Most serialized storytelling takes place in this kind of protracted middle. There is always another bad guy to punch or skyscraper to websling from or vampire to stake. Batman will never actually clean up Gotham City. Of course, there are miniseries and short-burst stories—now more than ever—but comic book storytelling, much like television storytelling, is episodic and designed to get you to sample the next installment.

They are meant to be engines that keep generating story.

But, paradoxically, it’s almost impossible to have a great story that doesn’t end. And the final stories are often the ones that carry the most weight. Those are the ones we talk about, long after the story’s been completed. The Dark Knight Returns. Logan. The Sopranos finale.

Hopefully, you’ll be lucky enough to get to end your story on your own terms. Trust me: It’s no fun when someone tells you, “Oh, by the way, the issue you just handed in is the last issue of the series.” Few things can frustrate a writer more than dramatis interruptus.

There are a couple of things to remember when ending a story:

1. Stories are circular.

The good ones find a way to, in some fashion, end where they began—but in a way that finds the main characters changed by the adventure we’ve just experienced. Think about how Finding Nemo. The movie begins with Nemo excited to go to school, but his father, Marlin, afraid of anything and everything. The film ends in the exact same location and situation. Going to school. But now Marlin is excited to show his son the world and for him to engage with it.  Full circle.

Not that every story needs to do this, but the fundamental element that makes a story worth watching is change. What has happened to your main character(s)? How have they impacted the world and vice versa? How can you best underline that point? Often, going back home does just that.

2. Surprising and inevitable.

It’s a tricky thing to pull off, but every narrative builds a kind of math as it progresses. The audience will begin to understand it as it goes and begin to have certain assumptions. And not just assumptions: demands. The trick is to not give the audience what they always wanted, but instead to give them what they didn’t know they needed. Sometimes, that manifests as a complete downer: Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box at the end of Seven. Sometimes, it’s completely triumphant: Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon streaking out of the sun—“I knew there was more to you than money!”—allowing Luke to blow up the Death Star.

Sometimes, it’s both: Tony Stark’s “I am Iron Man” at the end of Avengers: Endgame. (Which is also a perfect example of circular storytelling.)

3. When all else fails, just give everyone a friggin’ medal.

Endings are hard, but if you can do it right, you will have made the entire experience worthwhile for the reader. It will make up for any stutter-steps you’ve made along the way. It will be what people remember. And that’s why we do this, a storytellers: Do tell them a tale that they won’t forget.

Which brings me to the end of this column … and the end of THE column. This is the final installment of Devourer of Words and for those of you who stuck with me for the entirety of the journey, I thank you. Thinking about all of this has made me a better writer in the process and I hope you found these past 64 columns helpful in some way.

I hope to be reading your stories someday — if I’m not already.

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(Editor’s Note: Our thanks to Marc Bernardin’s deep dive into the world of writing for Toucan over the past almost-7 years. One of our OGs (along with Maggie Thompson, Steve Lieber, and Katie Cook), Marc’s body of work will still be available to discover or re-read here on Toucan. Thanks, Marc!)

If you’re the kind of person who attends Comic-Con International then you, like me, have already been preparing for it. You’re months in: You’ve got your badge, your lodging, your transportation sorted—or mostly sorted. (There’s always a bit of last-minute jockeying, especially if you live in the same time zone as San Diego—train or drive? Three people in a hotel room or four?)

But you’re going. You know, deep in your soul, that really wasn’t up for debate. Of course you’re going because going is what you do. This year’s con will be my 17th in a row. I came the first time because of Spider-Man. Well, specifically 2002’s Spider-Man film. I was working for Entertainment Weekly at the time and was looking for a lever into covering comics more for the magazine—and Sam Raimi’s movie making $400 million in the U. S. was a pretty good lever.

Back then, you could book a hotel room about six weeks out without issue. Getting a badge wasn’t insane, because there weren’t 175,000 people descending on the Gaslamp in a weekend. You could just walk into a Room 6 panel, which was Hall H before there was a Hall H. Since that first trip, I’ve seen some pretty amazing things that only could’ve been possible because of Comic-Con.

