Graphic Storytelling Class

Space and movement

2006-10-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

Hello my fellow readers and writers sorry about the weekly delay, but I thought I'd add two weeks of my teachings into one entry. I've been crazy busy with the production of Quality Quill's new website as well as finishing up the trade to R-Squared. Trust me, the new penciler for the series is taking the story to a whole new level and I can't wait to reveal all the secrets in the book. (I'll talk about that at a later time, when it's a appropriate)

But back to the issue at hand. Two weeks ago I handed out a sample of a complete script and a glossary of writerly terms. During that class we discussed the different aspects of using such terms as angle, over the shoulder shot, close up, etc.

This week we read comic books. I have to send a special thanks to my friend Anthony Zicari for the Warrior Nun Arealia books I had. They were a huge success for mangaesque material.

The whole reason behind reading comic books is because I personally believe an aspiring comic book writer must read comics along with other prose in order to understand story, the medium, and the constant evolving world around us.

We read such titles as Batman, Danger girl, Crimson, League of Extraordinary gentlemen, and so on. I instructed the students to read the comics as writers, which meant that they should be reading for what is taking their attention. Things such as how the writer has formed the scene through panel movement; or how the writer is using dialogue to convey the characteristics of character(s).

Since we're all aspiring writers I tell these young writers that essentially an artist has adapted from a written script, thus we are getting the artist and writer's collaborative vision of the story.

So to make it easier for them to comprehend I say that as a whole this comic book is the writer's work and we are looking for those writerly things that the writer is doing on the page.

I have the young writers take a book and read it through, noting where they've noticed certain aspects of storytelling coming through for them.

As the writer's read I suddenly have another epiphany. I've discovered a new format for conducting the class. This new form keeps the young writer's attention, allows the young writer to invest his or herself into the material, all while creating a creative and respectful environment.

the structure of the class goes something like this.

1. Start the class with a round of open recall. (look back at the fourth post for a more detailed explanation.) By doing this you are rejogging the writer's memory but you are also allowing them to retell the story in their own voice.

2. Move from open recall to the actual reading of various comic books. Allow the young writer to pick from a variety of comics. This will do two things for the writer: allows them to read subjects that are interesting to them, and it will introduce readers to new writers.

3. Allow each student to give an oral summary of what they've read. This will help the other writers to see how "story" in other publications are being handled by other writers. The oral telling will give the reader and other writers a sense of what is taking the reader's attention.

4. Move from the oral telling into the actual writing of the scripts. This process allows the young writer to start implementing and developing those writerly techniques of storytelling into their own scripts.

5. Read back a page or two of a few scripts. This allows not only the writer of the piece, but the other writers as well to start to understand individual voice and the impact it has on story.

6. Recall/comment on anything that was read, followed by a critical comment in the form of a question.

7. End class with either an announcement of the next class or future assignments.

I believe this new structure will increase the young writer's production and will show them first hand how to develop a comic book script.

REVELATIONS:

I already see some very talented writer's who could one day be very good comic book writers, if not writers in general. Teaching a class full of high school students has made me look back on those most insecure adolescent years and I know now that I've always wanted to be a writer.

Don't get me wrong, that was never my first response when asked what you wanted to be, but sitting inside this class room telling stories and listening to stories I've come to realize that I was being told stories even before I knew what they were.

Teaching is an experience that is like a winding road, full of ups and downs. But when over half the class turns in stories with more than the three pages required, it's times like this when one has to hit the cruise control button and just ride the wave.

next class: pencil to paper: the beginning of a young comic book writer's journey.

The grim aspects of storytelling

2006-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

Today in class we read the classic tale of "little red cap" by the Brother's Grimm. Yes, it is the story of what many now know as Little red riding hood, but this is the true tale that was told in pubs to men of less gentler stomachs. I choose the Grimm's because they are by far the best folktale storytellers there are.

why a folktale?

