Day 31: On Books and the Writing of Books
While bumming around Barnes and Noble, I stumbled upon a book called Eisner/Miller and the entire book is series of chats with Will Eisner and Frank Miller, two of comics’ most important creators.
I’m maybe a quarter into the book, but listening to two guys who helped change not only the way comics were drawn, but how they were told really drives home that being a great writer isn’t coming up with the newest, most original idea; it’s telling a story better than it has ever been told. That part is equal parts art and science, and structure is just as important to a story as it is to architecture.
These guys just get it. They were gifted from birth to be hardwired for to the human condition, to know what makes human tick, and how those things make for interesting stories. What they weren’t born with, they worked their asses off to attain and perfect.
It’s another in a long line of things that makes me want to be better writer but also scares the crap out of me.
Which, I suppose, is when you know you’ve found something; it’s simultaneously enlightening and terrifying.
Matt