Stealth Bomb

One of the first big Hollywood panels I witnessed was for 2005’s Stealth. You’d be forgiven for not remembering this one. Directed by Fast and the Furious’ Rob Cohen, it was about a futuristic stealth fighter that becomes both sentient and mad. The best part was watching the three stars—Josh Lucas (who was supposed to be the next Tom Cruise), Jessica Biel (who’d done SDCC for Blade: Trinity and knew a bit of the experience), and Jamie Foxx (who’d just won an Oscar for Ray)—process the experience in different ways. On the panel, Lucas was just kind of wide-eyed, while Biel just kind of smiled at the exercise like a steely-eyed veteran. But Foxx was in full-rock star mode. The man loved a crowd and loved talking about the movie and, to a greater extent, loved himself. (That the film would later come out and bomb only makes the look-back that much more interesting.) There would be more movie stars, and Oscar-winners, to come—and most would learn the lesson first taught by films like Stealth. You have to do more than simply “be famous” to court the Comic-Con crowd.

Launch Date

I’ve done most Comic-Cons as a member of the press but, occasionally, I’ve been involved with a project that’s made its public debut in San Diego. From comic books (like The Authority or Genius) to TV shows (like Alphas or Castle Rock). It’s a different experience, to say the least, but illuminating to be coming to the Con from the other side. There are four cons, honestly: the fan con, the press con, the producer con, and the “we’re the ones throwing the con” con. It’s invaluable to be able to see it from other points of view.

Finding Your Flock

I’ve been going for long enough that there are people that I only see during San Diego the third weekend of July. It’s a bit like, when you were in college, and Thanksgiving would roll around and everyone who’d gone away to school would be home for three days and you’d get to hang out with all your high school homies and share stories and catch up and remember why you were friends to begin with. You promise to stay in touch, but you don’t … because there will always be another Thanksgiving. Some people always refer to Comic-Con as “Nerd Prom,” but I prefer Nerd Thanksgiving. Four days in the middle of the year when you’re home.

See you down there, yeah?

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan! He’ll return in August.

With the hotel lottery behind us — I hope the odds were in your favor — it’s time to focus on what’s really important for writers at SDCC. No, it’s not the parties you’re gonna try and get into, or the fancy lounges you want to crash, or the exclusives you wanna snag, or the selfies you wanna grab. To be clear, all of those things are cool, but they’re bonuses—dessert to the main course of getting some face time with an editor and pitching something.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a barn full of ideas chomping at the bit to get out there. Dozens of stories that you’ve been noodling at for years. It’s simply not practical, or advisable, to prepare yourself to bring all of them to a convention hoping to sell every one. You need to choose. Pretend you can only bring three ideas with you.

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1. The ones you’re hoping to pitch need to be more than mere ideas.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if dragons invented time travel?” isn’t enough. You need to have primary characters, the main conflict, how it begins, a ballpark of how long the story will go, and a vague sense of how it ends. (Every editor worth their salt—and even most worth far less—understand that how you imagine a story will end at commencement of telling the story will change as you tell it. Especially serial stories. No one will hold you to it. They just want to know that you’ve thought about it.)

A prospective buyer wants to feel like you know the story you want to tell.

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2. Choose the ones you’re most excited about.

Imagine you’ve spent the weekend watching movies and roll into work jazzed to tell your coworkers about the best thing you saw. You are, in essence, trying to convince them that they should watch the movie, too. That’s the kind of enthusiasm you need to be able to summon in a pitch. Make it so that the editor similarly can’t wait to read this comic—and the only way they can do so is to pay you money to make it.

At this stage, excitement is the coin of the realm. If you can make someone else excited, you’re halfway there.

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3. Start picking your targets.

Now is also the time to do research. Walking around the convention floor pitching everything to everyone is neither advisable nor possible. Which publishers make the kinds of books you want to make? Which editors names are on those books? Those are the people you’re going to want to try and sit down with.

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4. Refine. Rewrite. Rehearse.

Those three ideas you picked? Time to make them great. Go through them over and over again. Pitch them to someone you trust to give you real feedback. Do they make sense? Does the emotional story pack a wallop? (Remember, for as much as comics can be all puncho-explodo, the reason people return to serial stories is because they care about the characters and what they’re going through.) And when you think you’ve got the story and the characters down, write the 50-word version of your pitch. The elevator pitch. You’ve got 30 seconds: Dazzle them. “A farm boy from a nowhere planet gets pulled into an intergalactic war by a beautiful space princess, a jaded old warrior monk, and a swashbuckling pilot—to discover he’s the hero the galaxy’s been waiting for.” Or whatever.

