Transcription
You are being brainwashed into believing that you do not need a Mangus script and that you should just make a storyboard. Well, you actually do, and so here's how to do it better than 99% of [Music] beginners.
Welcome to episode 7 of Path to Mangaka, and let's actually get straight into it. So, to make scripts better than 99% of beginners, here's exactly what you need to do. The first thing that you need to do is to show and not tell.
Okay, so do not do this right here. A lot of people just, you know, spam their entire script into the speech bubbles and think all of these informations are informations that the reader needs to know about. But here's the thing: this is too much text. Now, in this exact page, this was done intentionally, so this is not bad in this example, but you definitely do not do this, okay? Because when you add so much text into your speech bubbles, which a lot of beginners do, it will be just disengaging and definitely not visually appealing. Imagine you just open a manga and you want to read it, and the first thing that you see is something like this. You'll definitely not be interested at all because there's just so much text, and you would rather just read a novel instead. So, show, do not tell.
Let me show an example of how you actually should do this. So, in this page, this is a page from Look Back. You can see that there are just zero speech bubbles, and the characters are, you know, just doing something in these, you know, panels. And this is absolutely enough to tell the story. And so, as you can see, no words, and still the message and what the author wanted to convey comes across very easily because you actually can do that without speech bubbles. So, rather than, you know, filling your speech bubbles with a lot of text, just make sure that either it is just a few words or it is just no words at all because this will make it visually appealing. Of course, there are some parts in your manga where you need to explain some things, that's okay. But for the most part, do not, you know, overwhelm your reader with a lot of words. And so, use action and subtext always over direct exposition because sometimes less is absolutely more.
All right, the next thing that you need to do is to reflect the characters. So, here's an example, right? So, Denji grew up in a very poor and bad environment, and he had to sell his organs to get food. Now, Denji right here is speaking very informally, but still, he's trying to convey that he doesn't want, you know, to waste food. Now, this is done in an informal way because this reflects the character of Denji, right? Denji is a very informal person, and so when he, you know, speaks about something ethical, like, you know, not wasting food, it can't be done like the normal way it should be done informally because this is the character of Denji. And so, ensure that each character's speech, right, reflects their personality and background. This is very important because a lot of people, when they write their characters, they just write their characters and say what they are saying as if they were the character. And so that's why all of the characters in the story feel exactly the same because they are one person. You actually need to put yourself in the position of your character and then write what they're saying.
Okay, the next thing is actually moving forward. Now, what does that exactly mean? So, a lot of people think that to move the story forward, they need a lot of explanations, but this is simply not true. And so, before I tell you why, just make sure that you avoid long explanations and cut unnecessary filler in your speeches. The reason for that is it's because it is too long, and when it's too long, the readers will be put off your story. They will not continue reading. You need to always put the readers on your mind. If the reader sees a lot of explanations the entire time, they will not read your manga. And when readers do not read your manga, you basically failed as a manga. This is honestly just like in real life, right? So, sometimes you wonder when the other person you are speaking to will get to the point, right? Like, you will be speaking to a person, and he's just yapping and yapping and yapping, and he's not, you know, getting to the point. And this is the exact same thing. A lot of people do in their manga. They just yap all the time, and they do not come to that point. So, come to the point when it comes to making your manga scripts to move your story forward.
So, as the legend Eiichiro Oda always says, keep moving forward. All right, so each conversation or interaction in the story should literally drive the story forward. No one wants to, you know, read pages of characters engaging in absolutely meaningless chitchat, okay? No one wants to read that. You every single line you write in your script should drive the story forward. Please. Yes, there will be, you know, light-hearted moments in your story, that's okay. But do not do too many of them at once because then the story will not move forward. So, basically, get to the point during conversations and explanations.
Now, to make all of this absolutely more understandable for you, we have a complete example, you know, using an actual manga page from One Piece. So, this is a page from One Piece, as you can tell, and we will show you how to actually write the script for this exact page. So, if you were to make this page, this is exactly how you would do the script. And so, let's go over it real quick. So, the first thing that you need to do is to actually write down which scene or, you know, which panel that is. So, in this example, it is scene one or panel one, and it is in page X, whatever, you know, the number of your pages. Once you wrote that down, the first thing that you need to do is to write the description. So, the description is basically telling what is happening in the panel or in the scene. So, you do not write what the characters are saying, you do that, you know, here. But first, you need to actually describe what is happening. And so, in this example, you know, Zoro stands in front of Kuma with his back facing the readers, and, you know, minor characters all running away, right? So, this is basically what is happening.
Now, once you wrote that down, the next thing you need to do is to actually write down what the characters are saying. And so, in this example, it is Zoro, and he's saying, "I've accepted this fight. I do not need your help. Do not humiliate me." And Kuma just says nothing, right? So, these things that are here, this is exactly what you will put in your speech bubbles, right? So, once you write this down and you want to make the actual pages, you just look here and then put it immediately into the speech bubbles. And this way, it is absolutely easier for you to make the pages because you will look here and you will see, "Oh, this is what's happening. Let me actually draw it." And then you include the speech bubbles, and then boom, you add it immediately.
And we've done the exact same thing for the, you know, panel two and scene two. Exact same thing. Page number, you know, description. "Close-up shot of Zoro who looks up to Kuma with a serious injured face." This is very important to include as well. It's like to write down how the characters look like because if you just write down Zoro and you do not include, you know, "serious injured face," then you will just draw Zoro normally, or you will just forget about it. And so, just write everything down because when you are doing the script, you will be imagining the entire story in your head. And so that's why you need to include absolutely everything. And again, you know, Kuma says, "You all have a pretty good reputation." And this is exactly what is happening here in the speech bubbles. And yeah, that's exactly how you do it.
So, if you need this template that we are using right here and any other information concerning the script, you can get the template from our exclusive guide, which is absolutely for free in the top link in the description. Okay, now let's get to the most exciting part of this episode, which is making your homework. So, your homework for this episode is to turn the first page of your manga into an actual script. So, you have an idea, you have your characters, right? And now it's actually time to put this idea into a script. And your homework is to just make the first page of your manga. So, in the last episode, we actually told you to make the first manga page of a random manga or your manga. And so, if you have already done that, then you can turn this exact page into a script. If you haven't made a script for it yet, or if you just want to make a manga and you are making these homeworks alongside your manga, then make the first page of your manga as a script, exactly like we told you. And again, you can access the template in the free exclusive guide that we made for you. Top link in the description.
With that being said, if you haven't watched the last episode about making the first page, here it is. Make sure to watch it and see you there.