#6 – Don’t Take it Personally
File under: Editing
Scrutinously revised to the beat of:
Streetlight Manifesto – “Here’s to Life”
Rolling Stones – “Street Fighting Man”
Bouncing Souls – Tie One On [album]
Catch 22 – “Beguile the Time”
Catch 22 – “Wine-Stained Lips”

Don’t take anything personally.

          I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to edit stories that grew in foreign soil compared with how hard, even if it’s your earnest goal, to take the same critical shears to your own work.  It’s just difficult to throw out everything YOU know and think it means, to become a wholly nascent reader, taking in only the information that makes it onto the page.

          I’ll give you an example from a book I liked, but nonetheless, found two big problems with that drained its momentum for me.

WANTED, if you never read it, is a comic book written by Mark Millar and brilliantly depicted by J.G. Jones, about a fatherless boy who finds out he has inherited great power from his recently deceased dad. It’s a typical superhero fantasy with one twist: Dad was a villain known as The Killer, and his talent was to snuff anything with a heartbeat. Consider everything that follows a SPOILER, and this is your WARNING.

A great idea, that inversion, no?  From there, Wesley gets recruited by the cabal of villains that has ruled the world since the ’80s, hiding their own existence (and the superheroes they’ve humiliated) from a populace that thinks superpowers are just a fiction of comic books.

Not long after Wesley’s intensive training is completed, a more public faction of villains stages a coup, and proceeds to pillage the Earth.  They attempt to wipe out Wesley and his Fox buddy, who take the fight to the badder guys’ headquarters in a Matrix-style assault.  After successfully completing that test, Wesley faces the surprise mastermind, or at least inciter, of this round of in-fighting, and of course, it’s his father.

WANTED caught a bit of criticism about its ending, in which Wesley gave the middle finger to the reader for staying mired in a pathetic, anonymous life like Wesley had left behind, reading comic books, getting vicarious thrills out of Wesley’s adventures, instead of seizing what they secretly wanted.  Such an ending, some argued, was insulting to fans that had supported the book.  

Well, that’s wrong.

That ending, while maybe not necessary, was perfectly in character.  Wesley was a little bastard, having gone from spineless mope to the greatest killer on Earth.  Of course he’s going to act like a jerk.  He’s a villain, and he has no respect for his old self or anyone like that.  It’s as close as a misanthrope like he can get to a piece of friendly advice to stand up and take what you want to make your dreams come true.

No, what was disappointing about WANTED was that it misfired in two areas, which I hope get changed in the upcoming film version:

1) Showdown

The setup: a heavily-armed Wesley finds himself facing an army of villains.  This is an intense moment, when Wesley, who has yet to prove himself in the shadow of his father, is going to have to kill four dozen of the scariest people on Earth at once.

The problem: Wesley has already developed his talents. He completed his training in the second and third issues, and spent the rest of the series eradicating the most powerful coup-leaders in one-on-one combat.  And if those guys were afraid of him and his innovations in the heat of battle, why should mowing down some nameless extras and dodging a bit of returned fire prove his abilities have matured?  There’s not a lot of tension here because we already know what Wesley can do, and the people who weren’t afraid of him are dead.

The solution: Have the villains’ coup occur while Wesley’s still in training. Make it a trial by fire, so that the mass slaughter the end is the final test of his capabilities rather than an easy lay-up. Don’t make it the work of seconds to show how deadly Wesley is when we know he’s deadly, and you’re presenting it to us as something extraordinary and a test of even his mighty, murderous mettle.

2) Fighting Dad

The setup: When the original Killer returns, it’s not a huge surprise.  Who else could kill the Killer but himself?  Having given Wesley all his dreams, he now asks Wesley to kill him.  Wesley obliges with a bullet in the foramen magnum.

The problem: The situation here is fine and fitting – there can only be one Killer, the old man doesn’t want to watch his skills depreciate, and getting snuffed by your own son as an act of love fits the ridiculously screwed-up ethos of the series.  Plus, this is a coming-of-age story, and it’s standard in those to overthrow your father in order to become a man.  But there’s no way the Killer goes to all that trouble to remake his son in his image, harness all his resentment at his nebbishy life and an absent dad into the engine for his murderous new identity, and then just kneels down to receive absolution in the back of the noggin. This is a huge missed opportunity for a test that proves the point of the entire series and justifies Wesley’s development.

