Guess what? The second chapter of our gay teen comic Tough, “No Kissing”, is now finished and ready for Yaoi 911 News & Downloads subscribers to download!

This will serve as the master post for Tough Chapter Two: “No Kissing”. Here is where readers should leave comments about what they thought about the comic and it’s also where I’ll be sharing the first 16 preview pages with you!

What’s the second chapter about?

The fight from Chapter One is over, the bad boys have slunk away in defeat and to celebrate their victory hunky Rob has invited 15-year-old Filipino-American Mike Castro back to his place for some Xbox and Hard Lemonade.

After a few drinks and a few fighting games, Mike is feeling relaxed and cocky. Sure, he’s alone in the bedroom of an out gay guy, but they just saved each others’ lives and Mike has made Rob promise there’s not going to be any “gay stuff” — and certainly no kissing.

But when Rob starts giving Mike a backrub, Mike is forced to question how much he can trust this older, more experienced boy. And as Mike begins to like the massage more than he should, he starts to wonder exactly how much he can trust himself…

How do I read this comic?

This is another free download for Yaoi 911 News & Downloads subscribers. Subscribers to our mailing list get sent links to our free comics and this is the latest one. So if you want to read more, just sign up — a link will be sent right to you!

But hey, sometimes email can take a while, so if you’re a subscriber and haven’t gotten the email yet, you can also find and download Tough Chapter Two: No Kissing at our new store. Simply create a new account at our store using your subscriber email address, Add To Cart one of our free comics and when you Checkout, you’ll be able to download it for free. It’s fast and easy — try it!

Get Tough Chapter Two: No Kissing right now at The Yaoi 911 Store.

Where can I talk about it?

Right here! The comments section of this post is the place to let me and other readers know what you thought. (And please do — you’re the whole reason we’re making these comics. And we love encouragement. )

What about spoilers?

So folks are able to talk about the work without worrying about spoiling the story for others, I’ve added a new feature to the blog comments: spoiler protection! It works like this. Put the spoiler text into your comment between bracketed “spoiler” tags like this

to end up with this:

So, when does Chapter Three come out?

Well, we’re working on it. Our goal is to have it finished in a few months, just like this chapter was — but my experience tells me that stuff happens so I don’t want to give a firm date until I know we’re only weeks away. That said — don’t despair, you can still get your Yaoi 911 fix before then! Our first full-length, for-pay graphic novel, Artifice, is being colored right now and that means it should be done before the Fall. So, one way or the other, we should have another comic for you in a few months — and trust me, Artifice has it all: sex, action, romance, androids, evil robopsychologists and an adorable and scrappy young love interest. It’s going to be awesome!

Please tell me what you thought!

So that’s what you need to know about our latest comic. I really do hope you like how Mike’s story is coming along. Please take a moment and let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Preview Pages

Tough Chapter Two: No Kissing written by Alex Woolfson. Pencils by Vitto. Colors and cover art by Winona Nelson.
© 2010 Alex Woolfson. All Rights Reserved.

Want to download the entire 35 page comic? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the link will be sent right to you!

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Learn More!

• Curious about the very first comic we finished (and that we’re also giving away for free)? Then read all about our boys and sorcery story, “A Shot in the Dark”!
• Wondering why the heck I’m making a yaoi book? Check out Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi!
• Want to read about other creators’ yaoi? Take a look at our in-depth Yaoi Reviews!
• Interested in creating your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!

]]> http://www.yaoi911.com/yaoi-comic-no-kissing-is-ready-for-download/feed/ 52 http://www.yaoi911.com/how-to-write-badly-the-idiot-plot-device/ http://www.yaoi911.com/how-to-write-badly-the-idiot-plot-device/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:15:49 +0000 Alex Woolfson http://www.yaoi911.com/?p=63 because knowing is half the battle. The first shameful technique we'll discuss is something I like to call "The Idiot Plot Device".]]>

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Aliens, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Dutch version of The Vanishing, Firefly — just because something is a genre story doesn’t mean it can’t be great storytelling. But as someone who loves genre work – sci-fi, fantasy, police procedurals, film noir, yaoi, you name it — I’ve often noticed that there seems to be this general, unspoken acceptance of lazy technique, of bad writing. The opinion seems to be “Hey, it’s just a sci-fi story, what do you expect?”

Well, I say “No more!” There are enough examples of quality writing in genre work that there is no excuse for writing stories that can’t stand toe-to-toe with more “mainstream” work. And I believe the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Thus this series of posts on “How To Write Badly” – because knowing is half the battle.

The first shameful technique we’ll discuss is something I like to call “The Idiot Plot Device”.

What Is It?

Especially common in horror films, The Idiot Plot device is when a character or characters do something incredibly stupid merely (or mostly) to further the plot. Bobby and Susie know there’s a killer in the woods but decide to sneak out for a little heavy petting between the pines anyway – thus allowing the killer to claim his next victims and allowing the story to move forward.

How To Tell It’s In Play

If you’re watching a character about to do something and you find yourself mouthing the words “Oh, my God – what a dumbass!” that’s a pretty good sign.

But it’s not enough in itself. Good creators write about all aspects of the human condition — even those moments when people are not being very bright and even about folks who are just downright dumb. No, for it to be The Idiot Plot Device, the idiocy has to be necessary to further the plot: meaning when it’s clear that if Bobby and Susie just did the smart thing, stayed inside and saved their heavy petting for a day when they aren’t being stalked by a maniacal killer, the plot wouldn’t move forward and the writer would be stuck. (Or, at least, the writer would have to be a bit clever to figure out how to put the characters into danger again.)

In addition, The Idiot Plot Device usually requires a character to act in a way that stretches credibility – the action is just so dumb, so incompetent, so inappropriate based on everything the character’s seen that the only possible explanation is that the writer had painted themselves into a corner and didn’t know (or couldn’t be bothered to find) any other way to amp up the tension or move things forward.

