Books Every Writer Should Read

Sorry there haven't been many updates lately for those of you following this blog. A lot of things have been going on related to The Unknowns as well as other projects in general. The things involving The Unknowns I can't quite get into yet, but once things get more final I'll be sure to post them here.

One of things I wanted to get into here on the blog are some books that I think are really worth spending your time reading if you are a writer or a creative person. As a comic book artist I spend most of my time thinking in words and pictures. In a way its a cheap form of writing because I don't have to think about the formal nature of writing story in prose or script format. This is something I am working to remedy. Most of my life I have spent my time drawing and fitting my stories into my drawings. The writing aspect wasn't as big of a deal. I've changed a bit of my perspective on that issue. I truly want to be known as a better writer/storyteller than I do an artist and as such I need to learn the craft more. Here are some books that have been really helpful over the years and currently:



Orson Scott Card's book "Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy" is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of writing. In it he explains how we can create believable and tangible worlds. Some of his stories about how he created a new story have helped spur me on to new ideas.


"The Man Who Heard Voices" is more here because of its attention to the way so many of us all feel as we create the art that is in us as visual storytellers. Regardless of your thoughts towards M. Night's movies (I for one think he's pretty much amazing) I think everyone can find this book to be a reminder that even those who are successful at their craft wrestle behind closed doors.


"On Writing" by Stephen King is pretty much the mother load when it comes to a book that is profoundly helpful and entertaining. Part memoir and part how-to, this book deals with topics as mundane as grammar to how to discover a story. This one is my current read, but it is one that I think has done more to help my work ethic than any other book as I remember: to be a great writer you must; read a lot a write a lot.

Two More Scenes Down

I spent my time over the weekend (which is Weds and Thurs for me) getting some writing done. I'm actually just a couple of scenes away from where the book pretty much gets going and doesn't stop until the end.

One of the things that's been happening as I write the first draft of the script is that I'm thinking of all these scenes I want to add in later that were not in the original draft of the treatment. But rather than stop, think of how those scenes fit into the bigger work, and continue with the script; I've been writing these scene ideas down in a separate document so that when I go back for the second draft I will include them.

I remember listening to an interview with Philip Pullman about writing and him discussing how the best thing with the first draft of any story is to just GET IT OUT. In other words, just write the stupid thing. Don't stop and correct every misspell. Don't second guess the structure. Just get it on the page so that you can rewrite later. There's the old saying, writing is rewriting. I think this is true. So far I've discovered that spending some time developing a solid treatment has allowed me to move with a confidence I didn't have before. The script is coming out quickly and I think will require very little reworking as a whole.

Then again what do I know?

I just realized that I was going to post about my process. That will have to wait. Writing continues.

Writing Continues...

I want to say thank you to everyone who has given me positive feedback on the preview pages I've displayed on this blog and other sites. I'm still keeping most of it close to the chest, so I don't spoil things later!

I spent most of this week, after going back through the treatment, writing the next two scenes from the prologue. It's the first time we meet the other co-star of the story; Todd.

I don't know how many of you own the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they have a great segment on all three of them that just focuses on the writing of the movie. Each one lasts about thirty minutes and I have found it really invaluable to hear their wisdom when constructing my scripts.

On the Fellowship of the Ring set they discuss the introduction of Mary and Pippin in the story at Bilbo's party. They explain how they basically made up the scene in which they steal a firework from Gandalf's stash and disrupt the whole party. The interesting thing about this scene is that they discuss how their goal script-wise was that they wanted to accomplish two things in one moment. Introduce the characters and say something about them. I've found that when writing, if you you can do two things at one time in a script you are creating a much more effective script.

The first two scenes after the prologue reminded me about that. I wanted really badly to set Todd up properly. We have to get him very quickly, because the story gets moving in a hurry after that and the character arcs need to be identifiable.

I've read back through the scene and I feel pretty strong about his arrival. The difficult part now is writing the dialog of Chloe and Todd together. That's my next mess to deal with.

Next post I'll spend some time talking about my actual process for creating these pages. So check back in about two days! Now its time for some chicken.