# Tips for Writing a Graphic Novel



## kobuzero (Dec 11, 2011)

I know that writing a graphic novel is part drawing skill, and part writing skill.
I'm not the best writer honestly, I'm just not that great with words, however, I have some stories that I feel need to told. I eventualy asipire to be a film maker, but I would like to try out my stories as graphic novels first.

So any tips for how to get started on this? 
Perhaps some brainstorming tips, websites, or even some good programs to help me out. Since I would like to draw these up digitaly. It looks nicer, plus it saves a few trees lol.

Thanks in advance


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 12, 2011)

I'll leave this one up to foozzzball.  He's done a few... if not graphic novels, then comics, which is relatively close.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 12, 2011)

I've written outlines for graphic novels and scripts for graphic novel pages, although I never had the motivation to attempt the art side myself.  And trying to team up with an artist never worked out.  I've multiple times developed the story outline while the artist was right there in chat, so I could run each idea past them and make sure they were enthusiastic about the various parts of the story.  Then for about a week they'd be free to do character design while I put the finishing touches on the outline and wrote the script for the first scene or first 5 pages.  I've even done thumbnails if requested.  Sometimes the artist actually produced a character design or two.  Then I'd deliver the first part of the script, get a positive verbal response, then just... nothing.  Forget pages, they never seemed to make it through the first panel.  I think the sheer amount of work involved tends to kill many artists' enthusiasm even when they like the story idea a lot.

But anyway, I could give tips or examples of creating a graphic novel outline and script, if you are looking for that.  As far as software goes, most artists who have the experience to plausible make a graphic novel already have a tablet and a favored software, whether that's Photoshop, Gimp, Illustrator, or Inkscape.  Trying to learn a new software adds unnecessary complexity to an already complex project like sequential art.  As long as the program has either layers or vectors and works well with the artist's favored input device, it can be used to make a comic.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 12, 2011)

Here's a sample first page script, perhaps that will be useful to see.  The terms shifter and graven have been previously defined - gravens look like humans born with tribal tattoos, shifters are shapeshifters which typically look like anthros based on a mish-mash of animals.  First scene presents the ironic problem of a main character who looks like an anthro, whose fellow species-members would consider being attracted to humans (lesser beings) to be a sort of bestiality.


> *Skin Shapes* graphic novel script
> *Page 1 (righthand)*
> 
> 
> ...


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## foozzzball (Dec 12, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> I'll leave this one up to foozzzball.  He's done a few... if not graphic novels, then comics, which is relatively close.



I've written a graphic novel (as yet undrawn), and have been writing a (mostly) weekly webcomic for about two years. (I think it's still in my signature!)

As for my advice?

...

Writing comics is not like writing prose, and every mistake you make with a script will be magnified by the artist, but every success you have will be magnified too. The trick is understanding that the comic-as-drawn is the artist's storytelling work based on yours. You have to tell a good story with the script to begin with.

Formatting can vary wildly. There is no industry standard. For examples of mine poke around on the webcomic or on my FA for awhile. Also look at http://www.comicbookscriptarchive.com

Also artist/writers who pull double duty tend to have their own way of doing things which I have no idea about -- I just write -- so this all is liable to be less useful to the OP. I will bug the artist who does Askazi to come look at this -- she may have tips.


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## Tanzenlicht (Dec 12, 2011)

I have done a little comic work on my own as writer and artist.  When I did it I worked by just sort of pulling a page out of my head and working it out as I went.  This had the advantage of not requiring me to actually be much of a writer, and the disadvantage of allowing me to draw myself into a corner, get tired of whacking away at it and quit forever.

I would recommend at least a solid outline with maybe an idea for what will go on each page (one page of discussion, two pages of fight scene, whatever).  If you're talented enough to pull off a page by page, panel by panel honest to goodness comic script then do it.  It is the best thing to have.

As to how one produces such a script...*shrug* it is magic as far as I know.

Keep in mind that a comic script and a film strip are different animals.  Reading  this book may be of use in understanding how they are different.

If you're not good at writing you may wish to consult with someone about dialogue and such before you release your comic into the wild, but you don't need good grammar to do the layout.  Write it, draw it, have someone proofread your word bubbles.

I don't think what art program you use will matter much.  I'm currently using a combination of GIMP and Paint Tool Sai because Sai handles inking so beautifully and GIMP handles pretty much everything else (layout, panels, text, resizing)....uh, y'know, at all.

I cannot recommend finding a person who wants to do the part you're less interested in enough, but keep in mind it will involve years and patience and people handing you short stories that they think might make good comics you can handle the scripting yourself right?  Or who don't ever write again after they get some character designs out of you or...but I found one so I don't have to be bitter about the rest of them any more.