A variation of The Idiot Plot Device is the I’m So Upset/Freaked Out/Scared I’m Going To Act Like An Idiot Plot Device where characters under duress do something incredibly stupid (such as when Lambert just stands in front of the monster in Alien doing nothing, thus getting herself and the character trying to rescue her killed.) More sympathetic to an audience than The Idiot Plot Device — after all, we’ve all had moments when we’ve been overwhelmed and made bad choices — this technique still suffers from the same problems as its Idiot brother, namely that it uses lazy writing to move the plot forward.

Some Examples From The Wild

Keeping with our Alien references, the first time I ever truly noticed this cop-out was while watching the movie Alien 3 when a character, working with buckets of explosive accelerant he and his buddies were using to trap the monster, chooses to carry a bucket of the accelerant and a flare at the same time (!) which, of course, soon causes an explosion that blows their entire plan (and several cast members) all to hell. If he hadn’t done that, the plan would have succeeded and the movie would have been over some 45 minutes early.

Another example from the world of sci-fi comes from the popular series Battlestar Galactica (a frequent offender) where much-maligned Vice President Baltar chooses to secretly hand over a nuclear bomb to an abused Cylon as a “token of his good will” which then soon after leads to her blowing up several ships, thousands of people and alerting the rest of the enemy Cylons to the few surviving humans’ location. Yes, he was feeling a bit insulted at that moment by the President of the Colonies, yes “Head 6″ encouraged him to give her the device, but willingly handing over a nuclear bomb to an angry enemy of the human race? Really? Really? Yes, really — otherwise Season 3 would not have been possible.

(And yes, temporary insanity definitely falls under The Idiot Plot Device, in case you think Head 6′s encouragement offers that excuse…)

Why It’s Bad Writing

It’s bad writing because it breaks audience identification with the characters, it breaks realism but mostly, it’s just incredibly lazy.

It creates distance between the audience and your work

The best stories are the ones where you can put yourself in the character’s shoes, where you get to experience their successes and failures right along with them. The character doesn’t have to be exactly like you — in fact, it’s even better when you get a chance to identify with a character you would ordinarily think of as an “other” — but the character should exhibit enough universal and compelling elements so you can really feel that, if you were in the same situation, you’d be making at least some of the same choices. You’re immersed and engaged because it could just as easily be you in the situation the creator is portraying.

But The Idiot Plot Device breaks that. The character is taking an action so stupid, so inappropriate, all you can do is sit there and shake your head. In that moment, you aren’t identifying with the character — you are standing apart in judgment, thus creating distance between you and the work.

It’s not very realistic

In addition, your suspension of disbelief is also put into question. Sure, we all do stupid things, but for almost all of us, the self-preservation instinct is very strong. When characters act against that — or against their own interests in general — there needs to be a very good reason, otherwise audience members wind up consoling themselves with “Well, it’s a just a movie (TV show, book, etc.), it’s not supposed to be realistic.” And woe be to any writer who wants their audience thinking that while experiencing their story.

It’s just downright lazy

Mostly, though, The Idiot Plot Device is just lazy writing. It’s relying on the darker, more cynical parts of human nature to hide an author’s lack of imagination. As a writer, you know that at least some of your audience will give you a free pass for such shortcuts, with apologies like “Well, in ‘real life’, people do lots of stupid things when the shit hits the fan, so I guess they might do this too.”

But it really takes no intelligence at all to move the plot forward this way. It’s easy to have someone do something dumb that creates trouble — it’s a much tougher assignment to have everyone be smart, act smart, make good decisions and still keep your story from getting resolved right away. In order to pull that off, you need to be at least as smart as the characters you’re writing and probably a lot smarter.

This becomes clearest when a writer has created (or is including) a really smart, capable hero, like Ripley from the Alien series. She’s fought dozens of these aliens before, she’s tough and decisive and she’s smart. Left to her own devices, she should be able to handily destroy the alien in Alien 3 in the first act. But that would make for an awfully short movie so the author has a choice — make the alien as smart as (or smarter than) Ripley foiling her brilliant plans with equally brilliant countermoves…. or have her surrounded by idiots who won’t help her despite overwhelming evidence that she’s credible and then actively foil her plans against their own interest through their own stupidity.

Which choice do you think requires more effort, more skill, more creative thinking, thus increasing the odds for a more satisfying story?

A major reason that The Idiot Plot Device is so unsatisfying is that it is a form of cheating, of stalling — if people were making smart choices, the story would resolve quickly. But the author has to fill 90 minutes of screen time (or 44 minutes of TV time, 24 pages of comics, whatever…), so they keep their characters in jeopardy through a series of stupid choices and bonehead moves.

Yes, some people might find those stupid choices believable — but satisfying, engaging? Not likely.

How To Transcend

The fact that this technique is used so often, though, gives a special advantage to the writer who’s willing to put in a little more effort. Audiences have been trained to accept this form of laziness, so when you subvert that expectation, you earn strong credibility in their eyes. Have your character actually be smarter, more rational, more capable than your audience might expect and suddenly things get a lot more interesting!

One of the best examples of this again comes from the Alien series, this time from the second movie, Aliens.

Here’s the scene: the marines have just gotten their asses handed to them by the aliens. They are demoralized and at a loss of what to do — how do they fight these seemingly unstoppable monsters? Well, Ripley suggests dropping a whole lot of nuclear bombs on the critters from orbit. (Which in itself puts this movie in a special category — I don’t care how badass a monster is, no beastie of flesh and blood is going to stand up against an H-Bomb and this was something that scif-fi movies, particularly from the 70s and 80s, would always seem to conveniently forget…)

So, there we have it, problem solved! Ah, but the “company man” nixes the idea — there’s lots of expensive equipment on the planet, you see — “This installation has a substantial dollar value” — and he forbids the use of nuclear weapons. And, at this point, we in the audience are prepared to accept this — it seems at least somewhat plausible and really, how else is the writer going to keep everyone in jeopardy? Thank you for remembering that nukes exist, filmmakers, but even though these monsters have just taken out 80% of their platoon and every adult man and woman in the colony, we’ll accept that those puppies are not an option!

