My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 3 of 4)
Why on Earth do you want to write comic books?
In the previous two chapters of My Future Shock Hell! I recalled how I learned that there really is no such thing as ‘breaking in’, as well as how accepting the certainty of rejection can profoundly enable your creativity.
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 1 of 4) How I broke into comics and why there's no such thing
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 2 of 4) How surviving submissions means rejection-proofing your soul
Those first Future Shock submissions to 2000 AD taught me how to cope with the eternal torture of the submissions process. But it also taught me two fundamental principles of approaching any creative market for the first time.
1.) ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS
2.) GET IN BY GETTING GOOD.
Let me break these two down, starting with the first one.
Having spoken to many writers over the years, I reckon that we fall into three broad categories when making cold submissions. Here, I’ll take writers submitting Future Shocks either then or now as an example:
FANS: Not in it for long haul. Just taking a punt on a cool idea (still a perfectly valid reason for submitting). Entering the game on a casual basis.
ASPIRING PROFESSIONALS: In it to ‘win it’! Want to write comics professionally one day.
ESTABLISHED PROFESSIONALS: Already making some kind of living out of writing and this is just another outlet. May be seasoned writers with several published projects under their belt.
In terms of who stands the best chance of writing the sort of script most likely to get accepted, the established professional probably has the edge, if only because they can write well enough to get paid to do it.
The aspiring professionals probably have the advantage over the fans because they’re more likely to have studied the techniques that make a good script. Notice my emphasis here is not on getting accepted, but on writing a good script. Because the surest route to an accepted submission is to…
WRITE A GOOD SCRIPT!
I’m reminded here of an anecdote I once heard about an agent who telephones a publisher and says, “My client’s written a 90,000-word novel. Would you be interested in publishing it?” To which the publisher replies, “Depends which words and in which order.”
To write a good Future Shock script, for example, you’ll need to know how to build up an idea, how to tell a story visually, and understand drama, character and plot (and how those last three are all the same thing). So the advice to the underdogs out there has to be…
THINK (AND BEHAVE) LIKE A PRO, EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT!
Don’t think like an amateur. Think like the writer you want to become. Don’t bring the drama. Instead, get good at what you do.
When I first started submitting Future Shocks I guess I was somewhere between aspiring and established (lots of work in niche publications and not much else, but I’d been around the block enough times to sort of know what I was doing). When I started writing comics, I made all the usual rookie mistakes, which Tharg got me to wring out of the accepted scripts before they went to the artists. But once I’d made that first couple of sales and emerged blinking into the wonderful world of professional comics writing, I started to realise that a lot of the terminology I was used to hearing when I was still a Future Shock virgin didn’t really reflect the truth, certainly not as I was experiencing it.
For starters, ‘breaking in’, as I discovered, is really more like ‘seeping in’, like mould. ‘Breaking in’ implies there’s this one barrier, this single door that you have to get through, on the other side of which is this wonderful Wonkaland of comics in which you’ll never be rejected again, in which editors will queue up to give you work, and you’ll get paid to write whatever you want.
That dream may come true way, way, waaaay down the line. If you’re super-good, super-smart, super-cynical (and super-good at hiding it) or just super-lucky.
For me, the reality of submitting Future Shocks was this: I exhausted myself breaking down that door, getting that first script accepted, and once I was through, guess what I found on the other side?
Another door.
And behind that? Another door. And so on and so on. Those doors grew more varied, leading to different, ever-more dizzying possibilities, but were and still are as hard to get through as the first. It’s like a video game where your character levels up, but the monsters just get stronger, and so the challenge remains the same.
Phrases like ‘breaking in’ don’t reflect the truth, yet all too often determine your view of the business you’re trying to get into. So…
BEWARE ASSUMPTIONS!
Another term I learned to view with suspicion: ‘comic writer’. If you want to become a professional comics writer you need to know what that means in reality and not what you think it means based on what you’ve read in interviews and other such promotions. I always used to assume, even when I had plenty of professional experience, that if someone was referred to as a ‘comic writer’ then they spent 100% of their time writing comics, when, of course, that’s very often not the case.
READ: Why Writers Are Full of S*** (And Why We Have To Be) Image is key to success for writers today. But is the drive to fictionalise ourselves a good thing or a toxic necessity? What does it say to incoming talent?
