TPG Week 39: Foreshadowing–Blatant, or Subtle?
Hello, one and all! Welcome again to the Proving Grounds. This week, Brave One Liam Hayes returns with a little story he calls Madgod.
Now, at the beginning of the story, he’s given a short description of the main characters. This is particular to Liam, and I don’t mind it one bit. I would mind it, however, if the descriptions for the main characters were in the panel descriptions themselves.
With that out of the way, let’s see how he does!
PAGE 1 (Five Panels)
PAGE 1, Panel 1
Establishing shot. We open to a shot of a tribal man tied to a thick wooden post. It’s afternoon, but the sky is overcast and moody. The surroundings of flat grassy plains (See this? While the sentence is incomplete, you know exactly what he’s getting at. While I find it somewhat jarring, it isn’t incorrect for the panel description.). Burned into the man forehead is a symbol of a circle. One half is white and the other black (And now we get into things that cannot be drawn. If this is burned into his head, it is very unlikely that it will be colored this way. Burns don’t do that. If it is painted, it isn’t going to have the look of a burn. So, which is it? You can have one or the other, but not both, because of the limits of the medium.). Despite his circumstance, he appears fairly calm.
A large gathering of tribes people surround him. Stood in front of the tied man is the elder. Her arms are up in the air. In one of her hands is a large knife. Nehl and Ama are visible in the crowd. Nehl with one hand on Ama’s shoulder. (As an establishing shot, this is okay. We don’t have a camera angle, but since we can see his face, the camera has to be in front of him. In order to see the tribe surrounding him, we have to be up somewhat. So, it is a high angle looking down. Now, Kyle, here’s the question: where are Nehl and Ama?)
ELDER: WITH BLOOD, LIGHT IS PRESERVED.
ELDER: WITH SACRIFICE, DARKNESS IS DISPELLED.
ELDER: AND WITH DEATH, WE LIVE ON IN HARMONY.
PAGE 1, Panel 2
Side shot of the elder and the tied man. She directs the knife to his throat. Her expression blank (See this right here? I’ve been working with Liam about putting in facial expressions. When he grows more as a writer, he’s going to learn to put this in a full sentence. Right now, I can live with this. Since I didn’t have to tell him to put it in, this is progress!). The tied man remains calm.
ELDER: ANY WORDS BEFORE YOU APPEASE YOUR GOD?
TIED MAN: THIS IS AN HONOUR.
PAGE 1, Panel 3
Close on the knife against the man’s throat.
PAGE 1, Panel 4
Same shot. The knife is slashed across the man’s neck by the elder. Blood sprays from the cut.
PAGE 1, Panel 5
A shot of the elder now facing away from the man, towards the group. The man’s head now hangs down and blood from his neck pours across his body. (I’d like to see some sort of acting from her. Where are her hands? What does her body language say? If it is the ritual killing it looks like, where are her ritual actions?)
ELDER: LET IT BE KNOWN, YOUR LIVES ARE PAYED FOR BY THIS MAN’S BLOOD.
ELDER: HIS SOUL, POWER IN THE HANDS OF SOLUM.
PAGE 2 (Five Panels)
PAGE 2, Panel 1
Cut to a shot of a camp-fire at night, in the centre of a camp-site. A number of animal skin tents surrounding the camp-fire. Make them large and dome shaped, almost like huts. A front flap serving as entrance/exit. Tribes people are sat around the fire. Nehl and Ama are present. Ama sat in Nehl’s lap. The elder sits on one side, smoking an elongated pipe. The others sit opposite her. (This panel is needlessly silent.)
PAGE 2, Panel 2
On the elder. The pipe sticking out of her mouth. She exhales smoke as she talks. (What it’s going to look like is a puff of smoke coming out of her mouth. This isn’t film.)
ELDER: SO THEN… I THINK A GOOD STORY IS IN ORDER. (Comma-fail. And while I’m not crazy about the ellipsis, it fits here, so I’m not going to harp on it.)
ELDER: WHICH WILL IT BE?
PAGE 2, Panel 3
On Ama. A smile across her face. (Again, when Liam grows as a writer, he’ll learn that he can do this in one sentence. Something like On Ama, who is smiling. Two sentences into one, and losing two needless words. And I know that Yannick would do On a smiling Ama, which gives us a single sentence and cuts out three words.)
