endless yammering

This was specifically in reference to comics but I'm sure it's just as important in writing in general

It's the idea that spurs the creation of the thing you want to make, the most important part. The seed. The nugget. If the thing was only allowed one panel this is what it would be

And like this shit should probably be obvious or like natural for most people, I'm sure, but my squishy little brain can struggle quite a bit with connecting dots or obvious solutions. It's why I get lost in the set up and the weeds so easily and often. I lose focus of what I'm trying to get to, often while trying to needlessly justify it. Overthinking very much not for the win

Looking at some my scrapped projects, Jim's comic shouldn't have ballooned into a thirty page script for a little gag. Jim sends the Tallest a bribe of donuts, the Tallest make him lose his mind making more. We don't need to go into Jim hating the empire or specifically the tallest from the beginning or how he'll do anything to get ahead, we can but that's not what this is about. This isn't about Red getting sick and it being mistaken for poison or Jim getting pinned with the blame or revenge fuelled prison break ending with a betrayal towards the uprising the moment the Tallests' dismissive offer him the position of invader once their previous pick goes missing or about Purple fiending for some discontinued snacks and getting them snatched away by Red and handed off as a muted cut the shit please and leave me alone. We could allude to some of this in our key panel but some of this shit are separate ideas entirely and I don't need to get bogged down in setting it all up first try

Specifically it's Jim bribes the Tallest and it works too well. That's the idea. That's the story.

That could be one panel if I forced it, specifically like the Tallest on the screen gorging themselves and "politely" demanding more in the background maybe asking him in annoyance if he's listening, probs near top left not including dialogue space as a very stress Jim is losing control of the situation, like near disaster maybe boxes are starting to tip maybe the fryer is boiling over or somethings caught fire or he's distracted and the bowl of batter is starting to slip from his hand and splattering everywhere, maybe there's some kinda pest that broken in he just caught sight of, while computer's ran out of boxes to pack the finished things up all while Jim grits his teeth answering the Tallest

That's alot for one image but it's a far better potential execution then I've fucked with in the past. And I've circled back to this bitch multiple times man

Probably better with closer to three panels. Start with a But how 'bout more? oh sure I can do that, to the Tallest gorging themselves and being backhanded, to the chaos

The set up, and giving the first image a little more breathing room

With Skoodge's death similar things happened. But also knew there was a problem with scope I just didn't know how to or really want to bother fixing overall. Instead I just carved this nugget out a much larger, far more dangerously bloated narrative

On a random ship after getting into a fight Skoodge ends up noticing Zim who should not be there. Skoodge is elated to see him because he's been on his own for a hot minute and more importantly it's Zim! That is until he really takes a look at him.

And like that's just the first page of the comic. But like half that information isn't conveyed in any sort of way or it's execution is so rough it doesn't even read. With how it's all presented it feels like we missed an earlier page. And that's because I violently ripped out of a larger with little thought or effort to really sit down and kill some darling

Fuck, the ending (I did end up cutting before starting boards) was supposed to have Zim get caught up in another dimension hop and immediately meeting another version of our dearly departed and it didn't not even touching on how or if Zim knew the previous Skoodge was actually his Skoodge or not. I mean that was going to be the end of this stand alone comic that up until this point made no mention of the fact they'd been dimension hopping

So like when I actually factually write, like pen to paper, thumbs to screen or clickety clacking on my keyboard, I have all the fun man. It's in fact a part of the problem because I immediately get lost in the sauce and start veering off track. Having a blast with it. Same with brainstorming but it's far less noticeable while I'm doing it. Neither would be an issue if, you know, I started with the actual key scene

I fear doing the thing so I do other stuff instead. But I like always really wanna do the thing! Actually! So I, still scared, decide to do the thing. But I have to get ready first. Set things up. Justify the thing

Skoodge's Death had this problem of being sloppily torn out because it's spark was originally a result of this shit. It was setup. It was justification. It was supposed to defend the existence of something else I don't even remember or care about anymore. And it was supposed to be like fucking twelve fics deep in a series. It itself is a result of some of the worse scope creep and narrative bloat I've ever been involved in (always work alone but idk how to phrase this better) (also have a rant similar to this as a part in another draft so I might be repeating myself in my next post)

So how do I even start to fix this?

We'd have to crack open the original spark to make a new key scene. Like thinking about it w have two main panels competing. Skoodge saving Zim no matter the cost & Zim being trapped in with Skoodge's dead or near dead body unable to do anything about it (preferably with a content smile on the latter's face)

It's the before and the after but neither are so interconnect that they couldn't stand on their own

Bam! Fixed and I could expand on it from there

I think this is a huge reveal of me not totally understanding scenes as a concept until now, but that's how it be sometimes :|

For Jim's comic there are pages of the Tallests' banter and it's some of my favorite shit from it. For this current thing I'm working, we will dub it the Gir mini comic, we have the classic back and forth monologues between Zim and Dib and I really really like it. But like the thing is neither of these examples are all that important to the scenes they're supposed to be supporting. Fuck they're barely even relevant and that sucks, but also probably explains why the Brazil episode of Smiling friends is my favorite. Dorks doing a chattering over something. Just love to see it

Neither of these are supposed to be like that episode. As it is these interactions are uncontrolled growth choking out their key ideas. They distract from their stories, but are also intermeshed

I can and will move the monologues from GIR's to Zim & Dib's mini comic. It fits better there. But with the Tallest banter I can't do that without heavily reworking it. Jim is part of the conversation, it's specifically the tallest receiving their bribe, they're being dicks to him specifically while they mostly bounce off each other, they grill him. They shift the spotlight to themselves entirely, but it's still about him and the bribe. It's firmly rooted in that context. There are also has a bunch of less important bloat threads like, the reason for the bribe being emergency invader selection, Tenn being disappearance, Red being tired, the snack Purple's excited and frustrated about, Purple finding out Red gets sent gifts and fan mail all the time when these donuts are one of the few things he's received. Most of this is in the background but it also part of why I like it so much