Panel 6: Caption This!

Hello my evil minions! Welcome back to How NOT to Write Comics. I can't believe we're already on our sixth installment of this bugger. But I've still got more to share with you guys so this week I'm going to talk about captions, their over-use, and the importance of actually showing things in your scripts.

Reading this post you're going to think I hate captions and words, but I don't, really. They're a great tool for comics but only if they're used properly. I've seen a great many scripts that use captions in all of the wrong ways... and in some of my earlier work I was just as guilty. I'm going to break down this post by use and the right and wrong ways to use captions in each case.

Date/Time/Location
Honestly, this one is pretty hard to mess up for the most part. The really important thing is to make sure your dialogue and dates match. On November 6th don't have someone say, "We'll see you tomorrow," then have their meeting say November 11th. I know it sounds stupid and obvious, but I've seen it, hell, I've done it myself accidentally... and more recently than I'd like to admit. The same thing goes for time of day.

Internal Monologue
This one gets tricky. Having your characters' thoughts appear as captions is a great way to get inside their heads without using those silly and out-dated "thought bubbles." This is particularly true of less cartoony styled comics. If you're going for that style, thought bubbles are totally acceptable, but I'm assuming you're writing something a little more serious in tone. The toughest thing about internal monologue is consistency and avoiding confusion. I am notorious for the first, I'll start off with some great captions then totally end up forgetting about them when I get caught up in the script. It's something I really struggled with when doing The Red Eye and if I ever get it relaunched, I plan on spending a lot of time reworking my captions. Another thing is, don't make them stupid. I know that sounds kind of harsh but it shouldn't read, "That makes me sad." Because holy hell is that dumb. Your characters internal thoughts should really reach into their soul/heart/root/whatever... they should reflect the core of your character. Finally, to avoid confusion, if you have multiple characters having internal thoughts, make sure you identify who is thinking what. I've seen scripts where I have no idea who is thinking what because the script just reads...

CAPTION:
I'm a friggin' moron who doesn't know what I'm doing.

CAPTION:
I wish he wasn't a friggin' moron and could figure out what to do.

I mean you can assume who is saying what from the dialogue, but it just makes things easier if you signify who's thinking what.

MICHAEL (CAP):
I'm a friggin' moron who doesn't know what I'm doing.

EVA (CAP):
I wish he wasn't a friggin' moron and could figure out what to do.

This is much, much better. It tells you all the info you need in a clear and concise matter.

Narration
Narration is probably one of the most complex things to deal with when it comes to captioning. It's really important to strike the right balance with it and it's really easy to mess up. The most common mistake I see is writers who tell their entire story via captions with only snippets of what's really going on in their panel descriptions. This can be okay when rehashing something... like if a character is telling a brief story or a flashback, but your entire comic should not be told this way. A lot of beginners and people who come from other media somehow seem to forget this... comics is a visual medium... we should always be showing first and telling after. I'm a firm believer that if a person can't tell what is going on in your story without captions and dialogue, you're not doing your job. Now I'm not talking about finer details, but if I can't get the gist of the story without your words there is a problem. You don't need a caption saying, "I met with the alien ambassador," when you can just show it. It's even more frustrating when you miss out on something cool like, "The Martians killed the entire Senate with their ray guns," because it was just glossed over in a caption. Man, I want to see the Martians shooting those guys! That would make for a damn cool panel!

Well, I think I've covered everything I wanted to talk about in this post, so have a nice week and I'll see you guys next time!