Comic Zine (Part 2) - Story Structure

Have fun with an idea and pace out the story in a comic zine.

(This post is part of the series Comic Zine. Read Part 1 here.)

Like most creatives, I have TONS of ideas constantly swirling in my head.

Ideas are cheap. They are a dime fifteen dozens. The hard part is to figure out which ideas are truly worth looking into. The harder part is to then chisel and refine the idea into a story. Yet the even harder part is to make it into an interesting and engaging story.

Since time is a limited commodity, and making comics is a time-consuming process, I used to get stuck on which idea to develop.

All of which is silly, because I could have worked on a couple ideas while I was frozen in indecisions.

Comic zine, which tends to be short, is a great experimental playground to test out my ideas.

Even if the idea ultimately didn’t work out, I would have gained experience, from storytelling development (such as working on my own writing-voice, comic paneling, story pacing, etc.) to technical skills (such as switching between softwares/apps/tools to make the actual comic.)

For this year’s zine, I decided to test out one of my ideas that have been long swirling in my tiny brain – a story about my community cats.

Since the pandemic, my kind neighbors and I have been collaborating to help out the feral and stray cats in our hood.

Wouldn’t it be great if I share this so that more people can learn the benefits and process of helping out their community cats?

In my idea notebook, I jotted down a few directions I could go with this idea. It could be a fiction for children, a fiction for adults, or a non-fiction that let others learn ways to help community cats.

I decided to test out the non-fiction idea. (I am a big non-fiction reader.)

First, I outlined what I wanted to include in the zine. I had an iPad Mini with me while I was on the road, so I jotted down everything in the Goodnotes app.

I wrote down what I wanted to cover on the topic of TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return).

Since I wanted to do this zine in 16 pages, I paced out the story accordingly.

Notice that everything was super rough. Basically, I made an estimate of how many pages were needed for each section of what I wanted to cover. That gave me an approximate idea for the pace of my script The entire point of these notes was for myself to figure out the story outline, and these rough notes were enough for me to move on to the next phase of the project.

By the way, you don’t have to use Goodnotes or an iPad. I happened to have my iPad Mini with me while I was conceptualizing. There were other projects where I used other tools, like a No.2 pencil and a piece of paper. The important part was to get started and to experiment with your idea.

And to have fun with it!

Next, I’ll share with you how I wrote the story.

Stay tune!

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UPCOMING EVENT

SCBWI New York Metro Virtual Workshop
December 10th, 2024 (Tuesday) 7:30-9:00pm EST

Do you have ideas for a graphic novel story? Do you wonder how to pitch your dream project to an agent or a publisher? In this online workshop, I will teach you how to put together a great pitch for your next graphic novel.

Price: $20
Price if you are SCBWI member: $15

Register today: https://tinyurl.com/SCBWI-MapleLam-2024Workshop

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How do you plan out your stories? Share in the comments below!