You will gather research of diverse cultural historical & contemporary comics, graphic novels and illustrations.
You will collect secondary source images to build a mood board. This mood board will begin to inform your ideas for your own story, characters, environments and objects.
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Story Writing Strategies
NarrationDepending on whether the story is meant to be a quick shot or long term commitment, there are different ways and techniques which help to create it.
For a short term story, the writers need to ask themselves few significant questions in order to make it interesting. These include:
- What does the protagonist want
- It’s morality, conscious choices which lead the story
- Consequences of these choices that alter the story
- Environment, behaviour, mood
If the story is a long term one, there comes more preparation to create it. The good thing is to always note down the ideas, any sort of inspiration, written (or not) imagery, anything which we found interesting. The writer can also try to write few short sentences or paragraphs, of the possibilities that may happen or stories told by other people.
Important strategy tip is to begin the story with something what makes readers want to read more. If it won’t be good enough, then many of them may not want to continue, or not be amused even if the rest of the story would be beautifully written.
Next important feature is to determine the style the whole story has to be written in. There are 3 perspectives to choose from:
- 1st person – person speaking is either the main protagonist telling about the actions he/she did or behind the scenes character telling the whole action that happens to the major character.
- 2nd person – story has kind of interactive influence for the reader, making him/her feel as a participant of the action.
- 3rd person – more neutral perspective, which can be either limited to main characters perceptions or the narrator can be informed in everything.
Writer needs to keep in mind to not to be overly descriptive when it comes to moments which aren’t adding to the main story, the reader can imagine these things.
Plot is the brief explanation of the main story. When setting it up, it is helpful to recognise types of actions/elements that may embellish it. These include:
- Conflict
- Explosion/ “Hook”
- Exposition
- Complication
- Transition
- Climax
- Falling Action
- Resolution
If writer can’t come up with a good story, he/she can note down multiple possible outcomes and choose the most appealing one.
All these aspects can be created in any order, influence each other as well as fit all together.
To make the story more interesting, or at least not confusing the writer may or may not stuck to the overall layout/structure, e.g. make the story linear in terms that story goes onward, not skipping between time scales, or use the III-act structure narrative technique.
III-act structure breaks the story into 3 parts:
- Beginning – where we introduce the settings, main characters, mood, possibly the unknown aspects which are going to be known later on
- Middle – the longest part which tells about character’s actions, their struggles to achieve the goal, any kind of confrontation etc.
- End – the resolution of the problem, achieving the major goal (or maybe not?)
In between these main acts are plot-twists. The first one is called Inciting Incident, which turns upside down what the main protagonist is used to, it’s story-driven and set ups the act II. The second plot point is called Climax or Climatic Turning Point, and creates the tension just before the final outcome.
http://www.indiana.edu/~audioweb/T206/three-act.html
There is another story writing structure, called Hero's Journey. It's divided in 12 steps, and has archetypical portrayal of a main protagonist who is the 'Hero':
Apart from the exterior, physical journey depicted above, the Hero passes the his inner journey
- The Ordinary World
- The Call to Adventure
- Refusal of the Call
- Meeting with the Mentor
- Crossing the Threshold
- Tests, Allies and Enemies
- Approach
- The Ordeal
- The Reward
- The Road Back
- The Resurrection
- Return with the Elixir
- Limited Awareness of Problem
- Increased Awareness of Need to Change
- Fear; Resistance to Change
- Overcoming Fear
- Committing to Change
- Experimenting with New Conditions
- Preparing for Major Change
- Big Change with Feeling of Life and Death
- Accepting Consequences of New Life
- New Challenge and Rededication
- Final Attempt(s), Last-Minute Dangers
- Mastery
The exact structure isn't as crucial to make a story,
the points can be added, deleted, swapped etc. It depends on how we want to tell a story and which of these will me more appropriate for a story to appear more original or interesting.
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
the points can be added, deleted, swapped etc. It depends on how we want to tell a story and which of these will me more appropriate for a story to appear more original or interesting.
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
Monologue & Dialogue
Monologue is the one person speaking. It can be used in situations when the protagonist is a narrator himself, and talks through what has happened to him during the entire story. Another moment when monologue is used is when a person is alone and our readers aren't mind readers, so many writers make these people speak to themselves (eg. exploring a mansion, being home alone). The last thing is similar to first, but when a character meets someone who shortly tells a story (eg. how he found himself here, why is this place ruined, etc.)
Dialogue is the most common method, and it's about two or more people/characters having a conversation with each other, either common talk or question and answer.
Research
Cultural, Historical and Contemporary ComicsJapanese Manga
Bleach / Naruto / Dragon Ball Z
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach_(manga) http://oneshortmama.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/bleach-manga.html
http://graphicnovel.umwblogs.org/2014/09/21/narutos-never-ending-story/ http://narutoimagesgallery.com/index.cfm/image/naruto-manga-volume-8/190
http://www.comicvine.com/dragon-ball-z-8-goku-vs-ginyu/4000-189738/ http://comicattack.net/2009/11/tcc-11-26-09/
Manga is a term for Japanese comics, which started off with the title Astro Boy. They quickly became popular throughout the world. Mangas usually are black and white, only the cover and sometimes first few pages are colourful. They contain a lot of sound references even for quiet things. Faces are deemphasised (with an exceptions of eyes) and characters have quirky hairstyles. In shonen (aimed at men) mangas bodies are overemphasised just like in American superhero comics. In shojo (aimed at women) the feelings are the most emphasised features.
There are different names for manga in different Asian countries: manghwa in Korea, manhua in China etc.
Old Comics
POPEYE / MICKEY MOUSE
http://www.justanswer.com/general/1yvcd-great-condition-mickey-mouse-comic-series-no.html http://antikewl.com/daily/category/comic-books/
Old comics often have very cartoonish characters and are humorous. Characters are simplified caricatures and often have dots for eyes. They are colourful but the color palette is quite pale and limited.
Comics Now
American
MARVEL
http://blog.laptopmag.com/marvel-comics-makes-700-digital-comics-available-for-free-download http://picshype.com/marvel-comic-book-wallpaper.html
Today's comics are digitised, if not from the very beginning, artist do scan sketches and digitise them as the latest step. They vary in style, some people still prefer to make them in oldschool style, some try to make them overrealistic, others do something surreal or dreamlike.Graphic Novels
Walking Dead
http://collider.com/ http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/27647/the-walking-dead-graphic-novel-dominating-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list/
Graphics novels, as name suggests, are books which story is made in style of a comic. It's doesn't necessarily have to be a fictional story. They are longer than usual comics.
The first big graphic novel was "The adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck" which was written in America by Rodolphe Toffler who was a humorist.
Illustrations
Illustrations are short comics, often made out of a single picture, sometimes couple of them. They are often satirical and reflect on the situations in the world. They are humoristic with very silly graphics.
Mood Board
Links: