and not all of them are related to deviant sex-acts, kittens with captions and candy-coloured ponies.
Apperantly the art of choosing the framing, the pose, the body language and the expression of a comic character in order to communicate the relevant bits of story is called “acting”. Who knew?
There are books about it, but preciously few posts and stuff, and it’s such an important part – acting will make or break the beliviability of your story, afterall.
Lately I’ve been asked a few question about writing in general and writing for (web-)comics in particular, and while I happily chat about stuff like that, we prolly should get the basic terminology as it is used on this blog first.
Just to keep down confusion, you know?
Chances are you already know most of the following, provided you’ve ever cracked open a single book1 about creative writing. You might not know the words or have seen it put together in such a “snazzy” diagram, but the concepts themselves are nigh inescapable.
Characters: Who’s acting in the story?
Plot: What’s happening?
Setting: Where & When is it happening?
I think most aspiring writers are familiar with character-plot-setting – it’s the holy trifecta of the writing business. But all in all, the story itself is just an idea, a pure thought construct. You cannot share a story without the aid of the narrative Structure and the Implementation.
Like a decent piece of music, a story needs a rythm, a tact, a beat. The Narrative Structure is a framework to make sure that certain things happen at certain points of the story to keep the audience engaged. The ideal here is that the reader/listener/observer is carried away by the story’s rythmn – without ever realizing that it exists.
The most intuitive narrative structure is the beginning-middle-end2 one, but in our Western World the three-act and the five-act structure are the most common.
In general goes the more space you to work in with the implementation, the more complicated the narritive structure can be.
If the Narrative structure is rythmn and tact, the implementation is the music as whole.
Implementation here means the actual words and lines on paper or screen. This is the story “made real”, this is how your audience interacts with your ideas. Until we invent telepathy, they can’t look in your head experience the story – your audience can only see what you commit to paper or electrons.
All your characters, your setting, the structure, your whole story, that’s carried by the implementation. This is the world of the details and their bigger meaning – your word choice, the way you structure your paragraphs, the very form you choose (short story, doorstopper novel, tv series, graphic novel, etc.), cuts, scenes, chapters and (in case of comics) panel and page breaks – all this matters, all this is the implementation.
Great characters, perfect narrative structure or a good plot – if you have a bad implementation, all of those barely matter. On the other hand, a good implementation can carry a bad story. “The plot sucks so much and the characters have the depths of a sheet of paper – but oh man, it’s fun to read!” That’s great implementation at work.
No implementation, no audience, no story. Basta.
The Disclaimer:
I’m self-taught artist/writer and still in the midst of learning the ropes of my craft. These posts are part of my learning process and a way for me to sort my thoughts, so don’t take this post as a recipe for Absolute Truth, Justice and American Pie. (Success is not guaranteed, either.)
Take what you’ve just read with a healthy dose of skepticismn and make sure to use other sources, too.
The following is definitivly not an exhaustive list, but it can give you an idea of what actually influences a person and culture. Depending on the kind of culture you write some things will be far more important than others, but all of them depend on each other. Biology influences Sociology; religion, science and politics are interwined and climate writes history, etc, etc.
And if something does not fit into the whole, if theres a break, something that makes the reader go “huh. Why do I have airplanes among my mediavial peasants” – that better be a plotpoint, lest you pull the reader out of your story.
Geographical features like vulcanos, mountains, coasts, woods, plains, deserts, swamps, rivers. Light conditions, seasons (cold, warm, mild, dry, wet?), prone to storms or other severe weathers, flora, fauna, food supply, water supply, predators and other moving natural dangers, possible trade and marching routes and their chokepoints
Biological necessities: Ammount of food, water, light, rest, sleep, necessary climate, social contact. Kind of illnesses when necessarity aren’t met, senses (hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, touch, whatever else), Languages (beings that can’t hear won’t use speech), speed of thinking, limits of percecption and imagination, memory, lifestages, can they die of old age (there are animals in this world who don’t), maximum age, resistence against exposure and other ills, count and kinds of limbs, what do they use to manipulate their environment
Climate changes, wars, epedemies, catastrophies, displaced populations (for example through said climate changes), religions and their relationship to science and politics, governments, legal forms and social systems (e.g. feudalismn etc.), definition of ownership and wealth (Land? Herds? Hunting rights? A thickly padded bank account?), currencies, heirs, social strata (eg. peasants vs. aristocracy), official approved history vs what really happened, propaganda, organization of populance (states, tribes, cities?), treatment of neighboring populations, hostilites, common conflicts, treatment of criminals, definition of crime, importance of trade and its routes, technological level, communications and travel of informations
Gender roles, Class Roles, superstitions, beliefes, folklore, style and times of worship, art, objects of luxury, common objects and sides, legends, arts, music (if applicable), ammount of leisure time and how they spent it, dialects, customs, manners (as in greetings, farewells, formalities), Rites (birth, coming-of-age, funerals), treatment of children and the elderly, treatment of the infirm, treatment of people who do not meet social expectations, family units, approach to creating said family units, treatment of sex and love, informal trades
Supernatural occurrences, Mythological Beings & Deities and their influence on people, legends, results of worship, interaction with “mortal” populance, general disposition of these beings.
