Amateur Hour Part 1: Great(ly unrealistic) Expectations

In my inaugural post, I promised to share tips, tricks, and lessons from my indie comics journey. I offer these, not as a pro, but as a novice learning the craft as I go, and as someone who shit several beds along the way, I share them in the hopes that you (another writer getting started) spend less time cleaning up unnecessary messes and more time writing. Those of you reading this who are pros, please feel free to weigh in with tips of your own, and correct me if I go astray :)

This first post -- in a series of embarrassingly honest posts about my own shortcomings -- deals with expectations. Specifically, the importance of setting realistic expectations. And that involves being realistic about your current abilities and knowledge-base when it comes to sequential visual storytelling. Sure, I'd read and loved comics my whole life (as have you, I'm sure), and I'd written plays and screenplays with scenes and dialogue and narration (all of which, comics have). But reading comics, while a necessary first step in the journey, is not the same animal as writing comics. And plays and screenplays are not comic scripts.

There are many differences between the media, but to illustrate just one: movies have shots in which characters can do and say multiple things; comic panels (the shots of comic writing) do not work that way. Each panel is like a good photo -- frozen, yet in motion. A character can not open the door, take off her shoes, and then notice the mess her dog left on the stairs all in one panel. That's at least three panels right there, bub. All that to say, I eventually learned that lesson the hard way and had to recalibrate my expectations based on a very real (and very steep) learning curve. And that is just one example of what I mean by being realistic about your knowledge-base when it comes to comics.

Because what you know (and don't know) also has a huge impact on your current abilities as a writer in that medium, which really shows when you share your work with a wider audience and don't get the full-throated celebration of your genius that your expectations promised.

As a newly reborn writer (I had taken a 20-year hiatus due to a full-time teaching job and a crisis in confidence) I came in hot -- high on my own supply of writing endorphins and the seemingly godlike power of creation I had rediscovered -- and completely uninformed about everything else. I had a script I loved, something new and exciting, and I just knew everyone would be dying to read it and also love it as much as I did. All parents think their baby is beautiful (at least I hope they do); surely everyone would love to hold my beautiful brand new baby script!

They didn't.

And they shouldn't have. My script-baby was not, by any standard of beauty, a looker. Neither was it a baby, by any standard of babies.

Poe would say my script-baby was a bit...uncanny? It resembled a script, but wasn't exactly a script. It was closer to a baby than a script, actually, in that it was messy everywhere (even in places it shouldn’t be). It was familiar, yet unfamiliar -- in all the wrong ways.

For example, script-baby was ungainly -- 44 pages of content for issue 1, a 57-page script. Since most comics clock in around 22 pages (or 24 pages with ads), I was already off to a great start proving I that was clueless about the realities of the medium. Did I let that daunt me? No, Ma'am. Issue 2 was 60 pages, a 69-page script.

New writers of comics, lean in for a second. Here's another one of those lessons I learned:

No one wants to read a 69-page script.

Not your family and friends (although they did; thanks, guys!) and certainly not the comics professional you're talking to at a convention, hoping for some advice or direction. I know this last one for a fact. A writer on the convention circuit was kind enough to offer to read a 5-page sample of script-baby. I sent him the whole damn baby because "I just couldn't decide which five pages were best." It's OK to cringe here. I do. It was a huge gesture of disrespect on my part, and it doesn't matter that it was unintentional, carried away by the excitement of it all as I was. Here was a busy, working professional in the comics industry who offered to give up some of his precious working time to do me a solid, and I dropped an hours-long reading assignment in his inbox. I never heard back from the writer, and I don't blame him. As a result, I let my unrealistic expectations -- KISS MY BEAUTIFUL BABY!!! -- sabotage a potential connection and valuable, much needed feedback.

New writers, again, lean in my friends: I was an asshole. Don't be an asshole. Assholes burn bridges before they ever cross them. You'll need bridges in the comics business -- it's a collaborative art! Be kind to those who offer you kindness.

That starts with being kind to yourself by setting yourself up for success by establishing realistic expectations based on where you are in your journey at this moment, not where you want to be. You'll get there, eventually. Probably even sooner than me. And with realistic expectations starting out, the folks you meet along the way will be more likely to lend a hand. And you won't bite it accidentally when they do.

Go be awesome (realistically).

What are some things you've learned about expectation setting in your own journey? Share away in the comments section!