AMA: TELL THE ONE ABOUT THE TIME YOU WENT TO THE EDGE OF THE DARK EMPTY, AND LOST YOUR EYE TO A MOVING PLANT!
PAGE 2, Panel 4
On the elder. A smile as she exhales smoke.
ELDER: PERHAPS ANOTHER TIME, AMA. (Two pages in, and we have our first name! And it was done organically. Nice!)
ELDER: I THINK… THE CREATION. THE STORY OF WHY WE MUST MAKE SACRIFICES. (Why have her ask the question if she already knew the story she was going to tell? And, this is P2, panel 4. This is a pretty blatant reason for exposition. It kind of reminds me of the show 7th Heaven. I only watched it once or twice, and that show would hit you over the head with its message every time. Anyone else’s head hurt right now?)
ELDER: IT IS JUST, CONSIDERING TODAY.
PAGE 2, Panel 5
On Ama. She looks slightly disappointed. Nehl looks down at her with an amused smile.
AMA (WHISPER): SHE TELLS THAT ONE ALL THE TIME, FATHER.
NEHL (WHISPER): TO REMIND US OF WHY, AMA. (Sounds like a lot of people get killed in this tribe.)
PAGE 3 (Five Panels)
PAGE 3, Panel 1
Cut to a story sequence. I’m thinking a change of art style here. Almost like a crude drawing, or cave painting (Maybe paint it?). We see a large sphere in the centre of the panel. It’s black apart from it’s silver outlining, distinguishing it from the surrounding darkness.
CAPTION (ELDER): “THE WORLD, AS WE KNOW IT, WAS ONCE AN ABYSS. A DARK THING, FULL OF RUIN AND DECAY.”
CAPTION (ELDER): “VICIOUS PLANT-LIFE GREW IN BOUNDS AND EMPTY MALEVOLENT SPIRITS ROAMED FREELY ABOUT THE LANDSCAPE.”
PAGE 3, Panel 2
Same shot. Half of the sphere is now lit with sunlight. Have it pure white, contrasting the darkness. Similar to the symbol burned into the tied man’s forehead. (Rich, what’s my question here?)
CAPTION (ELDER): “BUT THEN OUR GOD, SOLUM, CAME. HE CAST HIS GAZE ACROSS HALF OF OUR WORLD.”
CAPTION (ELDER): “LIGHT AND BEAUTY WERE EXPELLED ACROSS THE LAND.” (I know you wanted grand, but the connotations of the word expelled make this the wrong word to use.)
PAGE 3, Panel 3
A panel of light and darkness on opposing sides. They meet in the middle. The darkness is sprawling at its edge, growing into the light almost in an almost tentacle-esque manner. (This page is visually boring so far. And no matter how you slice it, you’re not going to get most of what you want in this panel. The visual interpretation is going to be that the light is beating the darkness, not that the darkness is growing into the light.)
CAPTION: “BUT THE DARKSIDE, TO THIS DAY, PUSHES IT’S BOUNDIRES. IT FIGHTS FOR DOMINANCE.” (See that apostrophe? It isn’t supposed to be there. The possessive of it is its. The apostrophe in this case is for the contraction of it is or it has. Do I care about it in the panel descriptions? Not at all. But this is where the reader is going to see it, and as such, needs to be addressed.)
PAGE 3, Panel 4
A shot of the elder, holding a stone bowl of blood up to the sky. Angle the camera down onto her from a height. (It’s either magically delicious, or I’m in a white void. Neither is good. Yannick, explain why I’ve said this.)
CAPTION: “AND SO WE SPILL OF OUR BLOOD, AND GIVE OF OUR SOULS TO SOLUM. THAT WHICH GIVES US LIFE, GIVES HIM POWER AND THE MEANS TO PROTECT OUR LANDS FROM THE DARKNESS.” (At least Christianity has a basis of reason for their cannibalism. It’s right there in the Bible. What is the basis here? It’s like saying night will never come as long as we sacrifice our blood. We all know that’s not true, and there is no basis for that line of thought. If Solum were able to beat the darkness before people came, he should be strong enough now without the sacrifices. Either that, or give them a reason for being.)
PAGE 3, CONTINUED
PAGE 3, Panel 5
A shot of the circle, half white and half black, on a man’s forehead. The man stood in a void of darkness. His eyes just making it on-panel at the bottom.