And since you have stories to tell finding a writer who wants to write your stories and not their own will probably be like a billion times harder.
I guess my advice consists of just start doing it.  You don't have to wait until you're good enough at writing or drawing, writing and drawing regularly will make you better at both.  Don't worry about ruining your story.  There will be another better story after this one and you will find out about it because you have become a better story teller by 'ruining' the old one.

Have fun.


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## kobuzero (Dec 12, 2011)

Thanks very much all of you, you have been most helpfull. However, one thing I failed to mention, I was probably just spacing when I posted. I am an artist as well, I'm the artist and the writer. I just needed a way to kinda flesh out my story being hand writen like the script example above. That was perfect, and I will certainly use that idea of scripting it.

Thanks again everyone, I will be sure to update you all on how its coming.

As far as programs, I do own a wacom tablet, and I use GIMP for all my digital art. Is there a better one out there?
I have tried Manga Studio and although I like it, I think its almost too formal for what I want to do.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 13, 2011)

I had guess from the first post that you intended to be the artist, since you mentioned drawing things digitally.  Glad the script example was helpful!   I'll also talk about how I write the plot synopsis a little:  Before I write any actual script I get the plot for the whole idea sorted out by using a variation on the Snowflake Method; the key concept of this method is that it is iterative.  What does that mean, "iterative synopsis creation" or "iterative outlining"?  Iterative means you rewrite it repeatedly, going a level deeper each time, which makes the synopsis get longer each time.

Step 1. Capture the main point of your idea in 1-3 sentences.  This is based on the idea of writing a logline or premise, an exercise which helps a writer focus on the theme, the essence of the story they are trying to tell and keep that clear focus throughout the writing process.  Like the thesis sentence of an essay.

Step 2. Rewrite, adding the main plot points of your story.  The Snowflake Method says "three disasters and an ending".  I think the concept of disasters doesn't fit many stories (transformations is a bit better), and some fall more naturally into a different number of acts.  Aristotle says "beginning, middle, and end", and screenwriting theory in general says "in the middle of the middle, add a reversal to split that act in half for a total of 4".  I think "beginning, middle, end" is pretty vague, even when you add some stuff about inciting incident and darkest moment, etc.  I think of an act as being it's own little plot with it's own little climax, and each act climax functions as a point of no return for the larger plot.  The "point of no return"-ness is why the Snowflake Method calls them disasters, I think.  But anyway the point of this step is to identify the beginning, 4 or 5 major turning points of your plot, and the ending.  Also character names and descriptions can be added in.  The result should be a synopsis of 3-5 paragraphs.  (No, no one's counting, you can write one long one or 7 little ones if you want.)

Step 3. Rewrite again, adding explanations of how characters are feeling, what they are thinking, why they are doing what they are doing at specific points throughout the plot.  Scenes or chapters should naturally emerge.  For a single-volume graphic novel, assuming a standard size between 200 and 300 drawn pages, you actually only have room for a novella's worth of content, not a whole 600 page novel.  I usually end up with a structure that looks like:

Prologue/Introductory scene

Three scenes making up act 1

Three scenes making up act 2

Three scenes making up act 3, of which the 2nd and 3rd are the set-up for the climax and the fall-out from the climax.

Epilogue/Resolution scene


For a story that falls more naturally into 4 acts, there would be another group of scenes in there.


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## kobuzero (Dec 13, 2011)

Hmm, ok, I think I'll sit down and try that, does it help to also kinda write parts of the story like that?
As in writing individual scenes in the same manner. Because a lot of them I have plotted out just fine in my head, but it would kind of help to write some of the more important scenes down so they are planned out as necessary.

As far as the length of the graphic novel, I will most likely break it up into 3 books. Yes its all 1 story, but I think it would be best to break it up a little and give the reader some time to breath and process everything.


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## Smelge (Dec 13, 2011)

sunandshadow said:


> Here's a sample first page script, perhaps that will be useful to see.  The terms shifter and graven have been previously defined - gravens look like humans born with tribal tattoos, shifters are shapeshifters which typically look like anthros based on a mish-mash of animals.  First scene presents the ironic problem of a main character who looks like an anthro, whose fellow species-members would consider being attracted to humans (lesser beings) to be a sort of bestiality.
> [/SIZE][/COLOR]



I suspect your problem with artists giving up might be overload of information. You're asking someone to be creative with your work, then setting out the exact image you want in each panel. Putting in a basic guideline of what you'd like might be better, as it gives the artist the chance to come up with something themself. If I'd been sent that, it would feel less like a project I am working on as a collaboration, and more like being told what to do and how to do it.

Think of it from the other way. The artist comes up to you and says, "hey, I'll do this, but you have to put in an explosion every 5 pages regardless of plot." They're dictating exactly what they want and not allowing room for creativity. Also, it turns into a Michael Bay film.


