visual scripting

Visual Scripting video training – FREE template download

Visual Scripting is a method for natively writing comics and other visual narrative media in physical space, envisioning layout, and better utilizing physical elements of books (such as page turns)…without drawing. I put together a tutorial about Visual Scripting a few years ago. It’s a pretty complete post, recently tweaked to more accurately reflect how I’m working, now that I’ve had this system up and running for years. But it’s a complicated, so I made a visual scripting video tutorial to walk you through building a template!

It can be done by hand, but the most useful version of it uses page layout software like Adobe InDesign, because you can easily move, insert, delete, resize all elements in a way that’s really not possible on paper.  (The analog version of this is pretty close to the Comics Window.)

I wrote all of Out on the Wire as a Visual Script (based on an outline and prep work I did in Scrivener), and I’m currently working on the last chapter of Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars that way. It’s a really effective approach. Integrating the visual into the script along with the flexiblilty of rewriting has revolutionized how I write comics, and the method would be adaptable to many other kinds of visual narrative as well (picture books, video…)

Check out the Visual Scripting video tutorial here:

I’ve also made template I built in the video available for download. Grab it here.

Visual Scripting is a method for natively writing comics and other visual narrative media in physical space, envisioning layout, and better utilizing physical elements of books (such as page turns)…without drawing.

visual scripting video

Find a full (written) tutorial on using Visual Scripting here.

Grab a pre-made Visual Scripting template here. Also included, in case you’re using an old version of InDesign: an .IDML version for CS4 and up.

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Meet Jessica Abel

Meet Jessica Abel

Author. Cartoonist. Teacher. Coach.

I help people whose imagination and creativity are the ultimate source of everything they do in their professional life stop grinding and start carving out the deep focus needed to finish—and launch—the game-changing work they want to be known for.  Discover my Courses, Join the FREE Creative Engine Workshop or find out more about me.

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