CAPTION: “SOLUM CHOOSES WISELY. THOSE WHO POSSES THE MOST POTENT AND PURE SOULS ARE SELECTED.
CAPTION: THE SELECTED BARE THE MARK.” (The word you want is bear , spelled like the animal, and not bare as in naked. Anyone see that foreshadowing? How much you want to bet either Nehl or Ama is next in line?)
PAGE 4 (Six Panels)
PAGE 4, Panel 1
Cut to the inside of one of the tents. Nehl tucking Ama into her bed. The beds are wooden and have patched up animal skin quilts. A small fire in the centre of the tent lights the room. Nehl sits upon the side of the bed looking down at Ama. Ama’s expression of consideration. Nehl’s blank. There’s another bed in the tent, on the opposing side to Ama’s.
AMA: FATHER…
NEHL: MMM?
AMA: WHAT IS THE AFTERLIFE LIKE? WHEN WE GO TO SOLUM?
PAGE 4, Panel 2
On Nehl. Face shot. He’s looking down at Ama. His expression of slight surprise.
NEHL: WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?
PAGE 4, Panel 3
On Ama. He expression of thought. She looks up at Nehl.
AMA: BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE MOTHER IS, ISN’T IT?
PAGE 4, Panel 4
Back on Nehl. He looks down in sadness and regret.
PAGE 4, Panel 5
Side shot of Ama and Nehl. Nehl still saddened. Ama smiles at him.
AMA: AND I WANT TO KNOW IF IT’S NICE ENOUGH FOR HER.
PAGE 4, Panel 6
On Nehl. A large smile presents itself across his face.
PAGE 5 (Five Panels)
PAGE 5, Panel 1
On Ama. A small smile of reassurance.
NEHL (OFF-PANEL): I’M SURE IT’S LOVELY.
PAGE 5, Panel 2
Side shot. Ama head is now turned to the side. Her eyes closed. Nehl, now stood, bends down at kisses her on the cheek.
NEHL: NOW IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO SLEEP. (I’d like a small sound effect here, to give a small emphasis on the kiss.)
PAGE 5, Panel 3
Establishing shot of Ama and Nehl’s tent. Night.
PAGE 5, Panel 4
Same shot. Early Morning. (I’d rather have three panels for this. It will help smooth the progression of time. Two panels will do it, but you have the space on the page for another panel here without messing up the pacing.)
PAGE 5, Panel 5
Close on Nehl as he’s sat up and yawning on the bed opposite Ama’s. His eyes are slanted in the direction of Ama’s bed (off-panel). (Since the foreshadowing wasn’t for Nehl, it’s for Ama.)
NEHL: AARGHH… (That sounds like he’s in pain. It doesn’t look like he’s in pain. I’d replace that sound with -yawn- because then, everyone knows what you’re talking about, and they’ll be able to fill their head with their own yawn sound.)
PAGE 6 (Three Panels)
PAGE 6, Panel 1
A shot of Nehl bending down and tapping Ama on the shoulder. Ama lays on her side with her hair covering her forehead. (I’m guessing her back is away from us, meaning she just needs to move her hair for us to see what’s been blatantly foreshadowed.)
NEHL: AMA.
NEHL: WAKE UP. (I’d rather have this in a single balloon. Either that, or have him call her name twice. That seems more natural to me.)
PAGE 6, Panel 2
Close on Nehl. He looks look down at Ama (off-panel). (Hm. This panel could be incorrect, depending on how the artist interprets it. Jon Rector, you around? How would you lay this particular page out?)
NEHL: IT’S MORNING.
AMA (OFF-PANEL): HMMM?
NEHL: WE CAN GET TO THE RIVER BEFORE THE OTHERS, AND–
PAGE 6, Panel 3
Big Panel. A shot of Nehl recoiling from Ama. His expression of wide eyed shock. Ama is now sat up in the bed. Angle the camera over the top of her head. Her face obscured. (Did you mean to say that the camera is behind her?)
AMA: WHAT?
AMA: WHAT’S WRONG, FATHER? (Have him say something in this panel, too.)
PAGE 7 (One Panel)
PAGE 7, Panel 1
Whole page panel. A shot of Ama from Nehl’s perspective. Ama is sat up in the bed, looking up at us. We now see that she has the sacrificial mark – The half white, half black circle – burnt into her forehead. Her expression of confusion. (And there it is. The revelation of the foreshadowing. Anyway, this would have been better on an even-numbered page. This way, you have the confirmation of what everyone knows on its own page, with the break of having to physically turn the page instead of just moving your eyes over. You lost some power that way.)
