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Some good professional writing guidelines by long-term editors..
Read the long-term chief editor of Marvel comics writing guidelines, which actually work across the board. Tom Brevoort has been an editor with Marvel for 38 years.
I've decided to share them - from his blog on substack, which I've been subscribing to.
So here we go:
BREVOORT OFFICE WRITER GUIDELINES
1) NAME THE CHARACTERS! I keep seeing scripts and lettering come across my desk in which the characters are never clearly named in the copy. Yes, there’s a recap page, but basic craft tells us that you need to name your characters every single issue, as close to when they first appear as possible. This should be done artfully, but it’s better to do it clunkily than not to do it at all. Also, when I say Name The Characters, I’m talking about their super hero/villain names. Calling them Ralph or Sam or Harvey is fine enough, but we need to hear Skull-Crusher and Bone-Mangler and The Stealinator on the page. Don’t assume that everybody knows who these people are already, they don’t unless you tell them! (And, secondarily, unless you establish the relationships between the characters, they don’t know that as well.)
2) “CLAREMONT” THE POWERS! In our comics, we have a lot of characters whose powers are not instantly visually understandable. So when they begin to do things with their weird abilities, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the readership can understand just what the hell it is they’re doing (and, by extension, what they cannot do.) Back when he was writing X-Men, Chris Claremont reduced this sort of thing to a series of well-worn phrases that became almost memes: “Flesh becomes Organic Steel!”, “The sum total of her psychic power focused into a blade”, “Nigh-invulnerable while blasting”, etc. And while they maybe became repetitive hearing them issue after issue after issue, they made sure that readers understood what the characters were doing and could do. This needs to happen with greater consistency. For example, the Human Torch is pretty visually self-explanatory, and you can look at the Thing and get that he’s strong. And Reed stretching is relatively clear just in the images as well. But you wind up needing to explain Sue Storm’s force-field powers every single time she uses them—because they are not readily apparent. We don’t need a Marvel handbook entry, but we do need to get across what people can do.
3) 20 PIECES OF COPY PER PAGE, MAXIMUM. That includes sound effects. More than that and the page looks daunting to read.
4) 25 WORDS PER BALLOON MAXIMUM. And push to that number only rarely. Beyond that, the balloon looks daunting to read and I’ll be looking for places where copy can be trimmed or split into two smaller connected balloons.
5) THE NAME OF THE GAME IS STORYTELLING! YOUR JOB IS TO TELL THE STORY! IT’S BETTER TO BE CLEAR THAN CLEVER! As Jim Shooter used to say, you know the story that you’re telling, the audience does not. And so they only understand what is going on as much as you show and tell them. Clarity is always the name of the game. Don’t make me work to understand what you’re getting at. Storytelling is communication! Clear! Direct! Say the thing that you’re saying!
6) IF IT AIN’T ON THE PAGE, IT AIN’T ON THE STAGE. Which is to say, if you write a lengthy panel description for the artist about what your characters are doing or feeling, but the only copy on the page is the character saying, “Ugh!”, then you’re counting an awful lot on the visuals carrying across the subtlety that you’re trying to achieve. Don’t mistake information being in the script document with it being in the final comic. Make sure that all key points, whether plot or emotional, get properly expressed in the copy.
7) WHAT ARE THE PICTURES? Comics are a visual medium, and we have an unlimited budget, so we should be trying to produce interesting-looking pages every single time. To use Allan Heinberg’s approach, think of yourself as an original art collector. What can you put on every single page of your story that would be cool or emotional or impactful enough that you’d want to buy the original art and hang it on your wall? There’s no excuse for dull pages. Think visually!
8) PUT A STORY IN EVERY ISSUE! We often wind up having issues that are simply a collection of scenes in which a lot of “stuff” happens, but nothing happens—there’s a lack of a story. These issues tend to be unsatisfying and even difficult to describe. I understand that we are often telling multi-issue epics, but even then, each unit, each individual comic, should contain a story in and of itself even within the larger context. I define a story as being the “Four C’s”: A Character has a Conflict, makes a Choice, and deals with the Consequences.
9) LARRY HAMA’S THREE RULES OF WRITING:
CHARACTER TRUMPS PLOT – If we care about the characters and can invest in them, we care about the story. Plot is important, but character comes first.
VISUAL STORYTELLING TRUMPS DIALOG – Showing is always better than telling. Dramatize information.
NO “MEH” SCENE CLOSES/PAGE CLOSES – Which is to say, scenes should typically end at the end of a page, and every final panel on a page should contain a mini-cliffhanger or crescendo of some sort to help drive the reader forward to the next page through the story.