If the editor says, “Oooo, I like that one,” be prepared to go more into depth. How do those characters relate to each other, what are the opposing sides of the main conflict, and how does the hero of your story grow and evolve with every victory and defeat? Instead of 50 words, now you’ve got three paragraphs.

Rinse and repeat for each of your three ideas.

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Pretend like this is your training montage. You’re gonna start weak, unsure. But you’ve got three months to get yourself in shape for the Big Game. Time to start working out. Worry about the selfies later.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!

It’s the beginning of a new year and if you’re anything like me, you: A) Wonder how you made it through the previous year and B) What you’re going to try and get done this time around the sun. But deciding what you’ll put on the to-do list can be rough. The Paralysis of Choice.

There are a lot of questions I ask myself when trying to figure out what’s next:

Something old or something new?

If you’ve been at this for a while, regardless of the medium, you’ve got ideas you’ve never done anything with. Maybe they’re fully written, maybe they’re in various stages of completion, maybe it’s just a scribble on a piece of paper somewhere. As a writer friend used to tell me all the time, “use every part of the buffalo.” There’s probably something of value in every old pitch or script—and you’re a different writer now than you were then. Maybe you’re smart enough to make it work.

But looking backwards too much can be a trap. You are a different writer now than you were then—and the future is forwards. You need to keep stretching to find the work that only you can do. Finding a balance between the old and the new is tricky, but crucial. Which one is a better use of your time? There’s no easy answer to that one.

For yourself or for someone else?

Depending on who you are and where you are in your career, this might not be a choice. If you’ve never been published before, your first work is likely going to be for yourself: A piece that you’re doing to help prove that you can actually write comics. Or maybe you don’t have the kind of connections that’ll make work-for-hire possible. You might be the kind of person who has only dreamed of writing Spider-Man or Wonder Woman or Hellboy. And those are valid dreams to have.

All things being equal, let’s assume you’re in a place where you can write a pitch for something creator-owned or something company-owned, the real question is, can you afford to bet on yourself? Because if a creator-owned book gets greenlit, there’s no guarantee that it’ll get done on time, that it’ll get done at all or, even if it does hit stands, that it’ll make any money. A corporate assignment will do all of those things: You’ll get paid your page rate and it’ll hit stands (unless the company folds or you get fired, but whatever). You’ll be writing a childhood hero—or someone’s childhood hero.

But it won’t be yours, soup to nuts. And it probably won’t buy you a house. Not that money is everything, but the only people who get rich in publishing are publishers. There comes a time, in every game, when you realize that being a player is fine—sometimes, it’s even great—but it’s not quite like being an owner. Especially one who still gets to play.

Something big or something small?

Is it time to dig into that magnum opus, that giant project you’ve been wanting to tackle for as long as you can remember? Or are you in a set-em-up-and-knock-em-down kind of mood? There is absolutely something to be said for the joy of completion. The screenwriter John Rogers turned me on to this saying: “Done is the engine of more.” Finishing leads to starting. The more often you can wrap something up, the bigger a pile of completed work you’ll have. And it’ll be a variety of things—like rotating crops, your mind can benefit from having broadened its horizons. Even further, unfinished work does no one any good.

But sometimes, you just want to drill down and work on a singular piece. A slab of culture. There is something incredibly attractive about getting lost in a world and finding the story lost within it. It’s an act of exploration, and discovering a new shore can be exhilarating.

Maybe all of these won’t be either/or choices: If you’re prolific, you can check all of these boxes in a year. And none of these questions have wrong answers. Just do what’s right for you … or write for you.

I do love a good pun.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!

Unless you’re a novelist, who gets to write purely for yourself, it is likely that at some point you will have to write for “someone.” And that someone could be many things.

If you’re writing comics, that could mean writing a character that has a specific voice. Peter Parker always needs to sound like Peter Parker. Of course, there’s a way to put your own mustard on it—especially if you’re going to be writing Spidey for a good long while and have the chance to subtly push the character into a place that feels more like “you.” But, as I’m sure your editors will tell you, if you want to fundamentally change who Peter Parker is … no. Go create your own character.

If you’re in TV—unless you’re running your own show—you will have to learn to mimic the showrunner’s voice. How does she turn a phrase? How does he like to end scenes, with resolution or on a cliffhanger? How funny do they like to be? Because, one way or another, the script will be the way they want it—the value you add is by making it as easy as possible to get it there. You’re going to get rewritten; how long that rewriting takes will determine whether or not they hire you back for the next season.