AMA: WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?
And that’s the end.
Let’s run it down, shall we?
Format: Flawless victory.
Panel Descriptions: Not bad. You still have to know your medium. Knowing what can and cannot be drawn can be tricky. Sometimes it depends on the strength of your artist, and sometimes, it just cannot be done. Learning the difference takes time.
Pacing: Off by just a little bit! Again, I’d move the splash page to an even-numbered page to preserve the power, and add a panel to smooth the passage of time.
Dialogue: Not bad. Not subtle in some places, but not bad. I liked how you worked in Ama’s name. For right now, Nehl doesn’t need to be named, because he is obviously her father, and the elder doesn’t need to be named, because she is obviously a leader of the tribe. The only person of real importance is Ama, because she’s the one who bears the mark, and she’s the only one who doesn’t have an easily determined role, such as father or leader.
Content: As a reader, I get a small Stephen King vibe. He loves doing terrible things to children, and I’m getting that here.
Now, I didn’t much like what I felt to be blatant foreshadowing. I thought it was very unsubtle. Sure, you can be unsubtle when you have a villain doing their thing, but when you don’t have an obvious villain, then you have to be more crafty. From what we have here, I can extrapolate what I think will happen next:
Nehl doesn’t want his daughter to be killed, so he takes her and runs. He’s hunted by his tribe, and possibly other tribes around them, because they know of the mark. Things start to happen in the world around them, because she doesn’t die within a specified timeframe. Probably the god was sleeping and is now awake or waking, and will destroy the world, because everything they believed about Solum is wrong. She dies in the end, putting the world right.
Editorially, this would need some guidance. Besides making sure the correct words are used, I’d see if I could make it more interesting. While this is the story that Liam wants to tell, unless he tells me something spectacular, it’s not something I think readers will come to. They may come for the art, but they won’t stay for the story.
It sounds like a fantasy novel turned into graphic novel. Depending on what the story really is, it might be something better told in prose.
And that’s almost it.
If you check the calendar, you can see that I’m running low on scripts again. Well, here’s some incentive for you:
Jonathan Rector, artist of the award-nominated The Standard, will be starting up a new column soon called Thumbprints. What he will do is take a page or two of script and thumbnail it out. Where getting the scripts?
From The Proving Grounds.
So, he will do a page or two straight (what the writer asks for), and then he will do it after any corrections by me. You’ll get to see his choices, and he’ll talk about why he made them.
Thumbnailing is an important step of the process, and it should help a lot of you visualize how your comic could look.
Want to get your script thumbnailed? Send that script in!
Now, that’s really it! Check the calendar to see who’s next!
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Category: The Proving Grounds
Thanks for the edit, Steven!
“Nehl doesn’t want his daughter to be killed, so he takes her and runs. He’s hunted by his tribe, and possibly other tribes around them, because they know of the mark. Things start to happen in the world around them, because she doesn’t die within a specified timeframe. Probably the god was sleeping and is now awake or waking, and will destroy the world, because everything they believed about Solum is wrong. She dies in the end, putting the world right.”
Wrong! (See that? That was a counter-edit.)
Well, okay… Half right.
The story of Solum preserving the light and combating the darkness is backwards. The tribe already existed in this world, as did the light. Solum arrives and begins using the tribe’s souls as power to feed a machine which absorbs all the energy from the earth for himself.
He essentially, creates the darkness. There’s a lot of role reversal in which the reader is never quite sure who’s the villain until the end.
Soon, I’ll be sending this your way for a full edit! 🙂
Cheers
Liam
Uhmmm… wasn’t it supposed to be Evan this week? I’m confoozled.
I was gonna say! I don’t remember writing this!
Am I next week now? I’m fine with whatever, just curious what’s up.
Then that would mean that I’d be pushed back as well?
Still confusionated!
My mistake, all.
Evan, I apologize. Yannick is right in that you should be up this week.
And you will be.
I’ll be running you tomorrow.
There will NOT be a skip week.
In place of Liam’s week, I can do one of two things: I can either push everyone up a week, or I can let one of you edit a script of mine.