I've decided to share them - from his blog on substack, which I've been subscribing to.
So here we go:
BREVOORT OFFICE WRITER GUIDELINES
1) NAME THE CHARACTERS! I keep seeing scripts and lettering come across my desk in which the characters are never clearly named in the copy. Yes, there’s a recap page, but basic craft tells us that you need to name your characters every single issue, as close to when they first appear as possible. This should be done artfully, but it’s better to do it clunkily than not to do it at all. Also, when I say Name The Characters, I’m talking about their super hero/villain names. Calling them Ralph or Sam or Harvey is fine enough, but we need to hear Skull-Crusher and Bone-Mangler and The Stealinator on the page. Don’t assume that everybody knows who these people are already, they don’t unless you tell them! (And, secondarily, unless you establish the relationships between the characters, they don’t know that as well.)
2) “CLAREMONT” THE POWERS! In our comics, we have a lot of characters whose powers are not instantly visually understandable. So when they begin to do things with their weird abilities, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the readership can understand just what the hell it is they’re doing (and, by extension, what they cannot do.) Back when he was writing X-Men, Chris Claremont reduced this sort of thing to a series of well-worn phrases that became almost memes: “Flesh becomes Organic Steel!”, “The sum total of her psychic power focused into a blade”, “Nigh-invulnerable while blasting”, etc. And while they maybe became repetitive hearing them issue after issue after issue, they made sure that readers understood what the characters were doing and could do. This needs to happen with greater consistency. For example, the Human Torch is pretty visually self-explanatory, and you can look at the Thing and get that he’s strong. And Reed stretching is relatively clear just in the images as well. But you wind up needing to explain Sue Storm’s force-field powers every single time she uses them—because they are not readily apparent. We don’t need a Marvel handbook entry, but we do need to get across what people can do.
3) 20 PIECES OF COPY PER PAGE, MAXIMUM. That includes sound effects. More than that and the page looks daunting to read.
4) 25 WORDS PER BALLOON MAXIMUM. And push to that number only rarely. Beyond that, the balloon looks daunting to read and I’ll be looking for places where copy can be trimmed or split into two smaller connected balloons.
5) THE NAME OF THE GAME IS STORYTELLING! YOUR JOB IS TO TELL THE STORY! IT’S BETTER TO BE CLEAR THAN CLEVER! As Jim Shooter used to say, you know the story that you’re telling, the audience does not. And so they only understand what is going on as much as you show and tell them. Clarity is always the name of the game. Don’t make me work to understand what you’re getting at. Storytelling is communication! Clear! Direct! Say the thing that you’re saying!
6) IF IT AIN’T ON THE PAGE, IT AIN’T ON THE STAGE. Which is to say, if you write a lengthy panel description for the artist about what your characters are doing or feeling, but the only copy on the page is the character saying, “Ugh!”, then you’re counting an awful lot on the visuals carrying across the subtlety that you’re trying to achieve. Don’t mistake information being in the script document with it being in the final comic. Make sure that all key points, whether plot or emotional, get properly expressed in the copy.
7) WHAT ARE THE PICTURES? Comics are a visual medium, and we have an unlimited budget, so we should be trying to produce interesting-looking pages every single time. To use Allan Heinberg’s approach, think of yourself as an original art collector. What can you put on every single page of your story that would be cool or emotional or impactful enough that you’d want to buy the original art and hang it on your wall? There’s no excuse for dull pages. Think visually!
8) PUT A STORY IN EVERY ISSUE! We often wind up having issues that are simply a collection of scenes in which a lot of “stuff” happens, but nothing happens—there’s a lack of a story. These issues tend to be unsatisfying and even difficult to describe. I understand that we are often telling multi-issue epics, but even then, each unit, each individual comic, should contain a story in and of itself even within the larger context. I define a story as being the “Four C’s”: A Character has a Conflict, makes a Choice, and deals with the Consequences.
9) LARRY HAMA’S THREE RULES OF WRITING:
CHARACTER TRUMPS PLOT – If we care about the characters and can invest in them, we care about the story. Plot is important, but character comes first.
VISUAL STORYTELLING TRUMPS DIALOG – Showing is always better than telling. Dramatize information.
NO “MEH” SCENE CLOSES/PAGE CLOSES – Which is to say, scenes should typically end at the end of a page, and every final panel on a page should contain a mini-cliffhanger or crescendo of some sort to help drive the reader forward to the next page through the story.