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PAGE EIGHT

1 EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT

This could probably use a large panel: Grip sits up as Japanese Police cars, lights and sirens full-blast, skid to a halt. The other members of The Hand are still there and they pause, caught in the headlights.

NARRATION
I am jerked back into consciousness by the wail of the Osaka Police Department sirens.

2 CITY STREET - CONTINUOUS

The members of The Hand all flee in the same direction, one of them leaping off the roof of a police car, another, without breaking stride, cuts down an officer foolish enough to try to pull out his gun.

3 CITY STREET - CONTINUOUS

Grip staggers to get to his feet, looking down at the empty costumes of the other members of The Hand who died during the battle that night.

NARRATION
Instead of running I stop and look- wonder why I did not dissolve upon defeat as my brothers did... as I should have.

NARRATION
Never before have I hesitated in any of my actions. The concept is so foreign to me that I don’t even realize I’m doing it.

4 CITY STREET - CONTINUOUS

Grip runs from the scene of the fight, the last ninja to make his escape.

NARRATION
Tactical instinct has guided my every move for as long as I can remember.

NARRATION
But a moment ago I was left motionless, defenseless, and it is only fear of capture that causes me to run.

NARRATION
I don’t understand what is happening to me.

 

 

 

I've found that no matter what artist I work with the same thing always happens- they never leave me enough room for the word balloons. Now, granted, I tend to write a whole damn lot of words, but hey, I'm a writer, that's just kinda what I do.

But the cool thing is this: The fact that I can't put a balloon or narration box over the main character's face forces me to reduce the number of words, to make my writing tighter. In this case a whole lot tighter. I have yet to find an instance in which this did not improve my writing, this page included.

You may be thinking that there's a whole lot of black space in that last panel I could write over, and I played around with that. But in the end I realized that it was the solidity of that black space that makes the rest of that panel so strong and putting boxes of text over that just killed it. So I decided to find a solution that allowed that panel to stay clean.