If you’ve ever wondered how one scripts an audiobook adaption, writer Sidney Williams provides an inside peek:

Step one is adapting expository material to dialog. “Look there’s a green streak in the sky. It’s going down behind those hills.”

To punctuate that you need an appropriate sound effect, not unlike those Thwapps I was talking about earlier.

SFX: MARTIAN CRAFT CRASHING INTO GRAVEL.

I approached the adaptation of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, now available at Audible.com and on iTunes, the way I approached comics. Tell the story – don’t worry where the word balloons go.

Or in audio terms, write the sound effects needed, let the sound artists worry about the rest.

This specific comics technique is the Marvel style, which is built upon a writer-and-artist collaborative effort at plotting. Contrast that with the DC style, which relies upon a more traditional writer-first, artist-second storyline development. Check out a side-by-side comparison of the two methods.

The issue of who should be the driving force in a collaborative work — not only comics, but music, movies, etc. — is an oft-revisited tug-of-war. In film, a writer often resigns him/herself to punching out the script, then watching as it gets butchered tweaked by director, actor, etc. That’s a linear, almost assembly-line approach. In other mediums, the evolution comes more gradually. A constant struggle, even when relatively friendly.