ivyblossom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ivyblossom) wrote2006-05-08 10:48 pm
ivyblossom) wrote2006-05-08 10:48 pm
Entry tags:
Graphic Novel Thoughts
I have conferred with my artist friend, and she approves of the graphic novel plot idea. What a relief! If she didn't like it I'm not sure what I would have done. I'd grown so attached to it, I might have tried to write it as a regular novel...but I'm not convinced it would have worked. Knowing the point of this story was for it to unfold in a visual way, I'm actually not sure I could have told it at all without the visual. I find it very interesting that I'm even capable of writing a very visual story; I don't think about visual things often. I have a tendency to forget to describe characters because I spend so little time thinking about what people look like. But outlining this story (it's really hard to say I'm "writing" it) is very different and a lot of fun.
I tried something new with this project. At first it was all sitting in my moleskine and in a new avenir document, but that didn't seem right. Now that I had shared the idea with the other critical player, I wanted to share all my work on it with her directly and as immediately as she could take it. So I set up a wiki for the project, and created only two accounts, hers and mine. Otherwise it's a completely locked down wiki.
I always figured a wiki would make good writing software, just because you can keep moving things around and arranging things so easily inside it. What I really love about it at the moment is just that I feel like I've done something when I add to it. I've got some rough character details and sketches in there, some space to note down plot points and details as they come to me, and I've got a page for each chapter, where I'm keeping the dialogue and the rough descriptions of the action. So far I'm partway through chapter 3. I absolutely get the sense that I'm going to need to go back over it all at some point to take out any heavy-handedness or infodumping, but it feels good to hammer through it like this. It's incredibly fun to live with. And this way, on a wiki, the artist can drop in on my progress at any time, and can upload images to post in the relevant spots whenever she feels like it. I guess on some level it's weird to show off your outlining when it's so incredibly crude, but it's her project too, and I feel like she has every right to see what I'm piecing together. I want her to see the evidence of the story's growth and change.
We talked some more about the idea of collaborating on a graphic novel and what that would mean for us, and she said she really preferred that I do the plottish writing bit, and didn't feel cut out by me doing that. Her area is the drawing, which she is extremely good at. (As usual) I failed to describe anyone in these rough sketches and outlines, but visuals leapt into her head anyway (lucky me!). She knows which character is the burlier one and which is the slight one, a question I had not even started to formulate. So she will decide absolutely everything about the visuals, even though some of the time I'm writing out fairly script-like directions. Not frame by frame by any means, but a rough sense of the motion that moves through the scene, and the sorts of things that we see. No particular details, no fancy writing, no lingering. I mentionhow people feel inside the script, only because I suspect it may show on their faces.
It remains to be seen whether I can manage to pace a graphic novel properly, but I figure we can work on that once the first draft is complete.
My initial thought was that I would end up writing short stories about the characters in order to give the artist a sense of who these people are, but I'm starting to feel like that might be unnecessary. I might have to do it only because I want to. :)
It's quite a process, I'll give it that.
I tried something new with this project. At first it was all sitting in my moleskine and in a new avenir document, but that didn't seem right. Now that I had shared the idea with the other critical player, I wanted to share all my work on it with her directly and as immediately as she could take it. So I set up a wiki for the project, and created only two accounts, hers and mine. Otherwise it's a completely locked down wiki.
I always figured a wiki would make good writing software, just because you can keep moving things around and arranging things so easily inside it. What I really love about it at the moment is just that I feel like I've done something when I add to it. I've got some rough character details and sketches in there, some space to note down plot points and details as they come to me, and I've got a page for each chapter, where I'm keeping the dialogue and the rough descriptions of the action. So far I'm partway through chapter 3. I absolutely get the sense that I'm going to need to go back over it all at some point to take out any heavy-handedness or infodumping, but it feels good to hammer through it like this. It's incredibly fun to live with. And this way, on a wiki, the artist can drop in on my progress at any time, and can upload images to post in the relevant spots whenever she feels like it. I guess on some level it's weird to show off your outlining when it's so incredibly crude, but it's her project too, and I feel like she has every right to see what I'm piecing together. I want her to see the evidence of the story's growth and change.
We talked some more about the idea of collaborating on a graphic novel and what that would mean for us, and she said she really preferred that I do the plottish writing bit, and didn't feel cut out by me doing that. Her area is the drawing, which she is extremely good at. (As usual) I failed to describe anyone in these rough sketches and outlines, but visuals leapt into her head anyway (lucky me!). She knows which character is the burlier one and which is the slight one, a question I had not even started to formulate. So she will decide absolutely everything about the visuals, even though some of the time I'm writing out fairly script-like directions. Not frame by frame by any means, but a rough sense of the motion that moves through the scene, and the sorts of things that we see. No particular details, no fancy writing, no lingering. I mentionhow people feel inside the script, only because I suspect it may show on their faces.
It remains to be seen whether I can manage to pace a graphic novel properly, but I figure we can work on that once the first draft is complete.
My initial thought was that I would end up writing short stories about the characters in order to give the artist a sense of who these people are, but I'm starting to feel like that might be unnecessary. I might have to do it only because I want to. :)
It's quite a process, I'll give it that.
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