So today on our Making Manga series we will talk about Script Writing and using a Script to help you plan your manga.

Working with comic book artists if you are a writer they want you to use a script. Most of them if you have a short story or novel do not actually read the book. Maybe you get lucky and they do. I know there are some writers who have had that luck with their artist but mostly it is script or screenplay based.

When I work with scripts to create manga or graphic novels I do it in sections. I provide a section on Characters and a short visual description of them. Since I have artwork I have done for most of the main characters of grydscaen it is easy to visualize everyone. Also in the script there is a section on Locations so that we can map out where the action in that chapter takes place. After that is a Chapter Summary which gives a two to three paragraph summary of the entire chapter. I write that like a screen play with capitalization of the names for the first time the character shows up. Finally in the script there is the actual Dialogue with the scene blocking which I call the Script. I will give an example below.

Here is a Character Description for Sati Ima

• Sati Ima – A 19 year old mobile frame pilot with short brown hair and light skin. He is rebellious and a genius pilot. His mouth gets him in trouble, but his flight ability and his brilliance in maneuvering keeps him out of detention. Japanese. Red and black flight suit with two white stripes down the front.

Here is a part of a scene from the Script for “grydscaen – Sati Ima chapter”

• INTERIOR – HANGAR. THERE ARE A SET OF DESKS AT THE FRONT OF THE HANGAR AND LOCKERS AT THE BACK. THERE ARE CADETS HANGING AROUND WAITING FOR THEIR FLIGHT CLASS. SATI IS STANDING AT NATHANEAL’S DESK AND NATHANEAL IS SITTING IN THE SEAT. THE INSTRUCTOR IS NOT YET THERE.
• NATHANEAL: You ready for today?
• SATI: As ready as I will ever be. I think we are half way through flight school now.
• NATHANEAL: Yes, we are almost there.
• CAMERA ANGLE: CAPTAIN CUNNINGHAM COMES INTO THE HANGAR AND THE CAMERA PANS RIGHT TO SHOW CAPTAIN SULLIVAN AT THE MONITOR BOARD…

This is just an example of the Script which will be used for a comic book version of the “Sati Ima” story for grydscaen: beginnings. I have not illustrated it yet because it requires mobile frames and aircraft and I am unsure if I can actually pull that off. But since I wrote the script anyway I might try it one day. I have in the past illustrated a 100 frame storyboard of an air combat scene for an animatic story called “Takuya F-14” so if I just do the aircraft and leave out the mobile frames in robot mode I may be able to do it. We can only try. I have the character design for Sati because he appears on the cover of grydscaen: insurrection and I have another drawing of Nathaneal who is another pilot in the story. I would need to draw Cunningham and Sullivan who are the instructors and do a character sheet for them.

I was lucky enough to have the entire short story written and published so it was rather simple to adapt it into a script for the manga. Once you have the dialogue down and shortened since the dialogue from a short story usually ends up running long you are ready to start blocking the story. You can use a “Name” to do this which we have talked about before which is a rough sketching or storyboarding of the story. I did not do this for “A Storm’s Coming” or the grydscaen graphic novel volume 1, just used the camera angle direction as the block for a scene or a page and based the panels on the page on the scenes in between the camera angles. I might actually try doing a storyboard for “Rogue” when I get there since the story is longer and will require backgrounds and more in depth blocking.

Next on our Making Manga series we will look at screen tone.