But then, Ripley says the words you and I would actually say if we were in that situation. She looks that company man right in the eye with an incredulous sneer and exclaims ‘They can BILL me!” And then manages to convince the Marines to overrule the company man and nuke the entire site from orbit.

Now we as the audience don’t have any idea what’s going to happen next! The movie’s not even half done and our heroes are going to do exactly what we would do with their technology and in their situation — fly the heck out of there and nuke the monsters from the safety of space! How is the writer going to keep things going from here? He’s just painted himself in a corner, right?! We’re now completely engaged — and in no small part because, despite not knowing how things are going to continue, we’re convinced that this creator isn’t going to foist lazy cop outs on us. It turns out we’re watching a movie where characters are going to make smart choices yet still get in trouble because the monsters are just as smart and so, once the shit hits the fan again, our own brains start to work in overdrive to try to figure a way out — as if we were there ourselves.

We’re engaged. We trust the creator. We know we’re in good hands and in for a good ride. And that’s exactly how you want your audience to feel.

Suffer No Fools!

Sure, you can get away with lazy writing techniques like The Idiot Plot Device, but if you choose the harder path, you will create a far better experience for your audience… and a far more memorable work. Make things hard for yourself — have all your characters, both heroes and villains, consistently make smart, self-interested choices — for every move, take the time to think of a brilliant countermove; for every strategy, think of a really smart way for the other side to foil it!

If you can do that, you will find your work being remembered not for its genre, but rather for what an awesome, compelling story was told.

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My very good friend Bill S. recently sent me a link to an article by creator Joss Whedon (whom I greatly admire and occasionally take to task) titled “Let’s Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death.” (WARNING: Heavy, but important content — as if the title alone didn’t clue you into that…)

You should read it. It’s a well-written piece and fits nicely into a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about lately:

By creating this book, am I making the world less safe for women?

What This Article Is Not

Before I get into the reasons why that question is on my mind, let me get a couple things out of the way right up front. First off, to paraphrase another creator I both admire and hold to high standards, Aaron Sorkin: the sheer tonnage of what I don’t know about sexism and what it’s actually like to be a woman in this world could stop a herd of oxen in its tracks.

FACT: I’m a guy who dates guys and most of my activism has been on the behalf of gay youth and equal rights for gays and lesbians. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit on my hands about something this important, but I wanted to make it clear that I’m speaking from my heart here, not from a position of authority.

Secondly, I will not use this article as an excuse for hand-wringing and lament — the question of what responsibilities a creator has to his or her fellow human beings (in this case, over half the world’s population) is one I take very seriously. I might not say anything new here, but I am committed to finding the right answers. Knowing that violence and hatred towards women is one of the biggest challenges of our day is important, but more important is asking: what am I going to do about it?

Yaoi 911: Weapon of Sexism?

As a creator, I focus on writing what I consider to be compelling, entertaining stories and take stock of the thematic content of what I’ve written afterwards. And while I’m quite pleased with the stories I’ve come up with for this first book, there’s been a little something niggling at the back of my brain, something about how I’m representing women.

In these comics, my heroes are all male. In fact, most of the characters in my stories are male (in “A Shot in the Dark” they are all male). Nothing wrong with showing a guy being a hero — and this is yaoi, after all — but it did feel a little strange to exclude, you know, half the world’s population. So, in “Artifice”, I created Dr. Clarice Maven. But the hero slots were taken up by my romantic leads so if she was going to take a leading role that meant she had to be the antagonist — y’know, the villain.

Now, as written, Dr. Maven is very smart and powerful — so at least I avoid the basest of sexual stereotypes — but still, she’s not on the side of angels. And these are action stories, so the threat of violence is always there. The threat of violence against a smart, capable woman and, because she’s the villain, your sympathies are going to be with the male heroes, not with her.

Joss Whedon writes:

Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence — is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

I’m not going to coyly ask “Could my story be contributing to that culture?” The truth is, on some level, it does. Perhaps the effect is subtle, but then so is the common use of the word “gay” in popular culture for anything negative or weird. And that certainly had an effect on me growing up.

First Amendment: Rah! Rah! Rah!

So what about that? Do I think there should be laws, censorship, perhaps a governing council of wise hate-free elders to tell creators what is and is not ok for them to create?

No — not only is that unworkable, but I’m certain that the end result would create more evil in the world, rather than less. I might not be as hard core a defender of Freedom of Speech as my good friend Bill S., but the issue is still very dear to my heart: so long as no one in real life is placed in clear and serious danger — think death threats — creators should be able to create whatever they want without fear of censorship.

And in my opinion, potentially contributing to social injustice, while reprehensible, shouldn’t lower the legal axe. If for no other reason — and there are other reasons — than that such works can get us talking about the issues. And hopefully, through reasoned discussion, change the world for the better.

A Creator’s First Responsibility

In fact, I would go so far as to say that, for a writer of narrative fiction, trying to make the world a better place should take second place to good storytelling. And by good storytelling, I mean a commitment to creating compelling characters who feel real doing interesting things.

We’ve all read books or seen films where a creator tried to shoe-horn in a social message that went contrary to the reality of the piece and we are well-familiar with the results — tedious works that fail as art and as instruments for positive change.

And of course, a commitment to showing what is interesting and true about people can contribute to understanding and thus further social progress in itself. That is, by not creating propaganda, artists are often more successful in changing the world. Not every gay person is harmless and non-predatory. Not every black person is a shining role model for their community. Not every bigot hates their kids and kicks their dog. To only write works that say otherwise is lying. And by telling the truth, by showing both victims and perpetrators as human, you force your audience to identify with them, to find traits of what they were so sure was the “other” in their own hearts and minds. And I believe that that can only help the fight to end prejudice, bigotry and violence.

