graphic novel class 2 - outlining

I’m going to take you through the process of a graphic novel in a series of posts. This is from my perspective, as a writer and artist who makes fantasy books for middle grade and young adult readers - but hopefully it will be helpful even if you’re interested in making a different kind of book!

In my last post, I talked about brainstorming. This week, how to pull those ideas together into…

Writing an outline

There are a few helpful terms that apply across comics, film, and tv. An elevator pitch or blurb is a few sentences - a paragraph at most - that sum up the story. An outline explores the story beat-by-beat, figuring out how the plot fits together and what scenes happen when. Sometimes an outline is preceded by a beat sheet (this is more a film & TV term) that lays out the story in simple bullet points. Finally, a script is all the dialogue, all the descriptions, the pacing, every moment laid out in text before it gets translated to visuals.

When I put together the Witch Boy, this is what I used for the elevator pitch (below). It tells us the world, the main character, the conflict, and the stakes. It doesn’t tell us the whole story, or even mention all the main characters.

Figuring this out - even if it changes as you continue writing - is helpful because this will act as a guidepost. When you get into the weeds of your outline, when the details bog you down and the plot holes multiply every direction you look - you can check your summary and remember the story you’re telling.

Outline format

An outline can look like a lot of different things. If you’re outlining a serialized webcomic you’ll be drawing on your own, it might be pretty vague. If you’re putting together a pitch for your first graphic novel, and you want the editor to know what’s going to happen, it will be more specific - likewise if you’re a writer putting together the story for an artist.

Simple, clear language is good (“X character is motivated to do Y by Z happening”). Clarity should be prioritized over drama…this is about putting down a map to follow. You don’t need to describe every detail of a fight scene or emotional conversation - figure out where the characters are at when the scene starts, and where they’re at when it ends. Sometimes figuring out those details can be enticing - to just get into the meat of the story! - but I’ve found it helpful to have a simple, short, easily readable outline when I’m in the thick of scripting. If I get too excited about planning the beats of an emotional conversation, I’ll let myself write it out, and then save it in an alternate document for when I start scripting.

Writing the dang thing

An outline is the messiest, most agonizing part for me. You’ve got this pile of fun sparkly themes and scenes and character arcs, and then you have to actually string them all together into something that makes narrative sense. It’s about stitching up plot holes, figuring out where things fit, and tracking character arcs relative to each other and to the story as a whole.

Here are the first two pages of the Witch Boy outline:

I am keeping it pretty simple, in every scene trying to show what is being achieved and where our main character is at. I’m not worrying too much about how information will actually be conveyed - for example, there’s a big infodump with Aster’s mom at the beginning, but that information is crucial to the story moving forward, so I’ll figure out how to make it feel smoother when I’m scripting.

Story structure

There are a million books on story structure (Save The Cat is a classic in film). These books usually focus on a specific, Joseph Campbell-style hero’s journey. It’s what Western audiences are used to, the structure that underlies any major Hollywood film, what we’re conditioned to find satisfying and compelling and meaningful. Some people view it almost like a mathematical formula - plug in X and Y, solve for Z, and boom! you have a good story (spoilers - this doesn’t work. stories come from the heart!).

All this to say:

⚠️You can break story structure! ⚠️

Especially in comics, which are their own weird medium - and especially when you’re telling stories from viewpoints that are underrepresented, stories about the people who don’t usually get to be the heroes. Breaking the structure, doing the unexpected thing, is often what makes stories memorable.

I don’t go into my books thinking of structure. But sometimes I get stuck - there’s a moment of ‘I feel like something is missing’ or ‘things are happening in the wrong order’ or ‘how do I make this beat feel satisfying.’ And so, with all that in mind, story structure can be helpful.

Here’s my personal breakdown of classic three-act structure.

And here’s how it (loosely) applies to the Witch Boy. Again, I didn’t go into the story thinking of structure.

Let me repeat that: I did not do this up front.

I wrote a loose, messy outline, and then I looked at the three-act structure to see where things fell, to see if it gave me any ideas of ways to punch up the story.

Suggestions, not rules

• coincidences and other remarkable, out-of-the-blue occurrences should happen early. When Morgan and Keltie fall in love at first sight in The Girl From the Sea, I knew I had to show that semi-magical connection as soon as possible. Coincidences that happen early in the story are accepted as establishing the world and story rules; too late, and it feels too convenient. “Start as close to the end as possible” is a Kurt Vonnegut quote I think about a lot.

• scenes should serve a narrative purpose (or several). Of course, ‘purpose’ is very open-ended. An atmospheric landscape scene can be added because you want to evoke a sense of place. A seemingly trivial conversation can subtly point to the themes of the story. A slow scene of your character getting ready in the morning can establish their personality.

• a character should leave a scene with a different outlook or emotion than they had going in. This isn’t true for EVERY scene, especially early scenes where you want to establish tone - but if you’re in the middle of your outline and feeling like it’s dragging, consider this point and the one above.

• where the story ends summarizes the overall theme. You don’t have to have a happy or neat ending. Your characters’ problems don’t need to be solved. But the place you leave them should be different than where they began, and it’s a statement - of why you chose to tell the story, why you chose to capture this moment of their lives in fiction.

These are guidelines that help me tell the kinds of stories I want to. They are suggestions, not rules, and you might discover a set for yourself that totally contradict mine! The diversity of stories in this world is so exciting and there are truly no right or wrong ways to do it.

Do you have any personal guidelines? Times when breaking story structure really worked, for you or for something you were reading/watching? Let me know!