You know, I am really not sure if I shall join or not.
On one hand it would be great practice and I’d get a certain fanfiction out of my head1. On the other hand, I could use the time for DRAWING instead, which has the bonus of having tangible, usuable results.
On the gripping hand, I’d really love to proof myself that I can still do it, all while I desperatly fear that I, due to work and general lazyness, can’t.
Decisions, decisions…
Chapter 1, page 21, detail
You know, I’d never thought I’d hit that milestone, this chapter took way to long. But certain regrets aside, it got done and I am really happy with it!
And I did learn a few lessons from it, too:
Quite an important realization in itself – sketching, writing, lineart is creating the story, while colouring is refining it. A necessary step, but refining is always a bit boring.
Chapter 1 page 14, detail
I realised this a few pages ago, but I didn’t want a strong style break in the middle of the chapter, so ai stuck with it. But now that the new chapter has started, I’m free to mix it up a bit. I’ve got plans!
Although it’s highly unlikely that you’ll see much of a difference. As long as it’s more comfortable for me, all is well.
It’s far more important than the details! Shapes decide if something is interesting or not, silhouettes decide if a pose is readable or not. Both are defined by solid colours, not by the outline. Hence why I can’t imagine ToC in black and white – all the character designs were done with colour in mind!
My shapes are currently all over the place, but I just recently started paying attention to them. These days I am studying photographs and illustrations by the (sometimes not so) old masters in order to see how they solved that problem and my understanding is definitivly growing.
The whole art thing? It’s my hobby. And figuring out how to get better on my own is where all the fun lies for me.
Barging in and attempting to give advice I didn’t explicitly ask for is akin to interrupting me while playing a video game, snatching the controller out of my hands and going “hey, you’re wrong, let me solve that for you” and throwing it back with a “look, I solved that game for you, how do you dare to be upset!?”.
I hate that.
No matter how well meaning, it’s rude, disrespectful and most importantly, it’s taking the fun out of the whole drawing thing and makes me want to never touch that particular page again. It defeats the purpose of the game.
If I am stuck on something I’ll read up and/or ask. But until then it’s my game and my puzzle. Don’t attempt to solve it for me.
Chapter 1 page 3, detail
I need to write my comic in thumbnail sketches – basically, I need to handle both panel layout, character positions and dialogue at the same ime. Trying to do a “normal” comic script does not work well for me. Now mind you, I am really good at working from a comic script, I am just horrible at writing one. I’ve got a very visual mind.
Thank goodness for outlines.
Additionally I’m doing much better by limiting my sketching to the pages of the scene or sequal at the same time. Everything else needs to go to the rough outline (if plotpoint) or the notes-folder (if funny faces or dialogue). But this method leaves me with less room for editing, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I can’t overwork my writing, a curse because I can’t streamline it.
This might change the more experienced I become, but for now that works best.
Example: Rell and Chona really should’ve been one character, simply to streamline the whole thing. Annoying, but they’re here now and so I need to figure out how to give both a story purpose. That’s how new storylines are discovered, people.
On that note…
I am very impatient, always trying to get to the next step before the current one is finished – that got me into trouble more than once. If I start detailing characters before the sketches are fully done, I end up having to work around strange poses or throw out already finished art, which, well, it eats time and lowers the quality of the end product. Same goes with inking and colouring. One step after another.
I know it’s a bad habit, but the only thing that helps is more patience, but that, too, is a matter of experience.
In the end, learning any skill is a matter of time and attention to what worked out how, even art.
So the next step? Doing the next chapter and learning from that.
I’m looking forward to it.
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I'm a German artist in my early thirties, who spends way too much time infront of a computer screen. An affinity for digital art, a dayjob as software developer and WoW will do that to you. Still, even I get to see the daystar sometimes. It’s incredibly bright and in dire need of a dimmer.
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