Narratives v Graphic Novels, Pictionary v Scrabble, 1 pic v 1000 wds

Moving to a new country means telling your life story [or reinventing it!] over and over and over again to your new friends. Hearing my life on the broken record that is my voice [now I know how other ppl feel: shut up already!] I realise that there are 3 popular tracks and 3 most popular questions that go with them:

1. I’m Australian. “Australia is filled with criminals, deadly spiders and men who walk around in khaki jumpsuits shouting ‘crikey’ and bothering deadly spiders, right?” Unfortunately, all true.
2. I [try to] drum. “Wanna join my band? You must drum alright, eh?” Unfortunately, not true.
3. My manga graphic novels. “What was it like to write these books?”

Now, having been published is interesting, but the process for writing a narrative isn’t really. “I sat down in my undies and wrote at a laptop while eating Chicken Crimpy” – not really the glamorous image I wanted to portray to my new circle of friends. But the process for writing the graphic novels is actually interesting. Even to me. And even surprisingly to other ppl. And out of those questions above, as a Sydney city girl who thinks khaki is so 1993 and only been drumming since May 2010, Q3 is one I feel most qualified to answer.

Often when ppl find out I’ve written children’s books, they ask: “Wow, are you like the next JK Rowling?”

And I answer: “As long as you have no follow up questions – yes.”

But of course they do, and the type which I don’t want to answer as it shows I am truly not the next JK Rowling: “How many books have you sold?”; “Are they available at [insert all popular bookstores]”; “Do you not have to work anymore because of the royalties?” etc etc weep weep sob sob. I’m just gonna concentrate on the one question I filtered out that didn’t really have a quantifiable measure, if you don’t mind:

“Do you have an illustrator?”

Yes, I do and he is AWESOME. I had to provide him with descriptions of my characters which he used to illustrate my narrative novels. Okay, so some might see this as we are both really good at what we do, I write well, he draws well. But given that I’ve never met the guy, seen a photo, or even heard his voice, he is even more awesomer. It’s one thing to actually write awesome in awesome grammar as I have awesomely shown, but to actually conceptualise despite these words makes him super tonnes more awesomer than me. [The one and only time I will admit this about anyone! ]

While I pictured the Halycrusians to be some sort of jaundiced-afflicted-missing-an-alien-chromosome ET, Douglas Fong created characters even better than what I had imagined:

My description

The Halycrusians are very short, less than one metre high and have yellow skin, although some can be brighter than others. Their skin looks slick and feels clammy. They have long upper limbs that stretch to twice their length, with three ‘tentacle’ like fingers on each limb, but have short legs with a potbelly. They have wide, dark eyes that take up most of their face and their noses and mouths are negligible. Their potbellies glow purple when they are trying to communicate telepathically. They are placid creatures, resting their clasped hands on their bellies. When they become aggressive, however, their limbs stretch outwards in front of them, as if crawling forward.

Illustrator’s outlook

Better than I imagined.

Just a taste, he said…

In respect to the narratives, Douglas and I didn’t really need to meet and greet given our roles were kind of separate – I wrote the words, he drew the pictures and the art director placed it on the pages.

But I got a taste of the other side of the drawing table when I had to write my graphic novels. As you know, a picture tells a thousand words. And as ppl know me, I would rather take those 1000 words [and then some] than have the ability to win at Pictionary. [Or Charades - I also need to speak!] Writing the graphic novels was akin to script writing and film story board/screen shots. No need for verbose sentences and superlative hyperboles. Check out the samples below of the two very different processes, and their output.

Proof of Narrative

This is pretty straightforward.

Draft proof of Graphic Novel

13 Page 13

Panel 1:

The second swine has crashed into the first swine, pushing it through the entrance and shattering icicles around them. Z-Koo, Molly and James are bowled over head over heels.

Onomatopoeia: CRASH!

Group (in thought): WHOA!

Panel 2:

Z-Koo, Molly and James are somersaulting down the toboggan troughs, the swine are swiping at them, roaring all the way.

Onomatopoeia: ROAR!

Molly: AHH!

14 Page 14

Panel 1:

Z-Koo is sliding towards another large stalagmite.

Molly (in thought): WATCH OUT!

Panel 2:

Z-Koo bounces off the stalagmite and towards the swine. James is lying on his back and the first swine is trying to swipe at him. Molly is looking in the direction Z-Koo has bounced.

Panel 3:

Z-Koo is swiped by the swine and is sent back towards Molly, over her head. She is looking in the direction that Z-Koo is thrown.

Final Graphic Novel output

How it translated....

Writing is my life, but as we writers and readers [and those who actually learned how to apply makeup] well know, less is more (see my previous post on “killing your darlings”). But to be a part of a process where I had to devote equal amount of importance to both my writing and my ideas for illustration is new to me. I’ve worked side-by-side with graphic designers where I had control over the copy, and they had control over the look. But it’s completely different when I had to drive both elements.

Instead of having Molly exclaim, “Look at that big giant 4324kg boulder coming towards James on his right hand side”, I had to imagine, and then describe in words how this would look on the page as illustrations. None of this, ‘Nah, make it bigger, a little more, a little more, too much!” business as I physically wasn’t side by side to Douglas.

Instead of writing a description of Penny’s fear as she meets the Halycrusians for the first time, I had to verbalise the graphic. One expression for perhaps 2-3 sentences. But, on the other hand, how does one ‘illustrate’ the hot, thick atmosphere of the planet? Clouds may denote it’s windy, there is no sun so that pointer is redundant. This is where I would switch to using words. But because it is a graphic novel, words are kept to a minimum but you want something more creative and punchy than “It’s hot!”.

That’s what I love about what I do. Writing is the earliest skill you learn, it’s the basic educational milestone, its manifestation is as simple as pen and paper but it’s constantly evolving and teaching me new aspects.

So perhaps I’m not as qualified as I think I am at answering this question….and that’s the place where you want to be actually, come to think of it.

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” – EL Doctorow.

NEXT WEEK: I’ll briefly outline the process of submitting my brief to the publishers, and how to set out a manuscript.