{"id":722,"date":"2021-07-21T08:56:08","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T12:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/makingcomics.spiltink.org\/?p=722"},"modified":"2023-02-19T20:00:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T01:00:08","slug":"start-here-on-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salgoodsam.com\/mc\/start-here-on-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Somewhere to start, on ‘Story’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of all the skills it takes to make comics, writing is one of the last I tried to tackle as a student and practitioner myself.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that I’ve been working on it for about 25 years, trying to teach it is both fascinating and daunting. Quite simply it a HUGE topic to cover and I’m still figuring out how to unpack it for students. Let me say upfront, you don’t have to know everything to start. You just have to have somewhere to start.<\/b> So a LOT of this post, is just that. Places to start. Constraints, exercises, plot structure. You name it.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I encourage spending a lot of time listening to and talking with writers and students of the form, to learn about it and get feedback. There is always lot of craft and insight to be learned from peers and mentors. You will get the most by having a beginner’s mind<\/a> and being open to all of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look for local groups in your community, and online of course is an embarrassment of free or affordable material on the subject, podcasts<\/a>, youtube<\/a>, and blogs galore. Read it all a bit critically, and maybe laterally too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch out for any one size fit all solutions to hurdles or process, for example I’m Aphantasic <\/a>so using visualization I’m sure seems like a no brainer to the majority that aren’t, but suggestions regarding pre vassalizing stories are largely useless to me. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Notes for a short story…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It does not slow me down mind you, I start with short notes<\/a>, sketches, point form plots and thumbnail layouts for visual stories\/comics. There is no one right way, this page has a lot of possible tools and constraints you can explore and find one or more than works for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ok, lets dive in…<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I’m a fan of cinema and theatre, and see a lot of correlation between those mediums & comics. To that end I’ve created a playlist of cinema analysis for you to watch<\/a> and learn some of the art of film storytelling! It’s entertaining, and super informative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are key differences between the mediums, I talk about some here in my post titled ‘Like moving pictures, but not<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a different kind of picking of moments to show<\/a>, but still a lot alike too. For those inclined to agree already, and those not too even more: I recommend watching ALL of Tony Zhou’s<\/a> ‘every frame a painting<\/a>‘ series on cinematic visual storytelling, and I was personally struck by this clip, of Krzysztof Kie\u015blowski talking about his thoughts on time in Blue<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mind expanding stuff if you like thinking about story and time. Both of those appear to some extent in the previously mentioned Playlist<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My First and most important personal lesson<\/strong>, is Edit, Edit, Edit. and Edit again. And then one more time for good measure. Writing is Editing<\/a><\/strong>. Even the continuous draft ‘On the road’<\/a>, wasn’t the final draft. I rewrote Dream Life<\/a> several times before I even hit on the plot structure I used in the final version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Next big one for me, <\/strong>
was to think of comics<\/strong> as an art of<\/strong>
compression<\/a>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simplifying a story down to its most basic elements. It’s fair to say that compression was key to being able to tell a good story in a one page tabloid comic like Little Nemo<\/a> or Krazy Kat<\/a>. But it’s a factor in long form stories too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said I love playing with decompression<\/strong> in some instances. But we don’t want to slow things down to much. That would be dull. So it’s always ‘relatively speaking’ still a form of compressed storytelling in comics. Otherwise it would be a film strip!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manga, American comics, and European BD have all openly explored various forms of compressed storytelling, post Maus, Spiegelman<\/a> has become a big advocate of it too. And of course, decompression<\/a> has become a popular thing to explore as well. A Thousand Flowers: Compression, Decompression<\/a> is an excellent read on this [pdf<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both paths are valid, but for this course to accommodate the short story format<\/a>, a lot of your stories will need to utilize compression quite a bit. It’s ultimately a device of pacing, a lot of the rhythm of your story will come from how you vary that or don’t in your comics. Thinking about that becomes an aspect of the Clarity seeking process<\/a>, as found in Scott McCloud’s Making Comics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Narrative Arcs!<\/strong> To some degree every scene should have some sort of conflict? Your character wants something, and can’t get it without some difficulty, even if it’s minor. They need to get to Mordor<\/a>, or go to the bathroom, or get that hansom new neighbors attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider that each of these moments, builds up to the overall story arc. Flat scenes with no conflict or information about the story of any kind are just padding. If it’s not telling us something it’s dead weight. EDIT<\/strong>! My rule of thumb is if i’m board, so is the reader. Time to check out what’s going on back at the ranch.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"freytag-pyramid\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So what Kind of Arc to use? Mostly that’s likely to be a Three Act Arc. Even if it’s short! It’s possible to have a three act story arc<\/strong>, in just three panels<\/a>! However, while the Three Act story structure<\/a> is one of the most common, there are many others. Narratives can follow other patterns, like say a palindrome<\/a>, a reverie<\/a> or a round<\/a>. But most stories fit into more traditional Act based structures. For example Shakespeare’s five act structure<\/a>, Link <\/a>& Link<\/a>. A lot of TV now follows Seven Act story models<\/a> built to work with instead of against commercial breaks and weekly cliffhangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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