For most freelance writers, writing comics is just one gig among several. Chances are they’ll be toiling through two or more deeply unsexy writing gigs that they won’t want to mention during that interview with CBR. They may be making the majority of their income proofreading recipe books or writing marketing copy for a high-street bank (I’ve done both). Lucky (wealthy or well-connected) is the writer who can straight away launch a freelance career based on a creative niche like comics, which is why you need to be aware of the bigger picture at all times.
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE HOLY GRAIL!
If you’re submitting, say, Future Shocks with an eye on becoming a professional comics writer (that is, a freelance writer who works in comics among other things), then submitting to 2000 AD should be thought of as one fishing rod among many on the riverbank. Write other things for other outlets and see what bites. Do you know an artist? Have a firm idea about how you can self-publish or crowdfund something that will reach an audience? Then go for it.
Over the years, I met a heartbreaking amount of people who had become fixated on writing or drawing for 2000 AD above all else, who’d built the idea up in their head until it meant more to them than is healthy.
ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS!
The answer to that question shouldn’t be anything like “because I have to” or “because I’ll be a failure if I don’t” or “because getting a script accepted will validate who I am.”
Steven Pressfield’s powerhouse book The War Of Art rightly warns of the dangers of staking your self-worth, your identity, your reason-for-being, on the response of others to your work.
Why did I focus on submitting to 2000 AD? Because I was a freelance writer who wanted to work for a paying creative outlet. I didn’t let it mean any more to me than that. Of course, emotionally it meant the world to me. My inner fanboy was constantly bouncing up and down squealing “I write for 2000 AD! Woo-Hoo!” But I never let that part of me get in the way of the work.
DON’T LET PASSION BECOME POISON!
Be under no illusion. There are too many in the creative industries who prey upon passion, IP holders who will exploit your love for their worlds and characters.
At the time of writing this, the hashtag #comicsbrokeme has been doing the rounds. Stories of breadline survival, creative burnout, physical and mental trauma exacerbated by publishers that rely on talented youngsters eager to eat bowl after steaming bowl of crap just to get a shot at writing their favourite character. “And if you’ve got a problem with that, kiddo, there’s the door. Let the next dope in on your way out…”
Of course, the truth is most creative endeavours are a side-hustle or a Hail Mary pass. Very few are profitable once you calculate the work-hours-to-income ratio. Despite the image many comic creators, novelists, and short story writers project on social media, few make enough to live on by themselves. They rely on day jobs, supportive partners, affluent families, those ‘One Thousand True Fans’ who’ll back every Kickstarter. Or else the creator works freelance with a diversified skillset, which allows them to take on drab but better-paying gigs alongside their passion projects.
The question #comicsbrokeme needs to ask is ‘Who have these struggling creators been listening to?’ Who were they looking up to when they first entered the field? What has inspired those false assumptions about the economic realities of the creative market? Or maybe they didn’t listen and just followed their dream off a cliff.
When comic creators have been incessantly encouraged to “build their brand” via social media, projecting that perfect image of self-sustainability, bustle, competence, and – crucially – employability, little wonder we have an incoming generation of creators looking up to them as models for their own career, and only after several years of trauma and toil realising that it’s all just snake oil.
I believe it’s incumbent upon more experienced creators to be as honest and transparent as possible when it comes to relating the reality of working not only in comics, but in any creative field. But that’s next to impossible when you’re muzzled by NDAs or contracts and need to project that constant air of awesomeness in order to secure your next gig or get people to buy your next book.
A writer’s branded image works for the benefit of editors and readers, but for inexperienced newcomers it can be a Will o’ the Wisp teasing them into the swamp of burnout and breakdown.
Don’t be an Ahab chasing that White Whale to your doom.
KNOW WHEN TO WALK AWAY!
But do not fear, my young padowan. There is a secret - nay, sacred - path the writer may follow instead…
Until then, stay weird.
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 1 of 4) How I broke into comics and why there's no such thing
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 2 of 4) How surviving submissions means rejection-proofing your soul
READ: My Future Shock Hell! Chapter 4 Why your best shot is all that will ever matter
Art by Neil Roberts? I wonder what became of him? 😀
I don't like the sound of a burnout and breakdown swamp. Thanks for all the advice!