If you’re in movies, it’s possible that you’ll write and sell something original. But that’s harder than ever these days, given Hollywood’s unslakable hunger for IP to adapt. Odds are, you’ll end up writing an adaptation or a sequel or a reboot or a preboot of something that already exists. And the producers will have in their heads what that needs to look like and sound like. (You can’t write a Transformers movie without giant robots punching each other and then turning into a Vespa or whatever.) And even if you do sell that original screenplay, it won’t get made until a director signs on—and that director will have his or her own ideas that you need to get on board with or get replaced.

So how do you succeed in pretending to be someone else? There are really only two silver bullets:

1. Read. Or watch.

If you get lucky enough to get hired to write Batman, you better read or have read a whole boatload of Batman. Know what makes that character tick. Understand the different incarnations. Get a sense of where the outer limits are, then find a place within that territory you can feel comfortable working in. If you get hired on the writing staff of Stranger Things, you’d better watch all of Stranger Things—and all of the things Stranger Things was inspired by. Become fluent in the language of the property. Know what you don’t know, then rectify that with study.

2. Abandon your ego.

You are either working in service of a person or a character. It isn’t about you. It’s about doing right by them. You might come up with a new way to skin a particular cat. “What if, on this episode of 24, Jack Bauer was stuck in a McDonald’s drive-thru for 45 minutes, then had to go to the bathroom?” Would that be kinda fun to watch? Maybe? Is that 24? No. Your brilliance will be rewarded—so long as it’s the brilliance your bosses are asking for. Do your best to make the product with your name on it as good as you can. But at some point, it won’t be exactly what you set out to write. That’s the process. The thing to remember is … that’s what the money’s for.

Set yourself up for success and know when to let go.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the second Tuesday of every month here on Toucan and will return in January.

There are a couple of ways to make your living writing comics (or TV, or movies, or novels). You can chart a completely new path and make up something brand new, never-before-seen. Or you can tell a story in a world using characters that are pre-existing. If you have to boil it down to their catchiest labels: creator-owned or work for hire.

Creator owned should be, if you’re reading this column, something you’re fairly familiar with. You have an original idea, you pitch it to a company who agrees to publish it, and you keep a percentage of the rights to the work. Work for hire, on the other hand, usually consists of taking a property that already exists—a character, a franchise, a universe—and offer a new story using elements that, for the most part, already exist.

(There are, of course, exceptions: You can create new characters to place in a company-owned title—i.e., a new baddie for Batman to punch in the face. Also, it’s possible to pitch an entirely fresh creation to a company that makes it clear that they are going to take ALL the rights in exchange for publication. Which is precisely what happened to Adam Freeman and I when we pitched The Highwaymen to DC. Those were the conditions and we accepted them. No one was taken advantage of, per se. We knew exactly what we were getting into.)

Now, for this column, we’re going to set aside creator-owned ideas and talk about work for hire. This past week, I was asked if I had a “take” on a franchise. Which basically means, “Hey, if we let you tell a story in this arena, what story would you tell?” (I can’t say which arena at the moment. When I can talk about it will depend on whether or not I get the gig. If I don’t, I can talk about it as soon as they kick me to the curb. If I do, I won’t be able to talk about it for years.)

Should this kind of opportunity come your way, here are some things to keep in mind:

Do You Even Like the Property?

You might consider yourself the kind of writer who believes she or he can write anything. And that could very well be true. But enthusiasm counts for more than you might care to admit. We can fake it—we’ve all learned how, by now, but enthusiasm will be what pushes you past “pretty good” into “outstanding.” When faced with two equally talented and experienced writers, I believe an editor (or producer or studio executive) will choose the one who loves the material the most. What’s more, enthusiasm will armor you against the litany of notes you’ll get during the process. “Yeah, I know these changes are kinda asinine, but it’s GODZILLA, MAN! You’ve wanted to write Godzilla since you were eight!”

(Note: I’m not pitching on Godzilla.)

Do You Have Something to Say?

It’s not enough to deliver the same kind of story they’ve already done. Sure, there’s a place for a Star Wars story that simply feels like a Star Wars story. But you have to realize that they probably already have people who can do that. The whole reason why they’re opening the gates to a fresh person with a fresh voice is because they’re going to bring something new and different to the table. What can you say with a Star Wars story that hasn’t been said before? It doesn’t necessarily have to be politically, though it can be. But it needs to use the toys in the sandbox in a way they haven’t seen before.

