Ten Notes on Page 255

Page 255 is here! As we get near the end of Brianna’s Story, I’m afraid everything I have to say about this page is a repeat of something I’ve said before. Still, let’s get started and see where we end up.  


1. As I’ve said before, I’m glad I wrote the dialogue and stage directions and let Sam decide the panel layout, it was a surprise, but I like it. Sam reasoned that we have a few tight pages, with lots of panels and lots of characters, coming up, so she should use fewer panels on this page. Good thinkin’.

2. As before, the key to writing this part of the story was to realize that Jaxula isn’t the main character, he’s just a part of Brianna’s story. Still, I like this moment for Jaxula; it’s some of that “Show Don’t Tell” stuff, where instead of me just telling you Jax is a good guy, I show him hurling himself in front of someone he barely knows to take a bullet for her.

3. New to this installment, I really like Brianna’s face in that last panel. She’s all like, “No, I don’t care about you guys at all,” but you know she does.

4. So now Brianna’s confused, because Jaxula’s a really good guy, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that Jason is not. She hasn’t had a really strong grasp of right and wrong–her parents sold her into servitude at a young age, she hasn’t had a lot of time to study ethics, okay?

5. I’m torn, because on the one hand I really like talking about the formal choices we made, and the process, and on the other hand I don’t like giving away stuff about the characters in the story or what my intentions are. What would David Lynch think about giving notes on a page like this?