The solution: Is simple. Give us one more fight scene between Wesley and Pop, the most knock-down, drag-out, issue-long battle possible. We thought until this point that Mr. Rictus had murdered the Killer, so his quick dispatchment made sense to reveal the true plotter.  Wesley has to defeat his father, and it has to be the hardest thing he’s ever done. A gun battle that devolves into brutal hand-to-hand combat, and ends only with Wesley strangling his dad, who barely chokes out, “I love you son…” before Wesley says, “I love you, Dad!” and snaps the man’s neck, both of them with tears in their eyes.  Instead, we get an issue of flashbacks and exposition that could just as easily have taken place during their tenderly vicious fight.

          And that’s all it would take. Nothing wrong with the story, no major changes, just nudge a few events. No different from adjusting the brightness levels in Photoshop, really. But oh, what a clearer picture now!

          That’s my assessment as a reader.  But as a writer, it’s something I’m reticent to say in print, however benign my reasons, because I’m writing my own stories, and they’re going to have the same problems and pitfalls that I won’t be aware of, no matter how many times I read my own drafts.  It’s weird to criticize others’ works because the expectation is almost automatically: “OK, wiseguy, you write something better.” 

And unlike basketball, where you tell someone to loosen up his throw, you can’t prove your right to criticize by stepping out and sinking a dozen three-point shots.  Sometimes the success of a story is a subjective thing.

I mean, there’s someone out there who likes Ayn Rand stories, right?  A more miserable puddle of half-baked apology for egotism and egoism masquerading as prose, I have not seen.  Yet for some people Atlas Shrugged is a success as both a story and a manifesto.  So, WANTED. Pretty cool, could have been better. Take it or leave it.

Another problem with criticizing your own work is that external scrutiny is almost a necessary sacrifice to detailing the depths of your own worlds.  You’re so busy planting trees, you don’t always see the shape of the forest.  You see why outside readers are a good idea; they help ensure you haven’t wandered off the map in your explorations.  Of course, then you have to search for a reader you can trust to discern your story’s goals and analyze its methods without imposing their own creative vision on it in a way that compromises your

So here’s my problem.  I know there’s something wrong with a short story for DOSE called “Li’l Sammy Swift,” but it currently escapes me what.  Everyone’s scared of this weapon detonating, but when it finally does, it’s just as destructive and dangerous as they were promised, yet nothing like what they expected. That’s my plot.  I set it up well enough – all anyone talks about is how scared they are of this device. 

And yet…it just doesn’t seem like the payoff hits with the force it should. I must therefore not have set up the premise clearly enough.  Or maybe it’s just all talk and no show. I should add a page where it nearly blows up and the entire community is in terror. Yeah, now that I look at this again, it’s one big jumbled spoof of Shakespeare and Kurtzman.  I didn’t link the two poetically.  More shame on me.  Maybe if I add a new page with economic care, I can up the ante, connect the two subjects better, and spin some clearer language than the iambic Marvin-speak that’s in there now.

Some people might object to the crammed pages, but I like a stuffed page, especially for a project like DOSE, which is just supposed to a disposable piece of fun stuffed to the epiglottis with jokes and gags.  If you’re going to shell out cash for a comic, my thinking is it had better take awhile to read (and not in a stymied, obtuse way), especially if it’s an indie humor book.  Superheroes might get away with burning page-space, but a fledgling title should stick in your brain at least as long as a TV episode.

(as I write this, an unprovoked Andres Ponce IMs to tell me “you cramp the page with too much cool visuals” which I guess is a compliment and a criticism both, but a funny coincidence either way)

Splashy pages have their place and impact, of course, but I’ve discovered something else about a weighty page.  It’s impossible to glean all the information from it peripherally.  There’s so much going on that, if you can keep it clear, that when the page is turned, the readers won’t apprehend anything but that first panel, as their eyes zero in, then the next panel, and so on.  Comics don’t have enough of that, I think.  The tendency right now is toward an understandable, but imbalanced, immediacy even in a scene that’s moving slower.

