Saturday, January 4, 2014

Tutorial - Manga Writing : 02

This tutorial is an update to Manga Writing, so check that out before reading this or you can read I am gonna talk bout software for writing and pattern to write your story in.

Without wasting any time lets get to it.

Software for writing your concept, synopsis or entire script

3 Software that I have used and that I recommend are:

01. Final Draft - (free & paid)
02. yWriter - (free)
03. Celtx - (free & paid)

01. Final Draft : Right now they have the released 9th version of it but I am using 8 or 8.3. I mostly use final draft to write down my concepts (only concepts). The software is really good and offers a lot of features like thesaurus, text to speech (you can make the software read your script - really cool feature), scene cards (different scenes in different cards (can change the cards color is required)), and many more, check there website for more details. This is also the industry standard software for script writing even James Cameron uses it for Avatar.

02. yWriter : This was the first software that I ever used for writing script, let me say it looks slacky like a windows 98 software(app) but it is very functional. Its user friends, it has a lot of tools to work with like story board time line, database for characters, items(props), locations and not just a simple data base you can add alternate names, images, notes, bio, goals, description of characters. There are a lot more features to this app which even I haven't explored. Use it if you are a geeky writer and need a feature rich script writing software.

03 Celtx : This is my favorite, I used this to write my scripts. Its very easy to use. It also have a very detailed database more detailed than yWriter. It is available for both mac & pc. Celtx has cloud features you have to pay for it but its not that expensive or if you dont need cloud you can just download their free version. They have a lot of third part tools too, but again you will have to pay for it.

Download their free version, try them for 30 days and decide for yourself that which one is better for you.

Lets move to the interesting part.

Pattern for Writing a script
Many of you might not be interested in the software I mentioned your are happy with using word pad or Microsoft word or any other text editing app available to you.

The pattern for manga script writing goes this way.
Replace the things inside parenthesis () as required for your script

Page 1 : (number of panels on the page)

    Panel 1 : (Wide, top down exterior or arial view of city traffic, we see the man and his surroundings)

        Caption : (Add captions if required like why the man was in traffic and other details)

    Panel 2 : (Mid, front view of man bumping into a woman, we see the woman from behind)

        Caption : (There was a soda can lying on the ground man tripped on it and bumped into the woman)

Man
(thinking - what a beautiful lady)
(saying with sorry and calm tone)
Ah, Miss I am so sorry.

Woman
(saying with humble tone)
Its ok sir.

Alright this was the easiest and most productive way to write script for manga writers even if you don't draw your own manga, you can write down every last detail in caption so that the artist can draw close to your imagination.

The best part is the pattern I just described is available in all three software so you wont have to waste time writing Page 1, Panel 1 , Caption the above mentioned software will do it automatically for you.

As for me I only use software now to write down the concepts that I think or dream of. For writing entire script I do a process called "Nemu" in Japanese you can call it storyboarding its the rough layout of the actual manuscript. This way is more creative for me as I can doodle it up while thinking of it and make changes as required. These are some examples of it.


 Find the way that suits you the best. I'll post update on Writing tutorial as I get more skilled in it.

 Thank you for reading ^^

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