Saturday, April 13, 2013
Labels:
creating manga
Writing for Graphic Novels: Creating Episodes
Posted by
Arcadia Page
at
6:46 PM
My
previous post on writing for graphic novels was about how
to make a simple plot outline. Now I’m going to show you how to start
turning that simple outline into graphic novel material.
Some
writers plan out every aspect of their story and stick to it from beginning to
end. Others like to be spontaneous and plan as they go. This plotting method
combines the best of both worlds. So we're going take the simple plot outline
and split it up into sections that I like to call "episodes." I call
them episodes because when I group my events I think to myself, "If this
story was a TV or movie series, what would be in a single
episode?" Here's a working example.
Below is a sample of the basic plotline I wrote for Mascara:
Wedding
job
Addison
reveals that her parents just lost their jobs
Ian
finds job for her at the mall
Addison
starts working at mall in organic store
Ian
makes over his sister
Cultural
Festival
This
is the outline organized into episodes:
Wedding
job
Addison
reveals that her parents just lost their jobs
Ian
finds job for her at the mall
Addison
starts working at mall in organic store
Ian
makes over his sister
Cultural
Festival
An
episode is typically a collection of events organized in chronological order that are closely related to each other. If a single event is very involved, it can also be made into its own episode.
Each
group of highlighted events is an episode. Here I have four. So if Mascara
was a TV show, one of the first episodes would be about Ian doing makeup at a
wedding. Just so happens Addison is at the wedding too, and by the end of the
episode, Addison will reveal to him that both of her parents have lost their
jobs--or at least show by her actions that she's distressed about
something--finishing the episode with a cliffhanger.
It is a little strange. The events are organized chronologically, but
once episodes are created, the order of things doesn't matter as much.
For
example, the list could've been like this instead:
Wedding
job
Addison
reveals that her parents just lost their jobs
Cultural Festival
Ian
finds job for her at the mall
Addison
starts working at mall in organic store
Ian makes over his sister
Then at
the cultural festival, Ian could have been working hard to cheer Addison up,
since they suppose to be having fun, and then after that he could consider finding a job for her at the mall where he works.
Or it
could be that by the time I finish drawing the wedding episode, I don't feel
like the cultural festival fits the story very well, so I could just leave it
out--being that I didn't mention it in a previous episode. If I did mention the
cultural festival earlier, I could cause something bad to happen so that it
would have to be canceled, and then I could move on to what's next.
Basically,
plotting this way is very flexible. It's easy to add, remove, and swap things
around. While working on my graphic novel I was constantly changing things. So
having my plot organized this way made it possible for me to have direction
while maintaining the ability to change things spontaneously.
And if
you don't want to move anything around at all, that's fine too.
Important Note:
An
episode is not the same as a chapter. An episode can be composed of many
chapters or just one.
This
method of organization also makes script writing very easy. I'll be writing a
post about script writing very soon. So if you've found this information
helpful, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it!
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