But not every story that has the ring of truth has the potential to bring us together. I haven’t even seen the trailer for it, but who knows? Perhaps the film that Joss refers to in his article — “Captivity” — is close enough to real life to count. Maybe it carefully and truthfully narrates exactly how a beautiful woman would behave if held prisoner and tortured for days.

What about these works and their creators?

Creator or Human Being?

I’m reminded of a course I took while a student at the University of Salzburg called “Science and Ethics.” (I actually took a number of ethics classes while studying there and it was a fascinating experience. And of course, the Austrians know a thing or two about how a deep commitment to a scientific or political pursuit can be used as an excuse to justify the most abhorrent actions.)

The point of the class was very simple: As a scientist, your first and really only commitment is in discovering scientific truths by any means necessary. But as a human being, you are responsible for how your actions impact others — and that responsibility trumps your role as a scientist.

A creator’s first and really only commitment should be to tell a great and effective story. But as human beings, we have a responsibility to carefully consider the impact of our works on the larger world, on our fellow human beings. And that responsibility trumps.

This Human Being’s Responsibility

I think it’s dangerous to judge people on the basis on any one action and dangerous to judge a creator by viewing any individual work in isolation. And frankly, it’s arrogant to think that any one story will have that big an impact on the world stage. But a number of pieces over a creative career, a body of work is another matter.

I look at the stories I’ve created for this first book through the lens of sexism and, honestly, I think I can do better. They’re good stories, I think people will like them and I don’t think they’ll make the world a darker, more dangerous place. Or at least not much darker and more dangerous. But I absolutely think I can do better on the next ones.

What that will look like exactly? The guys still need to be the heroes, right? Or do they? Is it enough to have a plucky and capable female best friend or is that just as insidious as the sexless and funny gay best friend stock character in Hollywood movies? Truthfully, I don’t know what the right answers are yet.

But as a creator, it’s my universe and I get to choose what truths I’ve noticed about people, about women, about men relating to women, that I will share. I know in my heart there has to be a way to tell hot, fun, sexy, compelling yaoi stories that can make this world safer for the cool female audience who will read my works — that I can still make telling great stories my top priority and yet be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

A good creator should be able to do it. And this human being sees it as his responsibility.


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Learn More!

• Want to hear some of my early thoughts on yaoi and sexism? Check out Should Yaoi Be Just For Women?
• Curious about how to create your own manga? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Want to see how our first comic is coming along? (Or just want to look at some pics of the cute boys fighting monsters and making out?) Click on over to Yaoi Art: “A Shot in the Dark” Inks! (Age 18 and over, please!)
• Had enough with the heavy for now? Read a review of a great yaoi comedy: Yaoi Review: Challengers by Hinako Takanaga!

Some things I’ve been reading lately have gotten me thinking about “The One True Yaoi.”

Recently, Tina Anderson got some heat for not writing what one yaoi fan considered authentic Boys’ Love works. And an interview excerpt (EDIT: scroll down for the August 9th post) over at Comics 212 demonstrated the lines even creators (perhaps especially creators) try to draw between yaoi and “homosexual” works (prompting me to write a comment that received a very kind mention over at the excellent MangaBlog.) [Edit: And now Christopher Butcher himself over at Comics 212 has weighed in with a very interesting and thorough take on this. Very cool. Please check it out.] (EDIT 2: This would be the August 18, 2006 post which you now have to scroll down for on this page as well.)

I’ve talked about my motivation some in “Why Yaoi?” but I wanted to tell you the story behind why I’m making these books and what you can expect in them.

When I was a teenager, I was a big movie fan. In particular, I loved sci-fi and action films — and if you could combine them as James Cameron did in Aliens, I was in heaven. I suppose there were a lot of other boys who were interested in those kinds of films, but growing up as a gay boy, I was craving something more, something that nobody seemed to be interested in providing — action heroes who liked other guys.

Now, in the 80s and early 90s, there were beginning to be a number of images of gay characters in mainstream films, but at best, they were comic relief, more typically they were portrayed as either bad guys or victims (or in the case of Miller’s Crossing, repeatedly both.) Nobody, it seemed, believed that gay guys could actually be the heroes.

Of course, there were a lot of messages I got while growing up gay that told me that I was not as worthy as the girl-seeking guys — the fact that the word “gay” could be blithely used by all my classmates for anything negative being high on that list — but the one I felt I could actually do something about was this lack of heroes on screen.

I was already writing fairly regularly by my mid-teens — short stories and theater plays, a couple of which even got produced in my home state of Vermont — but I knew that being a writer wasn’t going to be good enough. I needed to be the one who had the true power to shape the message of the film — the director. So, I dedicated my life to developing the skills and experience to make the films I wanted so desperately to see as a young man. (And now you have my filmmaker origin story. )

But as I got older and more experienced, it became very clear to me that realizing my visions in film was going to take years and years of development. I’ve worked on a number of low-budget independent movies, including my own — so I knew that was an option — but ultimately, they weren’t the kind of stories I wanted to tell. I wanted to make a big-budget sci-fi/fantasy action movie where the guys kiss at the end (and perhaps in the middle, too!). Yet I knew that even in this post-Brokeback Mountain age we live in, raising millions of dollars from investors for a boy-on-boy blockbuster would be nearly impossible.

Of course, I could have just rewritten my scripts as conventional prose novels — and I did consider this — but in the end, I’m a visual storyteller. From the moment I saw actors breathing life into one of my plays onstage at the tender age of 16, there was no turning back. I didn’t want to merely describe to people what I saw in my head — I wanted to show them.

So for a long time, I despaired of ever getting a chance to tell these stories the way I wanted to. I still wrote them, mind you — but I knew that unless lightning struck, they would never be more than Sisyphusean exercises, shared only among those close to me.