(Nor am I pitching on Star Wars.)

Be Willing to Say No

We are hard-wired to chase opportunities, like dogs and passing cars. If someone asks you, “Hey, man … do you think you’ve got a Harry Potter story in you?” if you are anything like every writer I’ve ever met, you’ll say, “Yeah, I got something.” Even if you don’t. There is nothing wrong with giving it a few minutes, or even a day of introspection, and coming back with, “Thanks; I’m very flattered that you asked, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything phenomenal.” Not only will they understand, but they’ll appreciate the honesty. Because if you lie, they’ll go down the road a ways with you, listening to pitches, trying to get to the nougaty center of them, only to eventually come to the place where you should’ve started—no, you don’t have a Harry Potter story in you—having wasted days if not weeks getting there. There is no shame in no.

(Yeah, like anyone but J.K. Rowling’s gonna get to write Harry Potter anymore. Please.)

Shakespeare said it best: Check thyself, lest ye wreck thyself.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!

I was asked a question not long ago: Of all the types of writing that I’ve done, which was the most challenging and which was the most rewarding.

I’ve written comic books, video games, movies, television, prose, reviews, interviews, memoir, essays…. Each of them have their pros and cons, of course. But for me, the most challenging—especially at the beginning—was comics.

(And I’m only talking about full script here, because that’s all I’ve ever written. The following doesn’t quite apply to “Marvel style.”)

Because it’s such a Frankenstein’s monster of a form, especially the 22-page single issue. As a writer, you’re doing the same dramatic format, which has its roots in the stage: A paragraph describing the place and the action within it, and separate blocks for dialogue. Which, in and of itself, is pretty hard. To do it well has been the pursuit  of many a person for centuries.

To that, you’re adding visual storytelling. How many panels are you putting on any given page? How are you choosing to slice your actions into discrete chunks of information? Of course, in comics, you can’t write something as simple as “Billy gets out of his chair to open the door and discovers a woman with a gun standing behind it.” You could absolutely do it on the stage or the screen, but in comics, how many panels is that? One for him sitting down, another for him walking towards the door, a third with his hand on the knob, a fourth with his look of astonishment, and a fifth to reveal the woman holding the gun. Less would be elegant and jarring. More might be dense and impressionistic. But those are the kinds of choices you have to make as a comics writer that you simply don’t in any other medium.

And then there’s math. How many words can you fit in a word balloon before it’s too big and overwhelms the art? How many balloons in a panel before it’s just prose? What about captions? Comics writing is also one of economy: How few words can you use to tell the story? Can you make due with no words at all and let the art carry the day? (None of that is taking into consideration page turns and gutter utilization.)

Comics are a monster, literally.

But as much as I like the soapbox of journalism—defending points and making arguments and having conversations about the real world through the lens of popular culture—nothing feels quite as good as making something up. And in the business of telling stories to an audience, nothing is as gratifying to me as comics.

The barrier between you and the audience is gossamer thin. (Only in prose is it thinner.) There’s you the writer, the artist, the editor(s), and then the reader. That’s it. The payload you’re trying to deliver—emotional, narrative, conceptual— will get to the audience with the least amount of degradation of any narrative visual medium. In movies, there are hundreds of people who help summon a movie into existence, all of which need to see the exact same picture in their heads to deliver that message. (Which might not even be yours, since the director is the chief custodian of cinematic vision, not the writer.)

Television is better for writers, in that the boss, the showrunner, is first and foremost a writer herself. But there’s still the small army that makes a TV show for that vision to get lost in. No one sets out to make a bad anything, but bad happens easier when there are hundreds of people involved, as opposed to just five.

No, for me, comics is the juice. Because there, the experience is as its most concentrated. Plus, you get to hold a comic book in your hand. And that ain’t too damned shabby.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!

It is upon us, my friends. A mere month away. The convention of the year. The convention to end all conventions. The alpha and the omega. Okay, that all might be a little bit of hyperbole, but Comic-Con International: San Diego is the biggest domestic convention of the year. As such, many of us are in prep mode, as this month will evaporate before we know it.

This will be my 18th SDCC in a row: An eternity to some eyes, a snap of the finger to others. But, in this time, I’ve done San Diego almost every way in which one can do it: as a comics creator, as a journalist, as a TV writer, as a fan, as an interloper … and here are some dos and don’ts I’ve gleaned over the years. As always, your mileage may vary.

