DENNIS O’NEIL: (Hey, Dude, ain’t he ever gonna git done yakkin’ about) Continued Stories
Last week, we were discussing the cons of continued stories, specifically what’s wrong with them, and we posited that they have a major problem in the difficulty new readers (or audiences) have in understanding the plot and characters. I said that there were remedies for this problem and now I’ll suggest, a bit timidly, that though remedies exist, nothing is foolproof.
Which brings us to the second difficulty with this kind of narrative, one closely related to the first. A potential reader who knows that the entertainment in front of him is a serial and that he’s missed earlier installments might think he’s come to the party too late, and so he won’t be tempted to enter it. Admittedly, this has more to do with marketing than stortytelling, but anyone who thinks that sales departments and creative departments aren’t entwined tighter than the snakes on a ceduceus isn’t paying attention.
There are probably more cons, but let’s let the subject rest with those two – we don’t want to beat anything to death, do we? – and proceed on to the pros.
Pro number one: Serialized stories build audience/reader loyalty. If you like the story you’ll want to learn what happens next and how the problems are solved and you’ll keep returning to satisfy your curiosity.
Pro number two (and this, to me, is the biggie): Serials present storytelling opportunities rare in other forms, if they exist at all. Continued narratives allow the storyteller to present a complex plot and a lot of subplots, as well as stuff that might not directly relate to the plot(s) but is, well, amusing.
The danger, at least with comics, is that after the editorial team has committed a given number of issues to a storyline, maybe a large number, and the story is well underway, they find they don’t have enough plot to fill the allotted number of pages. Ooops! Then the padding begins, and with it, the danger that the whole enterprise will become boring.
When I was involved in producing these huge continuities, I found that the best ways to minimize this problem were to 1) make sure everyone on the team knows the story you plan to tell which means knowing where you hope it will end and 2) make a reasonably detailed outline before anyone really begins. Some of my colleagues wanted the outline to be extremely detailed. I opted for leaving it loose and allowing writers and artists to have ideas as the venture proceeded, as long as they stuck to the core narrative. No right or wrong here, just what works for a particular situation at a particular time.
What always worried me most when I was editing long and involved, multi-title stories, was that there was some huge flaw, smack-dab in the center of our concept that would invalidate the whole thing and I wasn’t seeing it and neither was anyone else and we wouldn’t, not until it was too late. It never happened, which is probably a testament to the quality of the people I worked with.
Are we done yet?
RECOMMENDED READING: Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman.
Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
"Are we done yet?"I hope not…
Here is another benefit of LONG serialized fiction. There is an element of interactivity between the writers and the audience. In comics this comes generally from the letter pages, where readers get to point out continuity errors, proclaim their affection or hatred for certain characters and suggest plot developments. In it's most crass form, this can take the form of phone polls, "If you think we should KILL Robin, call this number!"At it's best, the medium becomes a collaborative form between audience and writer. Like improv comedy on paper. The editors and writers takes the good suggestions and run with them. This gives the audience a greater sense of ownership, a deeper emotional investment in what finally comes out.I have a theory that one of the reasons Star Trek is so popular is because of the letter writing campaign that saved the show from cancellation between the second and third seasons. This campaign gave the fans a sense of responsibility and ownership in the franchised that lasted LONG after the series was canceled. Just a theory.ComicMix goes beyond the classic letters page. Here we have COMMENTS that can be instantly posted, and near instantly responded to. There are many examples of this, from things like (you put page 127 before page 126) which get handled almost immediately, to pointing out where spelling errors or continuity mistakes have been made. Sometimes it's just, "Good Job!" "Aww gee, thanks!"I'm a big fan-boy geek. I can admit it. I get a thrill out of interacting with writers, artists and even editors that I have admired for decades. Hey, I've been interacting for decades. I've been buying and reading. That's the major interaction that artists really want. But now I'm chatting, commenting, criticizing and validating too! And getting direct responses to questions and comments from … well some of MY heroes. That ROCKS!Here's an experiment I would like to see tried on ComicMix. Have somebody write a very short two page story with a cliffhanger. Have readers comment on how they think the cliffhanger should be solved or what direction the story should take and then have the artists create the next two page segment of the serial based on those suggestions. It's a free form example of the "Choose Your Own Adventure Story." Fast artists might even draw out alternate time lines to stories, showing how some choices suggested by readers lead to mayhem or catastrophe while others lead to some kind of limited success.The cliffhangers can be stuff like, "How should the hero escape from the car that's about to go off the cliff?" or "Should the heroine kiss the girl?"The idea is to generate a sense of involvement and ownership from the readers.