Manga pages skill

#Read first

Story.md: the cast, the world, the look, the whole story, this chapter's part of it and its scenes. Script.md: every page's panels. The character sheet, the places sheet and any style reference wired in. Every page keeps the faces, hair, outfits, colours and props of the character sheet and the buildings, rooms and landmarks of the places sheet.

#Planning the story (Story.md)

• Write the whole story first, from its opening to its last image, before a single panel. Then decide how much of it this chapter tells.
• A chapter tells only what fits at a real manga's pace: three pages are one scene, five or eight are two or three, twelve a full chapter. When the story is longer than that, the chapter ends on a hook where the story pauses (a reveal, a threat, a choice), and the pages added after it tell the rest in order. A story told whole in a chapter is a small one, chosen to fit.
• Never race to the ending: no time skipped in the middle of a scene, no caption summing up what isn't shown ("After a long battle…"), no climax squeezed into one panel. What doesn't fit at this pace waits for the next pages.
• Plan the chapter as scenes: each a place, who is there and what changes, with the pages it needs.

#Pacing (Script.md)

• A scene opens on a wide establishing panel of where it is, then moves in.
• A moment gets the panels it needs: an action as its wind-up, the hit and what's left after; a feeling as a close-up reaction; a turn as a silent beat before it lands. Quiet panels without words (a look, the wind, a hand tightening) are part of the pace.
• A page is one stretch of one scene: a minute of talk at most, or a few seconds of action. Time skips only between scenes, opened by a new establishing panel or a short caption ("That night.").
• Each page has one key moment, drawn as its largest panel. Its last panel makes the reader turn the page (a question, a sound, someone arriving) and the next page's first panel answers it.
• Vary the shots (wide, mid, close-up, an eye or a hand in extreme close-up) and the panel sizes; no two pages laid out alike.
• Words are few: at most two balloons a panel, 15 words each, most panels fewer, and many none. Let the pictures tell what they can.

#The script (Script.md)

• A page draws its own panels from Script.md, every one and only those, in order: the shot, who is in it, what happens and the words, word for word.
• It picks up exactly where the page before it ends.
• Each panel is one line and one moment, never two actions joined by "then": the shot (wide, mid, close-up or large), who, what happens, then any words, as Name: “line”, Caption: “line” or SFX: SOUND.
• Every named character has a panel to do something in; anyone who doesn't isn't named. Everyone a panel names is drawn in it, once; nobody appears who isn't in the cast, and background extras are clearly different kinds of people or animals from the lead and the cast, so no one seems drawn twice.
• No panel repeats another's picture: each moves the story on.
• Places look as Story.md's Places and the places sheet draw them, on every page: the same roof, gate, tower and street from every angle.
• People keep their side of the frame from panel to panel unless the scene turns.
• When something comes off, breaks or changes hands (a scarf blown away, a lantern dropped), every panel after says where it is until it's back.

#Look

One look for the sheet, the cover and every page, from Story.md's Look and the style reference: its line, shading and colour. Black ink on white with screentone greys unless the Look says colour; any accent colour only where the Look puts it, the same on every page.

#Page (2:3)

• Three to six panels with clean white gutters, in the reading order Story.md asks for (left to right unless it says right to left): three or four big ones for action, five or six for talk.
• The shots as the script gives them: a wide panel to set the place, mid shots for talk, close-ups for feeling, and one large panel for the page's key moment.
• Speech in white balloons with the script's words exactly, each tail pointing at its speaker, in a clean comic font. Captions in boxes; sound effects hand-lettered into the art.
• Thick outer contours, fine inner lines, solid blacks for depth and speed lines for motion.
• Nothing lettered on the page but the script's words: never its number, its name or a title.

#Cover (2:3)

One strong full-bleed image of the lead in the Look, hinting at the chapter's hook without giving it away, the chapter title lettered large and a chapter number. No panels.

#Character sheet (16:9)

The cast in the Look at one scale on white: the lead first and largest, full-length, up to three others from Story.md beside them, and three head close-ups of the lead (calm, angry, surprised), with each name labelled once, small, under its figure. The cover and every page draw everyone as this sheet does, with the same outfits, colours and props.

#Places sheet (16:9)

Every place in Story.md's Places, each once, as a clean establishing view in the Look, side by side in a grid with thin gutters: its shape, materials and landmark as Story.md describes them, seen from where the pages first show it, with no people, no writing and nothing the story moves or carries (a lantern, a bag). Every page draws these places as this sheet does.

#Avoid

Faces that change between panels, tiny text, colour where the Look has none, cluttered gutters, panels that skip or repeat the script, people the cast doesn't have, an ending rushed into the last page, and page numbers or captions nobody asked for.