But a few years ago, a new friend — LB — rekindled an old passion: anime. And as I watched classic Ranma 1/2 and Oh, My Goddess, I started to realize that there might be another satisfying way to tell these expensive stories — with drawn art where the only limits are those of imagination. I did some research on producing an animated film and discovered it would be nearly a costly as a live-action movie. Yet I knew I was on to something. And then, as I was reading some fine online literature, it hit me — why not tell these stories as graphic novels?

I was already a fan of such American classics as Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Miracleman, so I knew the form could be used to tell some amazing stories. And my developing exposure to anime, manga and yes, slash-fiction, let me know there might in fact be a market for the kind of stories I wanted to tell.

What kind of stories are those? Character-based action-romances with strong plots but where the ultimate focus was on the relationships. I knew it was a strange combination — thrilling fantasy-action and sweet, warm-and-fuzzy guy-on-guy romance — but as I became more familiar with yaoi, I realized I had finally found a home for the stories I wanted to tell.

And for the same reasons that it wasn’t enough for me to just be the writer of the films I made, I’m passionate about being the publisher of these books as well. This is my opportunity to realize a life-long dream and I’m going to create the kind of books I’ve always wanted to read. And that means publishing a full-color graphic novel on nice, coated paper with fun action, sweet romance and writing intended for a mature audience — and by “mature,” I mean for those looking for developed, three-dimensional characters and plotting that does not insult your intelligence. (And for the first Yaoi 911™ book, we are creating a collection of five comic “short stories” where some cute guys try their best to rescue the guys they love. You can see art for the first of those comics here.)

Will the yaoi community consider our work “true yaoi”? I don’t know. While women are drawing many of the stories, obviously I’m not a woman and I’m writing and publishing them. The guys in our stories are going to look like guys, not androgynous bishonen — and not necessarily impossibly beautiful guys either. (Cute yes; impossibly beautiful, not so much.) And while every relationship has power dynamics, I’m not likely to follow the traditional seme/uke conventions found in classic yaoi works — frankly, I think more complex, less hetero-traditional relationships are more interesting. Perhaps for some, those choices alone will mean three strikes and I’m out of the whole yaoi game.

But reading other yaoi works — by women and for women — gives me hope. I know they are “meant” for women, but I really connect with a lot of those stories, both published and fan fiction. No, I’m not going to make any special effort to follow yaoi conventions — other than trying to appeal to the female audience I feel so connected to. Instead I am going to tell you stories that I’ve been wanting to tell you all my life. And I’m going to do it with passion and heart and with every intention of making you, my reader, smile, laugh and hopefully fall in love with my characters a little. As I, myself, have fallen in love with the characters of other yaoi creators.

Will the fans consider it “true yaoi”? Who knows — but I do promise you that I will do everything in my power to tell really fun and interesting guy-on-guy romance stories. After all, you are helping me realize a life-long dream — the least I can do is show you a good time.


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Learn More!

• Wondering “Why yaoi? Why not just write for other gay men?” Find out in Why This Gay Man is Creating Yaoi!
• Curious about how to create your own yaoi book? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Looking to buy a sweet yaoi book? Check out Yaoi Review: Sweet Revolution by Yukine Honami and Serubo Suzuki!
• Want to see how our first comic is coming along? (Or just want to look at some pics of the cute boys fighting monsters and making out?) Click on over to Yaoi Art: “A Shot in the Dark” Inks! (Age 18 and over, please!)

Oh, my God, he did it again — and not once, but twice. I sat there staring at the dead body before my eyes and thought, I’m never going to trust this man again.

Thoughts about murder for art’s sake as well as spoilers for old seasons of Buffy, Firefly/Serenity, Alien 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, the Dutch version of The Vanishing, Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop.” and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes below the fold.

The body I was staring at was that of Hoban “Wash” Washburne, the movie was Serenity, and the name of the man I would never trust with my affections again was Joss Whedon.

Rumor has it that J.K. Rowling is going to kill off Harry Potter. LB, a hardcore HP fan, has assured me that such rumors are not to be trusted, but hearing about it did get me thinking — when is it OK (and, more importantly, not OK) for an author to kill off beloved characters?

Anguish Unspeakable

Killing off fan-favorite characters has been a risky business for some time — just ask Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. Weary of writing pulp fiction detective novels and wanting to devote himself to more “elevated” works, he decided to write an end to the famous detective once and for all.

Masterpiece Theatre | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Essays + Interviews:
In his autobiography, he confessed, “The idea was in my mind when I went on holiday with my wife to Switzerland, in the course of which we saw the wonderful falls of Reichenbach, a terrible place, and one which I thought would make a worthy tomb for Sherlock, even if I buried my banking account with him.” In “The Final Problem,” Holmes’s nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, pushes the detective over the falls to his death.

The response from fans was overwhelming… and strongly negative.

When the story appeared in The Strand in December 1893, newspapers ran headlines about Holmes’s death, and passionate fans wore mourning garb in the streets. Faced with such public outcry, Conan Doyle resurrected Holmes in 1901 in The Hound of the Baskervilles, though he set the novel retrospectively to avoid having to bring Holmes back to life… Conan Doyle revived him for his reading public, but forbade mention of his name within earshot. He spent his last years marginalized and misunderstood while his famous creation grew ever more beloved.

This intense response to the death of a fictional character is hardly unusual. Charles McGrath of the New York Times writes about the reaction to another such loss:

And They All Died Happily Ever After – New York Times:

“Is Little Nell dead?” New Yorkers thronging the docks in the winter of 1841 called out to ships arriving from Europe, hoping for news from someone who had read the latest installment of Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop.” She was, though Dickens said that killing her off had caused him “anguish unspeakable,” and both here and in England readers wept in the streets. Daniel O’Connell, the famous Irish member of Parliament, was so upset he threw his copy of the novel from the window of a train.