Well, I choose this form because I believe the folktale form is one of the oldest forms of storytelling. (oral storytelling being the first.) Plus, the folktale form has all the elements of story that I needed to get across to my young writers.
The folktale form has character interaction, place, POV, Gestures, objects, etc. All the principles that make up a story. But the folktale form has one great attribute that can clearly be seen even by the most novice writer

What is that? You ask.
It is the rule of three.
Yes, folks, the rule that is found in all storytelling. I don't mean in just prose alone, no, you can find this rule in music, in movies, in plays, even in your daily life. The rule of three is a genetic rule infused in our genes from the first act of conception.
The rule of three can be considered the beginning, middle, and end. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. The rule of three can be three different tasks as in Little red trying to reach her grandmother; or even in Hansel and Gretel trying to find their way home.
The rule of three can be the chorus in a song. (Think about it. All chorus' in a song are in three parts.) It can even be the acts of play. Either way, I think you get the idea.
The rule of three is the most persistent and unbreakable rule in storytelling. Now, that's not to say that this rule can't be bent, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

Back to the class at hand. After we read through "little red cap" we discussed as writers what we noticed about the story. It did not take long for the young writers to notice the rule of three. We discussed what this rule meant to story. (Don't worry I'm not going to repeat the importance of the rule.)

From this little discussion we moved on into our story workshop. Before you even ask, this is what a story workshop consists of:

The Session starts with Opening Recall, which is a present tense telling of the imagery, events, tellings, words, sights, readings aloud from the previous session. Next is a reading of published models, which are basically stories that support the form or style that is being taught within the session. Through published models, a writer is able to see first hand the written word and how it pertains to them or the exercise in general.
After that it's the One-word exercise in which the writer learns to reach past superficial and direct association of words for a deep level response to words and their associations. Next is the Take-A-Place exercise in which the Writer is asked to see a place, real or imaginary. This becomes the foundation for the story in which characters are usually seen. Next, there is the Oral telling in which the writer tells the story as he/she has seen it during the Take-A-Place exercise.
Following the oral telling there is the In-class Writing and Read back. These exercises allow the writer the time to actually see the writing and to hear the written word as it appears on the page. Last but not least there is Closing Recall and Comment, which allows the Writer the chance to recall from the published models about anything that was taking their attention and to also comment on anything that they noticed within the session.

Now that you have an understanding of what a story workshop is, we can move on to the actual implantationn of these teachings in class. Since this workshop ran for a little over an hour in class I'm not going to bore you with a chronological order of how it plays out, but I am going to touch on some of the steps so you can see how the writers are using these story workshop techniques to develop story.

The first thing I asked the writers to do was to give me a word, any word. They gave: green, mellow, food, shattered, thunder, gravel, buffalo, light, secrets, clouds, wow, pumpkin, spirits, love, lust, and hatred.

After the first round I asked the writers to give me another word, but this time I coached them to start seeing the word as they give it. By seeing, I explain, means to see something for the word they are giving. Not inside their heads, but out in front of them as though it was 3D. I add weight to my words by giving a gesture of holding out my hand in front of me and bouncing it up and down. (I'll get to the reasoning of this later.)

They give me another round of words, each writer beginning to see something for the word.

After they've all given a word I ask them if anyone saw something from another writer's words. A few writers begin to describe what they saw and I point out to them that they just started telling stories, at least orally anyway.

We move on to the next step of an unplanned word. I explain that an unplanned word is a word not planned before the moment. These were their words: picture, fuck, rainbow, creation, broken, care, bear, cable, punishment, paint, Satan, smooth, pulse, song, disrespect, argument.

If you line up the words from both exercises side-by-side you can start to see that the writer's are beginning to reach deeper into themselves for the words that will form story.

Again, I said I would not bore you with every step of the workshop, but I will say we successfully got through all of the exercises. The reason I think it was a successs was because over half the writers had stories to turn in and each felt after doing the workshop that they wanted to either write a new story or rewrite their current story to make it better.

Now I know you may be asking, "Okay, what's the reasoning behind this and how does it tie in to comic book scriptwriting?"
Elementary my dear, Watson. Elementary.

The whole reason I choose to conduct the class in a workshop was to first start by putting the writers minds into the realm of story. Through the workshopp the writers will learn how to start unlocking the potential of story within their words. Secondly, the writer becomes comfortable with telling stories because we're all telling stories.

The workshop also aides the writer with seeing in the mind; which the writer uses to project images into scenes which play out in front of the writer, almost like a play or movie; or in our case a comic, instead of inside the writer's head. Now, that's not to say that the story doesn't develop or unfold within the writer's mind. But by seeing the story out in front of them the writer is allowing the possibility of the story to evolve by opening up the world of the story to the manipulation and instigation of life.

REVELATIONN: Teaching has its highs and its lows. I like to believe it has more highs. As an aspiring writer working towards publishable work I believe that writers sometimes forget that we can play around with writing and that sometimes it doesn't have to make sense. After hearing the oral tellings of my student writers I remembered this and I'm hoping I never forget it again.

Next class: How to write a comic book script: What's a panel?