Those are the choices. And instead of hijacking this any further, please let me know in an email. TPG@comixtribe.com. And if you choose to see a script of mine up here, also let me know whom you’d like to see edit it. I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks what you all decided on.
Sorry about the confusion, everyone, and thanks for your patience.
First of all, Steven, I think it’s really cool what you did there, acknowledging Liam’s progress since his last script. We have a sizable group of regulars here, most of us are going to have our turn under the hatchet more than once so it’s a very useful measure of our learning if you keep tabs on where we come from since the last time. So thanks. 🙂
Now on to business
A shot of the elder, holding a stone bowl of blood up to the sky. Angle the camera down onto her from a height. (It’s either magically delicious, or I’m in a white void. Neither is good. Yannick, explain why I’ve said this.)
The establishing shot of your story inside the story is that of the Void before the World. If you want to get down to how humans fit in all this, you’ll need a new establishing shot. Otherwise, the artist is going to assume the elder is either floating in space or that there’s something you forgot to tell him in a previous panel.
There’s no smooth transition between events on a cosmological scale and events on a human scale. That’s another reason the sudden appearance of the elder in the story seems so magically delicious . One panel you’re in space looking down on the forces of light and darkness duking it out for the sake of the world, and the next it’s Granny the Ripper with her delicious bowl of Bloody-Os.
Adding to the problem is the fact that we have the character telling the story appearing inside the story. The fact that the copy appears as a caption is the only indication for the artist that we’re still in story mode. Read it fast and it’s almost as if the elder brought the bowl of blood for a surprise show and tell at the campfire. Either that or she always has a bowl of blood with her at all times in case she has to tell that story and that’s just weird. Creepy weird.
My suggestion? Redo your whole layout and make it a splash page. This eliminates the problem of suddenly introducing humans between two panels.
Here are two possibilities for your splash page:
1. The splash page shows a painting on an animal hide. Have the elder roll it out on the ground at the end of page 2. This way, you can show her hands pointing at the drawings so you can change all the captions into speech bubbles as she’s not off panel anymore.
2. The splash page shows the story through constellations and celestial bodies in the sky over the campfire. Once again, you keep your elder on the page.
Hey, Yannick.
I keep and eye on the progress of all of you when it comes to scripting. It’s part of what I do.
I’m happy about the regulars who post and submit, but I have to say that I’m greedy. I WANT MORE!
This column literally lives and dies by your participation. I can’t do it all by myself.
I NEED MORE SCRIPTS!
Hopefully, I should be getting more soon.
And thanks for the comments here. As always, they’re well thought out and much appreciated.
Concrete edit: Page 1, Panel 5 – PAID not PAYED.
Abstract edit: I agree with Steven, the foreshadowing is too blatant for the reveal, but I think you have the additional problem of taking too long to get there. The fact that she got marked isn’t interesting in itself, it’s what happens next that will be interesting.
So what would I cut to get to the reveal faster? The “let me tell you a story” bit. While “let me tell you a story” isn’t intrinsically wrong, and you did it better than most, its a bit lazy of a way to deliver backstory. Especially since Ama already knows this information, in this instance the storyteller is talking directly to the reader.
Since Ama is already asking questions about her mother, it seems like this could be re-written so that she is asking some questions and learning this information for the first time, conversationally. Ama’s lack of knowledge of the backstory makes her the eyes of the reader, and it will feel much more natural.
By doing it in conversation, you should be able to make the foreshadowing much less overt, less narrate-y, and get through it in fewer pages, getting to the meat of your story quicker.
Praise: I LOVED page one. First page and somebody dies, and you managed to do it in a way that felt natural and exciting. I was hooked! Now if you can get to the action a little quicker and keep that excitement throughout the book, I think you’ll find an audience for this.
Wow! Thanks a lot for your thoughts, gents! It’s appreciated.
Thanks, Evan!
And you’re right, the explanation of the backstory was lazy. This is something that Liam is going to grow out of, though, either by hook or by crook. I have faith in him.
Same shot. Half of the sphere is now lit with sunlight. Have it pure white, contrasting the darkness. Similar to the symbol burned into the tied man’s forehead. (Rich, what’s my question here?)
If it’s a drawing on a wall, it can’t change; ergo, this must be a different drawing; so how can it be the same shot?
See? Why do I even need to do this? You guys don’t need me.
Thanks, Rich!