And according to McGrath, this type of response continues to this day:

Readers overwhelmingly prefer happy endings to sad ones, according to a survey taken in England in March, and they particularly mind it when a beloved character — a Tess, a Beth March, an Anna Karenina, a Harry, for that matter — has to die. A number of those surveyed said that if they could, they would rewrite their favorite books and make them turn out differently.

Justifiable Homicide?

I am certainly no different. I am drawn to works with engaging, three-dimensional characters — characters I would choose to be my own friends if they actually existed — and when their fictional selves shuffle off this mortal coil, I feel a real, and often profound, sense of loss. This is not to say that I can never find the death of a hero appropriate and satisfying — the ending of the Dutch version of The Vanishing comes to mind — it just has to be for the right reasons. And there are so many wrong reasons.

Sometimes beloved characters die at the hands of lesser creators — such was the fate of heroic space marine Corporal Dwayne Hicks and a resilient little orphan girl named Newt. These were two characters James Cameron got me to love in Aliens and their rescue was the payoff of that excellent action-adventure — but they were then dispatched casually, trivially and stupidly in the opening few minutes of Alien3. A similar fate awaited Cyclops in the third X-Men film. For the sake of such victims of hackery, I stand shoulder to shoulder with those in the survey mentioned above and long for a rewrite. (And, in truth, as far as I’m concerned, Alien 3 never actually happened — it was just one long, terrible hypersleep nightmare. Good luck to you trying to convince me differently. )

But when it is done by more skillful hands, when the death of a character is written by the creator herself, it is far more difficult to dismiss. Or forgive. Which brings me to Joss Whedon.

Sacred Trusts

We learn about sacred trusts by having them broken. Chris Carter taught me about the promise a creator makes with his audience that he already has satisfying answers to all the interesting questions he is raising and is not, in fact, wasting their time on a shaggy-dog story. When did he teach this to me? When it became absolutely clear by the fourth season of The X-Files that he was making it up as he went along.

Joss Whedon taught me that an author has a responsibility for the lives of their creations that goes beyond whatever personal or artistic agenda he or she might have.

Love and Loss

It took some convincing for me to give Firefly a second look. My first viewing of the episodes when they aired on TV left me icy cold, but good friend and Firefly fanboy Bill S. knows where all of the bodies are buried, so he got me to give the DVDs a chance. And I fell in love — with the characters.

Now, Joss Whedon is an excellent writer and I almost always have had a good time watching his work, but Firefly was exceptional in that there wasn’t a single one of its nine member ensemble cast that I didn’t really like and want to know better. And I was particularly taken with the relationship of Wash and Zoë. Here was a married couple that was truly in love and right for each other — and yet, watching them was never boring. In fact, it was a delight. And when I heard the movie version of Firefly was coming out — Serenity — it wasn’t the plot that really called out to me (which seemed like a standard “save the galaxy” [or system in this case] affair), it was the chance to spend more time with these interesting people.

But Joss Whedon, talented though he may be, has his quirks. For example, he supposedly wrote the Emmy nominated “Hush” — a nearly dialogue-free episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — because people told him the best part of his series was the dialogue and he took it as a left-handed compliment. More darkly, he seems to have a nearly pathological need to kill off some of his more well-liked characters, and often the deaths he arranges are senseless. As creator and writer of Buffy, he killed Buffy’s Mom Joyce, reformed demon Anya as well as the love of Willow’s life, Tara. In each case, the death was not proud — Joyce dies of an aneurysm without warning and Tara is accidentally shot to death by a bullet meant for Buffy. Anya dies defending the man she loves — which is at least something — but is dispatched by being stabbed in the back.

The body count in the movie Serenity was similarly dire — two main characters, Shepherd Book and Wash, nearly a quarter of the main cast — are killed within the space of an hour. Book wasn’t in much of the movie, so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise that he was used to ratchet up the drama through a dramatic, somewhat heroic death — but Wash is killed suddenly, randomly and without warning. His death serves no purpose other than to add to the anguish of his wife, Zoë — and, of course, to give the viewers the feeling that this creator has no compunction about killing off a beloved and interesting character seemingly for no reason, that with this creator “anything can happen.”

Always Keep Them Guessing — Right?

Well, isn’t that a good thing? Shouldn’t an audience always believe that the heroes in near-death situations are, well, actually near death for there to be any suspense at all?

I would argue no. There are lots of ways to add to suspense and lots of ways to make an action show fun and the thought that a character you like could really be offed based on a whim of the creator really isn’t one of them. Let’s face it — when you watch an action show on TV, how much do you believe that the lead character you see in danger really and truly is going to die in this mid-season episode? Hardly ever, right? Because it obviously would mean the end of the show.

It is my opinion that, in part, Mr. Whedon is reacting against exactly this assumption of the viewer and wants you to know that he has the balls to really deliver on his narrative threats. But the truth is, we get caught up in the action of TV shows just fine even though we know that the characters are almost certainly going to live. The challenge of a great creator of an action work isn’t to show the world that you are willing to alienate your viewers by killing off the hero — the real challenge is to make the show interesting when your viewers assume the character is going to live. And that’s a much harder and more interesting task.

Your Audience — Friend or Foe?

But still — in the end, they are the author’s characters — doesn’t she have the right to off them if she so desires? Supposedly, the reason Rowling is tempted to kill Harry is to avoid non-author created sequels to her books. Well, she owns him, right? Why not make that relationship permanent in death. Amber Benson, the actress who played Tara on Buffy, was always credited as a guest for the three seasons her character was on Buffy until the episode “Seeing Red” — the one she was killed in. Why? According to the Trivia section in Tara’s Wikipedia entry, “This was something Joss intended to do from the start – Kill a character listed as a regular in one of their first appearances as such.” Well then, if caprice figures into Mr. Whedon’s liquidation plans, who are we to object?