On the Road to Writing

2006-10-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

I just love when life imitates art, or in my case, when my class imitates comics. I've officially got my "Joker" of the class. I mean this kid couldn't stop laughing or talking and so in the tradition of being a comic book writing class I have deemed him the "Joker."
ahhh! The parables of life.

Today in class we watched Road to Perdition. (actually we viewed certain scenes from the movie.) Which scenes? You may be asking. Calm down, I'm getting to it. We viewed the scene where the son of Tom Hank's character Michael has just witnessed his father killing someone. The next scene was where Michael goes to the speakeasy to deliver a message to the head proprietor from his employer Mr. Looney.

After, watching these scenes I passed out photocopies of the scenes from the book and juxtaposed them with the scenes in the movies. "Why?" you may be asking. "Did I choose Road to perdition?" the answer is elematary. I choose this graphic novel because unlike say the X-man, Spiderman, or Batman; one can not get the same feeling of completeness that a graphic novel brings to the table.

Example, having viewed the movie and now having looked over the actually pages from the book the class began comparing and contrasting the two mediums. We talked about why the scenes were different in the movie and what physical dynmaics a comic book writer could get away with on the page that a screen writer could not.

Now that we had an a understanding of the differences between the two mediums I broke the class up into a "U" shape. (a semi-circle would have been impossible with these bulky desks.) I explained the reason for this was because the beginning of all stories, oral stories, were told in this campfire fashion.

I informed my students that from this day forward we would be sitting like this and that for now on they would come to class as writers, not comic book scriptwriters, but writers of all things. Again, I explained to them the reason for this was because in order to write comics, they first had to start with writing prose; to have an understanding of structure before actually structuring writing into a script form.

We moved on with a small writing workshop (I'll go into detail about this in the next post) and the class ended with their first assignment being to write a three-five page story from the material that was started in class

Revelations: Here is what I think I've learned from this experience. Taking charge of the class must be the priority when working with young teens. Their interest will wane or they will go off on a tangent if not kept stimulated. The basis of the story workshop method is going to be invaluable for this class in order to get the student's minds into writing and into a focused state of story.

Next class: the brother's Grimm stop by for a visit along with some other writers as we begin our journey into the land of story.

First class: Introduction

2006-09-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today I taught my first Graphic Storytelling class. I'm not going to lie. I was nervous. Not because I didn't know the materiel, but because I always get nervous right before I have to talk in front of a room full of people. The secret to calming one's self down is to actually close your eyes, take a deep breath, then open your mouth and let the words come forth. (learned that trick in grammar school while performing at speech competitions.)

Today I covered the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel. One of my students asked me if graphic storytelling meant that they would have to draw. I told her no. She said, "good, cause I can't draw"
"I can't either,"I replied. "Not even a stick figure."
The whole class got a laugh out of that.
Just then I had an ephinay, well, maybe I was just thinking on my feet, but either way my next words were golden (at least I thought so.)
"All writing is graphic, and that's what we'll be doing. We'll be telling stories."
In order to solidify my sentence I gave an example by reading the first page of Charles Johnson's Faith and the Good thing. After I finished reading I asked the students to tell me what they saw. They each started giving me an oral telling about scenes of the story that had stood out to them. After giving their oral tellings I explained that each telling was of a graphic form because it gave the reader or in this case the listener something to see.

The class moved along nicely as I explained that "writing" in general could be found in every medium of entertainment and in every morsel of life. We talked at times and at lengths about different writers, books, anime, comics, movies, etc. All those things that are so relevant in their social lives.

We even went as far as to discuss our current war, to a degree, because it is not by personal beliefs that need taught to the students. This happened because of the graphic novel I had brought to class. The "Pride of Baghdad" by Brian K. Vaughn. I told the story of how the book was conceived from true life events. I've already got one student reading it with two more waiting to read it. One small leap for comic kind.

All-in-all it was a good class. I was surprised by how much I knew about the history of the industry, (yes, I briefly covered the history of comcis. I had to.) about how story was influencing life around us. But I guess a lot of that comes from the last four years of self-publishing and running a microscopic press.

Next week: the story workshop method invades graphic storytelling as we prepare to start writing and we'll take a look at Road to Perdition. The graphic novel versus the movie.

and so it begins...

2006-09-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday will be the first day for my Graphic Storytelling Class. I've created this blog as a way of keeping all my friends up to date on my teaching efforts, but to also hopefully learn something more from actually writiting about this class. So here's to the faithful, the brilliant, and the dreamers.