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Webcomic Scripting in WriterSolo
🕑 Added 2022-02-17 17:13:03 +0000 UTC
For the past few years, all of my webcomic scripting was done in Google Docs using a crude template I had made for myself. If you've been a patron for a while you may even remember a post I made where I shared that old template. It worked just fine, but I found that the biggest issue I faced was a lot of wasted time messing with the formatting, especially once the document became really big. Striking a balance between something easily readable when drawing, but also easy to create without wasting a lot of my time, was difficult... but I was stubborn about wanting it done through Google Docs since I wanted it to sync up to my Drive storage automatically.
After starting a new comic project recently, though, I decided it was time I ditched that old system and tried out some other writing software. After trying a few that didn't impress me much, I stumbled upon WriterDuet (specifically the single-user offline version, WriterSolo) and fell in love right away. The base app is free and has templates for comics, novels, screenplays, writing notes, game scripts, and more, all of which are integrated so easily into the software that you barely have to think about formatting at all while writing. You can also pay for a subscription if you'd like to work collaboratively with others, but I find that the free version WriterSolo is amazing by itself.
And the best part is that it has a browser version that syncs to the cloud! You can download the desktop app if you prefer, but the browser version ensures that you can work on your script on any device if you have it linked to your cloud storage of choice.
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** This post is not sponsored in any way - I genuinely just find this tool amazing and thought anyone else who works on webcomics, novels, or screenplays might appreciate learning about it! **
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Overview for Webcomic Scripting
** Note that there are some layout differences between the desktop app and browser versions of WriterDuet. For the sake of making this post accurate to my own usage, I'll be showing examples of the desktop app version, but setting locations may vary slightly depending on which version you use so keep that in mind if you plan to use the browser version. **
For webcomic scripting, I use the Graphic Novel template setting when making a new document. After testing a few of the default templates, this one is definitely the best in my opinion for webcomics, as it keeps track of panels, character dialogue, SFX, and more.
After opening the new document, you'll see a menu bar on the side (or top on browser). The "Line Types" option will open up your list of tools for scripting.
Here you have access to all your scripting tools! Basically, WriterSolo formats your document line-by-line, so by clicking one of these options you're essentially telling it what type of line you'd like to write, whether that's a panel description, dialogue, etc.
Clicking Panel will create a break in the page and add in a new panel header, as well as update the panel count at the top. These panels are automatically numbered for you and will adjust themselves in real time if any are added or removed.
By default, pressing Enter after creating a new panel will make an Action line, where you can describe the action of your panel.
The Character line is broken into 2 sections, the character's name and their dialogue. After inputting a character's name a few times, WriterSolo will recommend names to you so you don't have to type the name every time.
Using these line types, you can add in notes, SFX, images, and more. I recommend testing out the different types yourself to see what works best for your scripting style!
If you'd like to customize the template further, there's an option called Custom Format near the bottom of the menu panel that gives you total control over the document. Here you can change colors, fonts, spacing, and other user settings.
If you'd like to get really specific, you can even customize individual character colors and fonts (example: one character's speech is in blue, the other in red).
Other Neat Features
There are some other features that are neat for uses outside of webcomics that I thought I would share!
Goals
If you're a participant in NaNoWriMo or a writer who likes to make word count goals for themselves, WriterSolo has a built-in goal tracker you can use to track your progress throughout your document!
Cards & Mind Map for Brainstorming
By default, WriterSolo creates an outline of your work called "cards." You can view all your pages or sections this way by clicking Cards in the menu sidebar.
What's cool about these is that you can essentially reorganize pages by dragging and dropping your cards, and best of all you can create brainstorming/worldbuilding documents and view them in Mind Map format by going to the Page dropdown at the top of the app and switching it to Mind Map mode.
This setting is cool for making timelines or reorganizing scenes, as well as worldbuilding notes!
Saving
When you want to save your document, you can either save it directly to your device or sync it up with your cloud service of choice. Either way, you can have it auto-backup and autosave at specific intervals if you like, which can be really handy if you're someone who tends to forget to save like me. You can choose between a few different formats when saving, but if you plan to keep working in WriterSolo in the future I recommend leaving it set to the default .wdz file type until you're finished writing and want to export.
There are way more features than just that, but those are the ones I primarily use for my webcomic scripting purposes. I definitely recommend WriterSolo to anybody looking for an easy and well-formatted way to make scripts!