To be clear, I don’t think we should forbid an author from writing what he or she thinks is best, but if you want me to stick around for the ride, you have to show me some respect. As an audience member, I do not wield the God-like power of the creator of a work, but my feelings should matter. Respect my intelligence by knowing where you are going and by avoiding cliché. Respect my wallet by avoiding self-indulgence and laziness — I have come to you to be entertained and as a fan, I pay your bills. And absolutely don’t trifle with my feelings — if you make me love your characters through your brilliant writing, be aware that I will feel their loss, so don’t kill them without damn good reason.

Looking over his work as a whole, it is apparent that Mr. Whedon does try to respect my intelligence as an audience member, but I also have the strong impression that my feelings are largely irrelevant to whatever artistic windmill he might be trying to joust at any particular moment. Based on his actions, I am left thinking his creative mantra ultimately boils down to “Trust me — I know better than you do what is good for you.”

I respect Joss Whedon as a writer and director, but in the shadow of such arrogance, I have little interest in placing my affections into his hands again. The senseless killing of Wash — the latest victim in a string of senseless killings — has blown my trust in this man. I will admire his work from afar, but it will take even more arm twisting than my pal Bill S. is capable of to get me to become engaged in his art like before. The truth is, I just can’t be confident that he has the story’s or my best interests at heart.

Know What You’re About

So all right, — when is it OK to off your characters? Again for me the answer can be found by looking at the trust placed into your hands by your intended audience. If you are writing in the horror genre, your audience is prepared (and hoping!) for sudden, random and senseless death. Are you penning a heavy existential graphic novel? Same thing. But if you are writing in the action-adventure genre, especially if you follow the same characters through a number of works — which is a category Firefly, most of the planned Yaoi 911™ works and yes, even Harry Potter fall into — the expectations of your audience and their reasons for coming to you are different. Using the death of a beloved, main character as a mere tool to bump up the tension for an individual story is not going to enhance that story for your audience, it’s going to leave them feeling cheated. If the character must die — and I would argue strongly that she should only die if it is absolutely necessary for the sake of creating a truly satisfying and effective work when that work is considered in its entirety — then I believe the death should have the same impact on the world of that character as it has in the heart of the reader. Anything less and your audience is going to wonder how seriously you take your work — and them. The hero sacrificing herself for the sake of the Universe might be convention, but the reason for that convention has to do with care and concern for the feelings of the reader.

Now, as a creator trying to make your mark, you may feel the need to try to break convention — and you might believe that this desire alone is a good enough reason to give your action hero a senseless death. But some conventions (like not writing your story in the 2nd person) are there for good reason — you ignore them at your own peril.

In the end, the stories you write might come from you, but they aren’t just for you. Whether you are J.K. Rowling or just starting out, realize that the life you are breathing into your characters extends much farther than your keyboard and monitor. These characters become important and real to the people who support your work. Show yourself worthy of the trust your readers place in you by considering the impact of your creative actions on them — and you will be justly rewarded with their loyalty.

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Learn More!

• Want to learn how to create a graphic novel? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Had enough of all this morbid talk? Read a review of a great yaoi comedy: Yaoi Review: Challengers by Hinako Takanaga!
• Wondering what some of our work looks like? Click on over to Yaoi Art: “A Shot in the Dark” Pencils! (Age 18 and over, please!)

Here is the complete script for the first comic in our Yaoi graphic novel — “A Shot in the Dark.” In its 16 comic book pages, a Junior Apprentice must save his now helpless boyfriend, a Senior Apprentice, from a tremendously powerful and crafty demon after a summoning goes terribly awry.

This script may be freely distributed so long as it is done so in its entirety with no alterations, including the header text.

You can download the PDF here:

A Shot in the Dark (PDF)

Or you can read it right at this site by clicking on the thumbnail pages below:

(Clicking on a thumbnail page will activate our cool Javascript-based Lightbox viewer. Once you have activated the Lightbox, click on the right side of the page for the next page, the left side for the previous page, and the “X” at the bottom-right of the script page to return to this site)

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See this comic finished and in full, living color — for free! Just sign up over at our Free Comic page and we’ll send you the download link!

Learn More!

• Want to learn how to write a script for a graphic novel? Read How to Write a Full Comic Book Script!
• How about finding an artist so you can turn that script into great art? Start with How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Want to see what these pages look like fully drawn? Check out Yaoi Art: A Shot in the Dark Inks!
• Just looking for a good book to curl up with? Take a look at our Reviews!

So, you want to create a Yaoi short story (or graphic novel!) Where to begin?

While you might have a bunch of cool images in mind (perhaps of cute boys fighting monsters and then making out…), it all starts with words on paper — a script. And in my humble opinion, that should be the king of comic book scripts — the full script.

What’s a full script?

A “full script” is a comic book script that tries to include everything an artist would need to visualize each page that you (the writer) have in your head. There are lots of different ways writers work. Some will write pages and pages of description. Others will write a quick outline — sometimes without even dialogue! — and leave it to the artist to fill in the details (in which case, I think the artist really deserves a writing credit…)

The more detailed writer will prefer the “full script.” It not only includes the actual words needed (word balloons, captions, sound effects, etc. — the “lettering”) but also how many panels are on that page and exactly what you see in each of those panels. (Sometimes it might include how you’d like to see those panels laid out on the page, but by my lights, unless you have something really special in mind, those choices are usually better left in the hands of the artist.) For an example of a full script, look at the first five pages of the first comic in our upcoming Yaoi story collection, “A Shot in the Dark.” (The complete script can be downloaded here.)

Clicking on a thumbnail page will activate our cool Javascript-based Lightbox viewer. Once you have activated the Lightbox, click on the right side of the page for the next page, the left side for the previous page, and the “X” at the bottom-right of the script page to return to this site. You can also use your arrow keys and the ESC key.