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DO

Harvest phone numbers and make plans with people. Of course, one of the amazing parts about Comic-Con is the randomness with which you can see people you didn’t expect to see. For about six years, in the mid-2000s, I’d run into a friend who worked a few blocks away from my office in Manhattan without warning, crossing the train tracks into the San Diego Convention Center. We never made a plan, and would laugh about the fact that it just always seemed to happen. Until it didn’t. But once a day, be it over a meal, or coffee, or just because you have some downtime in your schedule, make a plan to see someone you never get to see otherwise.

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DON’T

Beat yourself up if you miss something. By the time you touch down in San Diego, you will have poured over the daily schedule, perhaps with a highlighter, and targeted the things you want to see every day. Panels, signings, photo ops, etc. You will never make it to all of them. Maybe it’s foot traffic. Maybe you oversleep. Maybe your phone died and your reminders never reminded you. Maybe something else unpredictably wonderful came along and you bailed. It’s okay. Sometimes you need to give yourself over to the Fates of the Con. That said …

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DO

Pick one massively huge thing to attend and stick to it. Comic-Con remains the crown-jewel when it comes to honking big celebrities choppering in for panels or first looks at things you can’t see anywhere else. Take advantage, even if it means sleeping on a line, or waking up at the crack of dawn, or camping in Hall H for a whole day to see someone on that big stage at the end of it.

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DON’T

Forget to buy some energy/protein bars and fruit from a supermarket or something when you first get to the Gaslamp. You will undoubtedly eat like a teenaged monster over that weekend: you can try to minimize some of the damage by making sure one meal has some actual nutrients. (And lettuce on a burger doesn’t count as vegetables. Believe me, I tried.)

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DO

Introduce yourself to a comics pro at the bar. Say hi. Tell them you’re a fan. The great gift of Comic-Con is proximity: You will be closer to more people you’ve read or watched or listened to than anywhere else. As long as your shot is respectful, go ahead and shoot it. One year, I was hanging out with a friend at a Hilton bar and she spotted Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber in the same bar and squeed so loud she shattered a champagne flute. I said, “You wanna go meet him? Let’s go meet him. Because why the hell not.” So we did. And he was cool—or he wouldn’t have been in a crowded hotel bar on a Friday night. Sure, there’s the chance they had a crappy day and might be a bit grumpy. But there’s a greater chance they’ll shake your hand and say thanks.

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DON’T

Be a dick. I know, harsh language. But it needs to be said. Don’t touch anyone without their consent. Don’t drink yourself into vulnerable oblivion. Don’t go places you’re not welcome—unless you’re trying to crash a fancy party; if you can get in, go for it, but steer clear of restrooms and hotel rooms you ain’t supposed to be in. We all know what the wrong thing to do is: so don’t do it.

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DO

Find some place to sit down and watch the parade of joyous humanity pass by. Preferably in the sun — you’ll need a respite from the fluorescent glare and could use some vitamin D. Hundreds of thousands of people come to Comic-Con from all over the world because of love. Because they love something and the people who love it, too. And that’s a hell of a thing to see.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan. Marc is also a special guest at Comic-Con this year. If you’re at the show, come see his Spotlight panel on Friday, July 21 at 10:00 AM in Room 29AB!

There will come a point in your career, if you are lucky, where you will have something to write that you don’t really want to write. Sure, you might be the kind of comics scribe who does only creator-owned work. Or you might be fortunate enough to be writing the character you’ve loved since you were nine years old. Even in the best of circumstances, there might be a scene you know needs to be in there which you hate or an issue you’re not in love with that’s still gotta be there.

And if those circumstances aren’t the best, you just might be confronted with a story you just can’t get invested in. The reasons can be legion. The character doesn’t speak to you, but you can’t change it. The parameters of the story don’t leave you with any room for creativity. The content of the story is reprehensible, but you’re stuck with it.

Writing is, for many of us, a passion. But it’s also a job. And not every day or week or month or year on the job is going to be awesome. So how do you make the words flow when they absolutely don’t wanna?

Find something.

It might be difficult, you locate some aspect of the gig you can find interesting. Maybe it’s not gonna be a big thing. Maybe it’s not gonna be an important thing. Maybe it’s a single character. Maybe it’s the tone. Or the world. Or whatever. But there have to be a couple of redeeming qualities in the job, even if they’re covered in excrement. Find ‘em and rally behind them.

