking for, or else the writer risks losing his or her audience by the end of the first issue.

Many writers are against the idea of a writing “formula” because they have associated the word in their mind with “soulless” or “manufactured,” as if to imply that anything written by formula is shallow and uninspired. In reality, however, formulas are quite important in writing, and, up until the last two centuries, almost all writing followed the formats of the day. Good writing is not restricted by format; it is only held back by a lack of skill and imagination.

There are three types of comic book stories that can be told:

• An ONGOING story (a serialized adventure that stretches on with no certain conclusion)
• A MINISERIES (a brief story between one to twelve issues that is generally focused on a single conflict and resolution)
• A MAXISERIES (a long story that involves a large number of issues, but that is written with the intention of bringing things to conclusion at some predefined point, such as a certain issue number or a specific conflict resolution.)

While all of these types of story share a basic structure, each needs to be told differently to best succeed with its readers.

- An ONGOING story is generally told in small chunks that advance some sort of continuity while focusing on short-term conflicts. This is the traditional style for comic book writing; it was the primary structure used by Golden and Silver Age writers, and it is still used widely in modern comics!

The structure of an issue of an ongoing story is generally quite simple: it begins with a setup, takes its protagonist through a minor conflict, and concludes with a resolution. Thus anyone reading an ongoing story can begin at any point in the continuity and, with a basic understanding of the characters, be able to enjoy what they’re reading.

The positive side of ongoing stories is that when they are successful, they can continue on as long as there are people willing to read them. Spider-Man, Superman, the X-Men and Batman have all had incredibly long runs as ongoing stories, and they will likely continue far into the future. Many others, like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, have had successful ongoing series that, while suffering interruptions from time to time, still continue to surface on the comic book shelves on a regular basis. And a handful, like Spawn and Doom Patrol, have continued on simply due to the fact that they have a small, but dedicated, base of readers.

But ongoing stories also have a major flaw - because they are so open ended, readers often get tired of them and move on to other books. When a story has no conclusion in sight, the reader loses much of his or her incentive to continue reading - after all, ever the biggest Spider-fan can only watch so much of their friendly neighborhood webslinger in action before the story becomes, well, boring.

- A MINISERIES is a story told across a small number of issues (generally one to six, but it can be as many as twelve) that has a definite beginning, middle, and end. A miniseries can be a standalone story or part of an ongoing story or some other larger continuity. And, because miniseries are often reprinted into graphic novels that attract the interest of readers, some stories are even written as a series of miniseries!

But all miniseries share one thing in common: they follow a structure that is very similar to that of a screenplay ("three act structure") where the larger story is concerned while breaking individual issues down into a format that begins with a hook and ends with a cliffhanger while developing the story in between as each issue progresses. A good miniseries offers its initial hook and sets up its conflict right away, and then uses subsequent issues to develop the conflict until the final, satisfying conclusion of the final chapter.

And this is the greatest strength of the miniseries - since the reader is aware that the story will wrap up in a short amount of time, the writer is able to use twists and turns to heavy dramatic effect, resulting in a fun and engaging story that can tie elements of the plot together without fear of losing readers who missed a few chapters along the way - a very common obstacle faced by writers of maxiseries and ongoing series.

The drawback, however, is that the format of a miniseries is fairly rigid, and for its story to remain effective, the writer is generally forced to stick to a style that can become predictable. To make matters worse, many writers who attempt to defy convention and tell their miniseries in a unique fashion wind up creating stories that are unevenly paced and difficult to read. (I know this only too well, since I accomplished this with one of my first miniseries, Sixgun Samurai - a story that had all of its backstory at the beginning and all of its action at the end, long after many readers had already lost interest.)

Still, the miniseries is a powerful format that can tell an excellent story in a small number of issues while keeping readers absolutely hooked. As the market for graphic novels grows, it will likely become a predominant format for books that are seeking an audience, since a miniseries can always be continued into an ongoing series or a maxiseries if interest is high enough.

- The MAXISERIES is a story told across a large number of issues (generally anywhere between twelve to one hundred!) while still offering a beginning, middle and end. The chief difference between a miniseries and a maxiseries tends to be the number of conflicts, protagonists and antagonists; while a miniseries tends to stay focused on one conflict and one set of characters, a maxiseries often involves multiple main characters with a variety of goals to achieve before the conclusion of the story.