Take a look at the layout. Up top, I list the Page Number and how many panels are on the page, so the artist can see that at a glance. The Page Number refers to the comic book page, which might be a quite different number that the document page of your script — for example, the first page of this comic actually spans over three pages of script. I have set up my Word template so the header up top always refers to the correct Comic Book Page no matter what the document page is.

The page is then broken down by panels with the description of the panel contents preceding the lettering. The actual content of this lettering section is in CAPS, because it is tradition to letter word balloons in comics in caps. (Have you ever noticed that?) It is also indented — to distinguish it from the descriptive text as well as force you to keep in mind the limited real estate available for lettering if you don’t want to bury your art with words, words, words.

I also have chosen to use the letters of the alphabet to distinguish each distinct section of lettering — that way, when the artist creates the page thumbnails, they can quickly indicate to me where they envision each bit of text appearing in each panel without mixing them up with panel numbers. (Click here to see what a page thumbnail looks like and how this works.)

Now, notice how there’s a ton of description on the first comic book page, but by the second comic book page, we’re mostly into dialogue with the description becoming much more sparse. Similar to a film script, you want to lay out the entire environment for each scene up front, so the artist doesn’t have to hunt through the whole script to find the details of the room (or forest or whatever). Ideally, you include that information in the first panel (or at least the first page), even if those panels don’t actually show the entire room. I also try to include information on how I think each character should look when they are introduced. Later, I’ll expand on these descriptions when I create my Character Notes to give to the artist.

I follow a few other filmmaking conventions in the script as well. For example, you’ll see the abbreviations MS and WS, which are short for Medium Shot and Wide Shot, shot framing terms. (I also use SFX as short for “Sound Effects” — the “BOOM!” you might see written in special type on the comic page. And I use O.S. or O.P. as short for “off-screen” or “off-panel” for dialog when you can see the word balloon but not the character.)

I find that using these conventions forms a convenient language for communicating with my artist how I see the subjects in the panel being framed. But more than that, I highly recommend an understanding of filmmaking shot flow as a way to help you get a better idea how to create good pacing in your comics. An excellent book to start with is Film Directing: Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen — it’s all about creating compelling visual storytelling through storyboards and what you learn in that book directly applies to creating comic stories that flow very well.

The full script is certainly more work to create than an outline or a dialogue-only comic book script, but as a Yaoi creator, you’ve made a choice to tell your story in a visual and often collaborative medium. What your readers see in each panel is as important as what they read in the word balloons. Creating a full script is the best way to translate that cool yaoi story in your head into words that others can use to see that same story in their heads.

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See this comic finished and in full, living color — for free! Just sign up over at our Free Comic page and we’ll send you the download link!

Learn More!

• Want to learn how to find an artist to turn that script into great art? Start with How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel.
• Want to see how an artist uses your script to take it to the next step — “page thumbnails”? Find out in Yaoi Art: From Thumbnails Sketches to Final Pencils!
• Want to see what these pages look like fully drawn? Check out Yaoi Art: A Shot in the Dark Inks!
• Just looking for a good book to curl up with? Take a look at our Reviews!

My name is Alex. I’m a Bay Area filmmaker and a guy. And I’m putting a great deal of time and money into writing and publishing a series of Yaoi graphic novels — “Yaoi graphic novels” being boy-on-boy romance comics traditionally created by and for women.

What am I thinking?

Why Not Just Create “Gay Comics” there, gay boy?

Well, it all comes down to the subjective matters of tone and form. When it comes to the type of stories I like to read, I’ve found that Yaoi stories are just more in line with what I’m interested in.

Why?

Yaoi focuses more on character and relationship.

On a forum I frequent, a fellow Yaoi creator once referred to gay male comics as “hairy-butthole comics” stating “No, thank you, I really don’t need to see that hairy butthole up close!” That might not be an entirely fair assessment of gay comics, but in my experience, not all, but many “gay comics” are mostly focused on the physical, superficial and occasionally the cultural aspects of male-male romance.

For most Yaoi, while some stories are quite explicit, it is the emotional impact and connection between the characters that is primary.

Yaoi is more inclusive.

I might have larger ambitions (ruling the world from my vast Yaoi publishing empire comes to mind) but ultimately I write my stories for my friends, who include women and men, both straight and gay. The fact that the Yaoi audience is predominantly female but not exclusively so means the stories should by their very nature be more accessible and universal. They should be “fun for the whole family.”

I can’t write slash fiction.

Every time I watch a new anime series or read a new manga, I get tremendously inspired. I find myself writing new episodes in my head, often several episodes. The problem is, the more I flesh them out, the less they have to do with the actual characters in the series, until before long, only my characters remain. Clearly a big no-no for slash fiction. But I still want to tell these stories — original Yaoi graphic novels seem like just the right home for them.

Yaoi is just more fun.

Alright, so we’ve gone beyond the world of subjective to downright opinionated, but for me, this is true. I like the sci-fi and fantasy worlds I read about in manga. I like the way fans have played with the characters from those worlds in Yaoi and slash. I like the art. I want in. I want to join the fun.

So, that’s why!

I’m sure some people will find things to disagree with regarding my take on gay comics, manga or Yaoi overall. That’s fine — I’m not claiming to be an authority. I’m just happy I now have a home for stories I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. And I look forward to sharing my adventures creating these stories with you through this blog.

EDIT: This was my first stab at trying to explain why I’m creating yaoi books, but some readers still had questions, so for the whole picture be sure to also check out The Sweet Yaoi Action You Can Expect From Me where I tell the story of how I came to do this and Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi, where I answer the reader question: “Why romance comics for women? Why not just write for other gay men?”

Enjoy reading posts like these? Don’t miss out! Subscribe and get them emailed right to you — for free!

Learn More!

• Want to learn how to create your own yaoi graphic novel? Start How to Write a Full Comic Book Script!
• Want to see what some of yaoi art looks like? Check out Art for Yaoi 911™!
• Just looking for a good book to curl up with? Take a look at our Reviews!