A book launch, and *one cool trick* to improve your writing

ARCA is out in the wild, plus what I'm reading/watching

Welcome back to Graphically Minded, a publication about writing and storytelling, relating the lessons I’ve learned in a 20-plus-year career as a comic book writer and author.

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There’s a scene in The Incredibles, the Pixar superhero film, in which the Parr family is eating dinner. Each of the five members of the family has a super power, but they’re living in hiding, pretending not to be special. The father has, in secret, begun superheroing again, and his wife knows he has *some* secret, though she isn’t sure what it is. An affair, perhaps?

Over dinner, all the tension finally comes to a head, with every character pushing for what they want but no one really getting to the crux of the interpersonal conflict.

There’s a lot of great writing in that scene, but one thing elevates it and makes it FEEL real. What’s that? It’s the steak.

The dad cuts his son’s steak as the argument intensifies, and his cutting matches the intensity, and he loses his focus, and… CRACK. The plate splits in half. A perfect symbol of the moment. A broken plate. A broken family. Broken trust.

Now, back when I first started writing superhero comics, I was working on Green Lantern Corps at DC Comics, and things generally were going well. Good reviews. Decent sales.

My editor, Matt Idelson, took me aside one day. He said he had two very important pieces of advice for me. (Matt, by the way, is a comics lifer and a legend.)

First, he said, my villains all talked like comic book villains. Which I suppose I thought was the point, but given that the main demographic of superhero comics is now adults, you can’t really go for the mustache-twirling dialogue. OK, I said. Got it.

The second piece of advice was that my characters too often just floated in space.

I was a bit befuddled there. Green Lanterns float in space.

No, Matt chided. My characters weren’t interacting with their environments. If they weren’t fighting, they were just sort of hovering there, talking. And that makes for some damned dull (and lazy) writing.

I looked back at my past issues and, sure enough, he was right. I wasn’t giving my characters much to do. And then I remembered that dinner scene, and it all clicked.

We as human beings interact with stuff around us all the time. We fidget. We fold clothes. We drive cars. We cut steaks. We stare at our phones. And, often, when we’re doing these things, we’re either talking to other people or we’re thinking.

And the way we interact with the world can say as much—even more—about our emotional states than the words that we speak.

There’s a little thing about Steven Spielberg’s films that I noticed as I started to really focus on this. He often opens (or closes) scenes a little before or after the meat of the action takes place. He’ll show a character plod down some stairs, or absentmindedly fill a glass with water, and then the scene truly begins.

The dinner scene from “Jaws”

I don’t know his exact motivation, but I know as an audience member it makes me connect more with the character. It makes them and their world feel more real. And if it feels real, then I care even more.

And getting our audience to care, as I say again and again, is the ballgame.

Here’s the simple trick: First, just challenge yourself to truly render the surroundings in your writing. Sketch out a floorplan if need be. Second, have your characters interact with that space in a way that feels real and natural. Third, make it *mean* something.

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My graphic novel ARCA went on sale last week! You can buy it from bookshop.org or elsewhere, if you’re so inclined.

Someone asked me what a book launch day is like. Well, it was a Tuesday, and I was at home with a sick kid. We watched a movie, read some Lord of the Rings and played Zelda. Which is to say, it was a good day.

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Reading/Watching/Listening

Reading: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. His writing is so good that it makes me feel like giving up the craft. It’s an Underground Railroad story that feels fresh because it’s a focused story, attuned to one man’s life and experiences, and with a supernatural aspect that evades any fantasy conventions. I came of age as a journalist reading Coates’ work in The Atlantic, and we even traded emails once way back. He’s great, but you already knew this.

Watching: Godzilla: Singularity Point on Netflix. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to be writing some Godzilla stuff, so I’m doing research. Yes, my job is the best. I watch Godzilla for research. Anyway, this show is super weird. It’s kind of splicing the DNA of Evangelion with the original Toho Godzilla film. Which is to say, well worth a watch if any of that is your thing.

Listening: AC/DC. Here’s a funny thing for you. I grew up hating metal music. My kids were with me a few months back and Thunderstruck came on, and it peeled their eyes back. And, if I’m being honest, it hit me, too. They immediately named AC/DC as their favorite band, and they dominate our playlist. My oldest picked Thunderstruck for his walkout music during baseball games. Maybe this is my midlife crisis, but I’m here for it. Hells Bells is my personal favorite.

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As always, thank you for reading. If you’d like to learn more about me and my writing, please visit vanjensen.com. You can like and comment on the post below! Till next time…