Make it adversarial.

This isn’t a long-term solution, as this kind of motivation burns hot and fast, but the same way boxers can convince themselves to hate their opponent in order to win, you can do the same. Make the story something you need to conquer, defeat. Make it personal. Put the story in the ground and move forward.

Remember what the money is for.

In other words, pull a stalemate from the jaws of defeat. Maybe you can’t win if you make it adversarial. Maybe you can’t find something to rally behind. Maybe you just have to write it because you’re being paid to write it. So write it as fast as you can.

Have the conversation.

Talk to the person who assigned you the job and explain your problems. Maybe she or he can help you find your way through. Maybe they’ve got an idea that can help make the work easier. Talk to some trusted contemporaries—if they’re pros, they’ve been in the same boat before, and if they’re still floating, they can help you navigate the waters. Ask for help, maybe help will arrive.

Walk away.

A.K.A. the Doomsday Protocol. Make no mistake, this is the choice of last resort. Because if you do quit, that’s likely an editor you’ll never work for again, and a publisher that won’t line up to get you paid. If you’ve done everything above and you still can’t find your way—or if the subject matter has shifted into a zone that goes against everything you believe in—it might be time to nuke the site from orbit. But, again, only if you’ve exhausted every other avenue. Word will spread and you’ll have to explain your decision. Some will understand, others won’t. But if this is the only way you can live with yourself, so be it.

Writing can be a ton of fun. But you’ll know that you’re a writer if you can do it when it isn’t.

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!

There comes a time in the life of every project when it’s no longer is solely in  your hands. Unless you’re a cartoonist making webcomics that you’re hosting yourself—and if that’s the case, then, power to you—you will have to invite other people into the tent to help you bring the story to life.

And there is something magical and wonderful about that, when every member of the team is on the same page, literally and figuratively. Everyone is bringing their strengths to the table, and helping to minimize other people’s weaknesses. Collaboration and partnership can be a wonderful thing. I’ve done most of my comics work with a writing partner and my entire television career has been spent in a writers room; a dozen people all telling the same story. Sometimes, compromise is the tool that will let you push forward into glory.

But there are also times when you invite others into the tent that you can sense something … dissipating from the work. Maybe it stopped feeling special. Perhaps you’re a little less excited. Some of that comes with time spent, sure, but sometimes it’s because something’s rotten in Collaboration Denmark. It can happen with artists, colorists, editors, publishers or Hollywood—anywhere and everywhere along the line is susceptible.

But there are three things you can do to help prevent this kind of mission creep.

1) Know the heart of your story.

Decide, for yourself, what the immutable core of your story is. What is the thing that makes it special? What made you want to tell this story in the first place? Sometimes, that’s a character, other times it’s a theme, it can even be a scene or a sequence—but what is the why?

2) Build a wall around it.

You have to protect the thing that makes the story special above all else. You will have differences of agreement with your collaborators on elements of the work. That’s natural: If you all saw the project the same exact way, they wouldn’t be able to bring anything new to it. You’re hoping they surprise you in some fashion — that’s the joy of collaboration.

But at the same time, you have to circle your wagons around the heart. If the reason why you’re telling the story gets diluted, then you won’t be able to write it as effectively because you won’t believe in it as deeply. You should protect it above all else.

3) Understand the power of “no.”

It’s the nuclear option, for sure, but if the idea started with you, and the people around you are insistent on changing it to the point where the heart of the story is gone, then say no and walk away. You have that power. If money has changed hands, if papers have been signed, you can still say no—since I’m sure you had a lawyer vet whatever papers you signed, that same lawyer can get you out of almost any contract, provided you return whatever compensation you received.

I’ve had film and TV producers come to me, interested in optioning or buying outright a comic I’ve written or co-written. I’ve listened to their “take” on the material. And I’ve said no more often than I’ve said yes, because they wanted to change the whole reason why people responded to the book in the first place. If I said yes, and took the money, then you forfeit the right to complain.

No is hard, when there’s rent to be paid and a family to be fed. But it’s always there for you, if things in the collaboration shift from good to bad, or bad to worse.

Go into every partnership or collaboration with the best of intentions, but with your eyes open — and the heart of the story close to your chest.

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Devourer of Words by Marc Bernardin appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan!