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BEVAN THOMAS

~ Writer, editor, storyteller

BEVAN THOMAS

Tag Archives: writing

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

20 Tuesday Feb 2024

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Essay, Writing

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ideas, writing

“Where do you get your ideas?” is said to be the question above all others that writers hate getting asked, both because writers are so often asked it and because they often don’t have a good answer. You often aren’t thinking about where an idea is coming from, you just know to make use of the idea when it arrives. Also, each writer discovers ideas in their own separate ways, often in ways unique to them, so what may be a font of inspiration for one person may be a dry well for another. That said, to any aspiring writer on a quest for ideas, here are a few generally reliable sources:

  1. Your Own Life
    Many cartoonists in the underground comics movement preferred to write deeply personal memoirs instead of the outrageous superhero comics that were popular at the time because they strongly believed that “the stories that make up our lives are more interesting than the stories one usually encounters in comic books” (Chester Brown, The Little Man, p. 169). Even if your stories are full of superheroes or weird magic, you can give them depth by incorporating real feelings or events that you experienced. Stan Lee’s comics were ground-breaking in the 1960s because he made his superheroes, such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, wrestle with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt just like he did, which made the characters far more engrossing than the two-dimensional superheroes published by other companies. Always be aware of what is happening in your life and think about how it can be brought into the stories you create. Every person has experiences that can serve as powerful inspiration.

  2. Your Passions
    What do you love to do? What dominates your mind? Alan Moore developed an intense fascination for Jack the Ripper that he couldn’t quite explain, and from that produced From Hell, a graphic novel that explores Jack the Ripper and the culture of Victorian London with extensive detail and vision. Neil Gaiman was always compelled by the blurring distinction between dreams and reality, and from that created Sandman – the story of the king of dreams, and perhaps the most influential comic book series of the 1990s. What is important to you? Is it medieval Spain, baseball, the city of Medicine Hat, or Korean mythology? How can you present it in a way that is uniquely yours? What do you have to say on the subject that could be explored through a story?

  3. The World Around You
    Things are constantly happening every day, and you can receive inspiration for a thousand pictures and a thousand stories just by going for a walk and being attentive to what is going on around you. A strange inscription in chalk on the pavement, a tired old woman who looks like she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, a snatch of conversation overheard on the bus, a man screaming at his pet gerbil – all of these could be woven into some grand narrative. And then, of course, there is the news. Open a newspaper, and you encounter shocking events on the front page, detailed biographies in the obituaries, curious beliefs in the editorials – a wealth of ideas there for the taking.
  1. Other People’s Works
    The one piece of advice that all creative writing teachers give is that the best way to improve your writing, much more important than taking lessons, is to experience a lot of whatever kind of story you seek to create – an aspiring screenwriter watches a lot of movies, an aspiring novelist reads a lot of novels, and an aspiring cartoonist studies a lot of comics. By seeing how a lot of other people have done the sort of story you like, you learn what works and what doesn’t. You can also use their ideas as a springboard for your own, taking them in a new, creative direction. However, don’t be afraid to incorporate elements outside your chosen medium. Many movies have taken inspiration from novels, novels have taken inspiration from plays, etc. A large part of the success of the graphic novel series Sandman was that it took many of the ideas and sensibilities of the fantasy novel (detailed internal narrative, complicated story structures, etc.) and adapted them for the fantasy comic book.


My Adventure with the Fatal Five

15 Friday Dec 2023

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Mental Health Issues, Self-Reflection, Superheroes

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dc comics, mental health issues, superheroes, through the labyrinths of the mind, writing

I have struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life. When things got stressful, the Beast would rear and bury its claws into my back. It would rake, and I would howl, and I’d try to fight against it, and often fail. So much of my life has been defined by my mental health issues, and I’ve known that I need to overcome them, but for a very long time they weren’t things I talked about. They seemed like personal failures I needed to hide. I couldn’t look vulnerable. I couldn’t look weak. I needed to be strong. As I was trying to hide these issues, I didn’t search for such topics in the stories I consumed, and I certainly didn’t put them in the stories that I wrote. I just wanted to pretend they didn’t exist.

That all changed in the spring of 2019, when I watched the DC animated movie Justice League vs the Fatal Five. In this movie, a team of time-traveling supervillains called the Fatal Five arrive from the future to change history so that their enemies, the Legion of Superheroes, will never be born. They are pursued to our time by the superhero Star Boy, but his schizophrenia makes him unable to clearly explain his mission to Superman, Batman, and the rest of the Justice League. The only member of the League who can understand him is the Green Lantern Jessica Cruz, because her crippling anxiety helps her relate to Star Boy’s own mental struggle. The empathy and support that the two heroes provide each other give them the strength to confront their own issues, fight the supervillains together, and ultimately save the day.

