A Question

A Question:

iskios:

gailsimone:

gilly-laughs:

gailsimone:

Dear Gail,
Have you ever written any trans women of colour? And if not, can you point me in the right direction?
Love your work,
— jemeryl







I have, in fact.   And if all goes well, we will be talking about what that book will be very shortly.  :)

Take my money! I really hope this happens!

It’s weird to be asked this right this moment, as I am literally writing the final presentation on this character as we speak to give it to editorial tomorrow.

Cross your fingers.

I am interested in what you just said, about a presentation to editorial, and I wondered if you might share with us what the process looks like. When you create a character, what steps do you then go through to make sure that character gets included in a way that DC (or any other publisher) is ok with? The behind the scenes of creative endeavors has always fascinated me. 

My usual method is just to write the book and create the characters and fill them with life as much as I can. You might have to give a character profile sketch if you are doing overviews for a book (which is like a six month roadmap so your editors know where the book is going), but in general, for an average character, it’s more between me and the artist.

If a character is going to have more significance, or is going to be pivotal, or is someone who will be featured a lot on the cover, you need to let the editors know who the character is, and where he or she is going. If you are doing a new book, you need to do more than that, you need to give a more detailed roadmap.

It’s not like walking through Mordor, the publisher isn’t trying to hold you back, in general. But the more complex your character work is, the harder it is sometimes to get it across in outline form. I struggle with that a lot, because I do what I like to think is pretty in-depth character work, I give long, complex backstories to characters, and that stuff never comes across in outline form.

So the key is always to explain the soul of a character as succinctly as possible.