The structure of a maxiseries generally begins like a miniseries, starting with a hook and drawing the reader into the initial conflict. But maxiseries generally move slowly towards resolving that conflict, instead using the situation to introduce other characters who have other conflicts to resolve before the story can be completed. Thus a maxiseries can take on the serial format of a series of miniseries (resolving each conflict one after another until the characters are ready to reach their final resolution) or it can follow the episodic format of an ongoing series (resolving a minor conflict in every issue while slowly moving closer to the final resolution). Many writers, in fact, employ both formats for different points of their stories.

Thus the maxiseries has a wonderful strength - it is flexible enough to tell whatever story the writer would like to tell in whatever length of time he or she would like to tell it while still promising a final conclusion down the road. The format is so strong, in fact, that it is rapidly replacing ongoing series as the chief style in writing comic books.

But the format also has a major weakness - if a maxiseries lacks strong characters and a good sense of storytelling, it will have a difficult time attracting devoted readers, which often means that the story will never reach its conclusion. And while an unpopular miniseries might still be reprinted into graphic novel format to help the publisher recoup its losses and give the book a second chance to find an audience, a failed maxiseries rarely gets an opportunity for resurrection.

And with those three formats in mind… how can a writer decide which is right for his or her story?

My first suggestion is to go with your gut. If a story idea seems like a miniseries, write it as a miniseries. If you feel it would be better off as an episodic ongoing adventure, then create it that way. Craft your story to fit your vision - don’t try to fit it into someone else’s mold just because they mean well or think they know better.

But by that same token, once you’ve planned your story out, be sure to run it by some friends or an editor whose advice you trust before you get too involved in your writing. Your ongoing story about life in a Siberian Gulag might be fascinating to you, but it might be worthwhile to see if anyone who might potentially read your book would be willing to keep doing so for more than a few issues. Some ideas, though interesting to their authors, are simply not appealing to a mass audience for the long term, no matter how well they’re written.

My second suggestion is to consider starting with a miniseries since it acts as such a nice springboard into a maxiseries or an ongoing series. A miniseries can establish a conflict and end with an indefinite resolution, leaving plenty of room for a continuing story if an audience demands it. There is also a practical purpose to this piece of advice: since the comic book industry has always been rooted as much in the who of a book as the what, a writer can ruin his or her career quite quickly by starting an ambitious project, getting people excited about it, and failing to deliver in the end because of all the annoying little things that crop up when one is trying to publish a book.

With a miniseries, this isn’t a problem - even if sales are low, a writer can finish the book and save face by reprinting the book as a graphic novel. But a writer should never commit to an ongoing series or a maxiseries without a solid plan and abundant funding – I know more than a few writers who have lost all credibility with comic book retailers because they promised the moon and delivered a stinking, half-eaten piece of moldy cheese instead.

My third suggestion is to pace your story so that something is always happening. Don’t get bogged down in clunky dialogue or pointless backstory - write your scripts as I have suggested in previous chapters, focusing on the major and minor action of every page. If you’re writing a maxiseries, make sure you introduce plenty of conflict so that the characters are always struggling against something; don’t give them downtime to get boring to a reader or the reader will move on to another series. Conversely, if you’re writing a miniseries, don’t cram a lot of story into a small number of issues; keep things tight and focused, never allowing your characters to utter an unneeded line or commit a wasteful action unless there’s a good reason to do so.

And if you discover midway through writing that you’ve picked the wrong format… change it as early as possible! Don’t let your format ruin the pace of your story - it’s a tool, not a rule.

My fourth suggestion is to keep your story fresh and dramatic. No matter what the current trend is in comic book writing, don’t imitate what others are doing; write the story you set out to tell with the style you’ve developed, constantly striving to make each issue better than the last. If you feel things are getting predictable, write in something that surprises even you. If you realize your story is losing its dramatic impact, focus on developing your characters through hardship and conflict. But don’t stick with the status quo because you’re afraid to challenge yourself.

My final suggestion is to keep away from tangents as much as possible, particularly in a maxiseries. Why do I say this? To put it simply, readers hate them, and while they can be entertaining to a writer who is tired of his or her characters, they generally cause the story to drag on for readers who simply want to see the final resolution of the conflict that began the story in the first place. If you must follow a tangent, write it as a sidestory that stands on its own; don’t make your readers suffer just because you’re getting bored.

And with all that said… congratulations for finishing the COMIC BOOK WRITER’S GUIDE! I hope this has been helpful to you, and I look forward to reading your work in the future.