Generally in comics, space = time, but in fact, space also = importance. Bigger panels mean bigger impact, more attention directed to them, an implicit sign to the reader that more attention must be paid here.  That’s why in a fight the finishing haymaker gets the splash page and not the flurry of jabs delivered to noticeable effect while the hero jabbers about how he’s fighting for the orphaned Bengali children.  It’s just common sense.

But that works best for surprise reveals and fight scenes and races…anything fast-paced and immediate, because WHAM! That picture is going to slam onto your eyeballs before you even move your eyes to the top left of the page.  So it works out pretty well that slower, conversational moments tend to jam up a page while action scenes need room to work.

That’s what I tell myself while I overpack this “Li’l Sammy Swift” page, at any rate.  But really, what I need is an outside perspective.  Someone who has the aforementioned talents of scrutiny and inobtrusiveness. 

I need…an editor! Alas and alack, I’m the only editor on this book, so the story’s probably doomed.

The actual job an editor, as Warren Ellis noted in Transmetropolitan, is to give the talent whatever it needs to get the story done right.  Sometimes that’s a kick in the ass, sometimes it’s a tug on the reins.  It almost always involves revisions and corrections.

          I was raised by editors, trained by editors, shoot…all my girlfriends have been editors.  I’ve been lucky enough to meet some truly great ones, and learn from them.  And I’ve regretted missing a few.

          I was lucky enough to intern at DC’s editorial department the summer of 2001.  Even three years after his death, Archie Goodwin loomed large in those offices as the kind of editor everyone wanted to be and work for.  Downstairs at MAD Magazine, was a framed picture of Bill Gaines surrounded by the trappings of his job.  I was introduced to Matt Idelson, and couldn’t surpress a murmured “Wow,” because Idelson, if you’ve paid attention, brings out the best work in everyone he edits.  

Bob Schreck, who’s been every type of editor and publisher imaginable, was, I believe, taking over as Bat-editor just about then.  Schreck brought all kinds of talent with him from Oni and Dark Horse.  Do you know why?  Because people who had worked with him wanted to work with him again.  That’s a good editor, one who brings out the best work in people (and on time).  An editor has to be a good people person, which doesn’t mean keeping everyone in smiles – it means getting people to do what they’re supposed to do, and only then making them happy.  

The company doesn’t survive if an editor accepts an incompetent story to avoid making waves.  It doesn’t help the artist’s career if the art shows awkward mistakes.  An editor’s job is to be a realist with an eye on the objective of putting out high-quality work on time.  Sometimes the quality takes precedence, sometimes the deadline does.  The editor must make the decisions that strike a happy medium that satisfies both of those requirements.

          What impressed me even then, and one thing that makes Schreck a truly popular fellow to work with, is that overtaxed as he is pretty much any day of the year, he always makes time for people.  If you’re an intern, he’ll let you sit in and learn while he calls a big-name creator, then interview you for your thoughts on the conversation.  If you’re talent, he’ll give your samples a shot despite looming deadlines on sixteen of the the three dozen books he oversees.  Making time isn’t a requirement of an editor, but it may be the requirement of a great editor.

          Of course, all that editorial assistance hinges on your hooking up with a publishing outfit.  Schreck moved over to Vertigo not too long ago, and despite the hustle and bustle that goes with such a position, very kindly considered a pitch of mine.  He warned me he could be a mean bastard, and I promised to be a tough one.  I sent the pitch (pre-edited, I should say, by Steven Grant, who’s acting as co-writer, story editor, and all-around Jiminy Cricket on the thing), and put the thing out of my mind, for I’d done what I could, and it was out of my hands now.

          I’m going to paste Schreck’s response here, because I think it’s just about everything I could have hoped for.

  I have read your "BLACK AMBULANCES" pitch and am sorry to report that I am going to pass on it. While a few elements of the plot have some merit, there's a great deal missing pertaining to two very key components important to sell a pitch for a comic book series. There's very little evidence of your voice as a writer, the unique pace and timbre that you should be bringing to each piece, and, most importantly... there's no sense of characterization with regard to the players in the tale. You describe Leonard Marshall, and his meager supporting cast, but don't actually breathe any life into them. Plots are a dime-a-dozen. What truly matters is how you make your knowledge of your characters work for you as they define the point of it all through their specific and unique personalities and subsequent reactions. What you have sent is almost all plot and almost no point.