Watching this movie was a shock to my brain. Here were heroes struggling with mental issues in ways I’d never seen on screen before. Here were heroes who knew what it was like to feel trapped inside their head, to have their brain refuse to obey them, to be torn apart by inner demons. They know what it’s like to freak out in front of people and have them not understand what’s going on. They know what it’s like to feel weak and pathetic and alone, despite having nothing wrong with their body. They know what it is like to be me.

I’m a shy, white, middle-class North American male, the stereotypical target audience of comic book superheroes. But in that moment, watching Fatal Five, I realized a part of myself hadn’t previously been targeted by the genre. I felt seen, and in feeling seen I realized to my shock that I hadn’t felt seen before. Perhaps if the movie was another kind of genre, it wouldn’t have affected me so intensely, but this was superheroes, a genre I’d been obsessed with since childhood. In fact, this was a superhero movie done in the same animation style as Bruce Timm’s Batman the Animated Series, one of the most influential shows of my childhood. These were the sorts of heroes I had grown up with, had seen as archetypes of strength and courage. But now I saw that they suffer like me. Their minds betray them like mine. They are like me. But that doesn’t stop them from being heroes and saving the world. As I watched Fatal Five, I broke down and cried.

Thanks to this movie, 2019 was the year that I learned to think more deeply about my mental health issues, the year I learned to speak publicly about them. It was the year that I realized that art could speak to my condition, and when it does, it can be powerful. That when art speaks to me about my mental condition, I feel heard. I no longer feel alone. And when that happens, I can make positive changes in my own life.

It was Justice League vs the Fatal Five that inspired me to consciously write about mental health, to make that my artistic goal. My next big project was to create Through the Labyrinths of the Mind, a graphic novel anthology in which numerous cartoonists created stories inspired by their own experiences with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, and PTSD. I myself wrote an adaptation of the Welsh legend “Geraint, Son of Erbin,” the story of an Arthurian knight who succumbs to crippling depression. In writing about the vulnerability of a hero from my own cultural heritage, I sought to echo the vulnerability of the superheroes that Fatal Five had shown me onscreen. I wanted to show that even the strongest, bravest people suffer inside their minds, and so it’s okay when we do.

Now most of what I write is related to mental health issues in some way. My protagonists wrestle with similar demons to what I wrestle with, and I think hard about how to present those struggles in a potent and insightful way. Before Justice League vs the Fatal Five, I just wrote what I wanted without thinking about how my unique experiences and thoughts could help people. Now I know that when I write about mental health, I can connect to people who wrestle with their own issues. By having my heroes struggle inside their heads, I can inspire my readers in the same way that Fatal Five inspired me. I can make them feel seen, and encourage them to accept themselves. No other movie or book has transformed me as much as this one did.

My Behance Portfolio

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Link

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Behance, Bevan Thomas, portfolio, social media, writing

One of the many social media systems I use is Behance, a site for creatives of any medium to display their work. My own portfolio features a wide variety of my own writing projects, both my copywriting (press releases, ads, and media kits) and more personal storytelling (comic strips, video, etc.). Visit my Behance Portfolio and see some of the ideas I’ve been toying with!

Featured Vendor at the Studio

26 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Link

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Bevan Thomas, biography, editing, link, Studio, writing

I’m the featured vendor for the Studio’s February 2012 newsletter.

Here’s what it says about me:

Vendor of the Month 

Bevan Thomas
webcolor?

Bevan Thomas is a freelance writer and editor who works with numerous clients to present their documents and other text in a clear and engaging format. He has revitalized websites, written press releases and advertisements, and even developed scripts for graphic novels and television shows.

Among his various projects, Bevan has:

* Created and edited copy for numerous clients of Personae Concepts, a Vancouver communications company.

* Wrote the press release for the Viscera Film Festival.

* Scripted a one-page comic strip ad for STUD underwear.

*Developed Cloudscape Comics‘ web content and optimized it for search engines.

* Wrote stories for Cloudscape‘s graphic novel anthologies.

* Developed a television pilot that is currently being optioned by a producer.

* Blogged for Broken Frontier, a comic news site

A consummate storyteller, Bevan devotes much of his free time to writing comic books and teleplays, and engaging in improv acting. He is never happier than when telling tales or building worlds.

Bevan’s wide experience with both copy and storytelling projects has allowed him to combine a crisp and focused writing style with an engaging sense of narrative that keeps the reader interested and involved. He always strives to present his client’s information creatively and compellingly: he has turned advertisements into comic strips, used anecdotes to introduce web content, referenced urban legends in press releases, and incorporated other innovative material to capture the readers’ attention.

“Making sure your writing says what you want it to say.”

 


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    ♣ BLOG

    • Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Owain and Modron
    • Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
    • Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Menw
    • FairyTaleFlash: The Door
    • My Adventure with the Fatal Five

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