OP, google Celtx. It's a free scriptwriting program that can be used for tv, film, comics and so on. It's pretty versatile and has an archiving system that lets you store character info/illustrations as part of the script.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 13, 2011)

Smelge said:


> I suspect your problem with artists giving up might be overload of information. You're asking someone to be creative with your work, then setting out the exact image you want in each panel. Putting in a basic guideline of what you'd like might be better, as it gives the artist the chance to come up with something themself. If I'd been sent that, it would feel less like a project I am working on as a collaboration, and more like being told what to do and how to do it.
> 
> Think of it from the other way. The artist comes up to you and says, "hey, I'll do this, but you have to put in an explosion every 5 pages regardless of plot." They're dictating exactly what they want and not allowing room for creativity. Also, it turns into a Michael Bay film.


I don't disagree with this, but some artists want more information than others.  When I am starting to work with a new artist I always ask them what kind of script they prefer.  The artist who indicated an interest in drawing that particular story said she wanted details and specifics.  We established between us that the artist was free to improve upon my ideas, but she wanted my ideas to use as raw material, she did not want a blank slate or more sketchy prompt.  I thought it was an appropriate example for someone who was writing for themself, because it's not like you can give yourself too strict of instructions; anything you write in the first place of course you can change your mind about later.

For an example of the opposite approach, I outlined a comic with one of the artist's pre-existing characters as one of the main characters, and encouraged the artist to re-write any of that character's dialogue to better suit their personality.  I'm aware that I'm picky about what I want to happen in my stories and to some extant what the main characters look like, so I try to be adaptable to what partners want in other areas I don't care so much about, which is basically all the other art stuff and specific word choice and sentence structure.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 13, 2011)

kobuzero said:


> Hmm, ok, I think I'll sit down and try that, does it help to also kinda write parts of the story like that?
> As in writing individual scenes in the same manner. Because a lot of them I have plotted out just fine in my head, but it would kind of help to write some of the more important scenes down so they are planned out as necessary.
> 
> As far as the length of the graphic novel, I will most likely break it up into 3 books. Yes its all 1 story, but I think it would be best to break it up a little and give the reader some time to breath and process everything.



By the time you are done you have theoretically written _all_ of the story like that, lol.  You can revise and lengthen your synopsis to include as much detail as you want; each expansion makes it closer to being the actual script or manuscript.  There are several right ways to do the prewriting for a graphic novel, so just do what seems comfortable and helpful to you.  Personally I'd make sure I had a script for each scene before drawing that scene, but it's not mandatory to write the whole script ahead of time.  Outlining it ahead of time does help you clarify your vision to yourself and give you an idea of numbers of scenes and pages.

Do make sure to store your created pages in such a way that they are easy to edit later.  You may find you decide you hate one panel and want to just delete it and replace it with a new one.  Or you realize 40 pages in that you need Character X's office to have a big window so you want to copy and paste the window into the earlier appearance of the office.  And it's really common to find typos later or think of a better wording and need to hack on the text.


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## kobuzero (Dec 13, 2011)

@sunandshadow

That makes quite a bit of sense, and thanks again for your help.
I actually sat down last night and tried out some of your advice and its working out quite well. 
Something I found that kinda worked, was writing the synopses for the example the whole " Beginning, Middle, End" thing. However, I wrote 4 "acts" of the story. Within those, I plan on writing out some important scenes within each of those bullet points and then fleshing those out as I go along.

I'm not sure if that is exactly what you meant in your explination, and I appologize if I've missed the point of it all lol.


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## sunandshadow (Dec 13, 2011)

kobuzero said:


> @sunandshadow
> 
> That makes quite a bit of sense, and thanks again for your help.
> I actually sat down last night and tried out some of your advice and its working out quite well.
> ...



Yeah that is pretty much what I meant - I was trying to say use whatever number of acts seems to naturally fit the plot.   In 4-act structure, which happens to be the standard structure for screenplays, typically the first act is the beginning, the middle two acts are the middle (with a reversal between the two), and the third act is the end.  But, I will be curious to see how that would divide into three volumes.  Usually the break between volumes corresponds to the break between acts.  And four doesn't divide evenly into three.  But, it might work out anyway.  The volumes don't have to be exactly the same size, and some acts will probably naturally turn out shorter than each other.


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## kobuzero (Dec 13, 2011)

Yes that is very true. I'm not sure exactly how many volumes the story will take up. I'll honestly have to wait and see how it unfolds. Because while yes, it is finished in my mind, there are tons of things I may add, or rip out. So it may end up being two very thick novels, 3 moderate sized novels, or may cut it down to only one.


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