  Also, this story is built around a lot of tried-and-true plot constructs -- ones that have become way too familiar to our buying public. Coma, etc...  And I feel the biggest problem is that nothing really very new is being brought to the table to make this particular story interesting to our very jaded readership.

  Most importantly, what we need to see in a pitch is a distilled encapsulation of the plot, characters, and their respective arcs that tell us where we begin with all of the aforementioned and where we end up with them. If you really know these elements well, it can be done in a page or two, maximum. Trust me, I know that assembling a pitch is not an easy task, but all the bases need to be covered before one can begin the journey.

  And please understand, that before I set a particular boat to sail and ask my readership to plunk down their hard-earned money, these are the important concerns I need to see working more cohesively and with more subtlety, before moving ahead.

    I'm fielding a lot of new pitches these days and must be very careful what I focus my time on these next few critical months as I find my way through Vertigo. Let's take a break, and if you could please give me at least a 6 month window before we try again with another story that you may want to send my way, if you're so inclined. I know missives like this are no fun to read, but please rest assured that there is no ill will intended, just the facts as I see them.

    If you'd like to chat about what I'm looking for in a pitch and in the final long form product, I'll be happy to chat with you anytime.

And he’s right.  Those were all big problems with my pitch and the story behind it, but I got his time and his honest, attentive assessment, neither of which he owed me.  He has enough work from established pros to fill his present, but he’s giving the future a shot.  A shot is all you can hope for. And when your shots come along, be as professional as you’d expect them to be. A professional, after all, is what you’re trying to be. 

Expect and accept rejection from editors, and understand it’s not personal.  Even if you’re right, and they’re wrong, it’s a matter of taste.  You can’t expect someone to pony up a budget for a work that just didn’t grab them.  Really, you’re selling your work to them the same way you’d sell it to a friend or an anonymous audience: “This is really cool because _____, don’t you agree?”  If your story engages the editor emotionally or intellectually, and they’re convinced enough people will have the same reaction, they’ll buy it, because it’s their job to find such stories.  If not, what can you do but shrug and keep trying?  Nobody owes you anything. 

But remember too, you’re not a worm, and shouldn’t present yourself as a lowly ifrit unworthy of anyone’s time.  If that were the case, why would you be asking for it?  Ultimately, a pitch is a business proposition.  You’re trying to sell material to the company, and you’re explaining to them why it would be saleable to the market.  Remember that, treat them as equals.

It’s not enough for the material to be cool.  Invisible, Inc. was cool when I pitched it to Ivan Cohen back in its Black, Inc. days (cripes, was that 2003? 2002?).  It conquered the catch-22 of one-shot pitches, which states that a story must be worthy enough to have grand stakes in order to justify its existence, yet probably changes nothing in its conclusion by becoming meaningless.  I dodged both hammers by leaving the reader to decide for themselves how much they wanted to believe and change their notions about the DC Universe, and ending with the character forced to decide whether to go deeper into dreamland or return to the nice, shiny surface world we took to be the DCU.  But a one-shot conspiracy tale starring a C-list character and written by a no-list writer isn’t going to sell, is it?  That’s simple truth, and you can’t fault an editor for passing it on.

          I don’t believe one should ever compromise a creative vision, but it’s a jackass kind of creator who enters into a contract without an understanding of terms.  It is no reasonable expectation to script a ménage-a-quatre into your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles script, and it’s equally unreasonable to think, however magnificently your final Spider-Man story closes out the legend, that Marvel would cease publication of that character out of deference to your contribution.

          So be aware, when you pitch, and if you sell, and as you edit, of what you’re getting into.  Be aware that in a healthy, professional creator, the business brain doesn’t get the artistic brain into any situation it can’t accept, and the artistic brain, in turn, accepts varying levels of relinquished control, according to how important the needs of the art are versus the needs of the business.

          In the past, I’ve found some great artists that couldn’t deliver art (this despite being published professionals with a hungry enthusiasm to make their mark!), and as long as the writer in me wanted to keep them for realizing my vision on a book, the editor eventually had to step in and say good-bye.  This is a business, and in a business, crybabies go home.      

          Nothing personal, you understand.