WriT - A world of stories

You can become a writer by developing a story in numerous formats. There are short stories, novels, children's books, graphic novels, flash fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and even stories for blogs.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I recently discovered my husband thinks it would be interesting for me to attempt a graphic novel. I was a bit shocked at first, but I must admit the idea has become quite appealing to me.

Of course, I had to turn to the trusty internet to research what it would take to create one because once an idea is planted in my head I can't let it go until one, I realize it's an impossible task or two, I have figured out a way to accomplish it. I must admit in this instance, I was hoping to find a way to make it happen.

The graphic novel. The how to create a graphic novel page on wikihow.com is easy to understand and lists step by step instructions on how to create one. I was a bit surprised that the first step was learn a drawing style. I realize that graphic novels are drawn, but I had envisioned teaming up with an artist to create my graphic novel, though drawing one myself does create it's own kind of appeal and challenge.

Developing the story is pretty much the same for any story, so there's not much to add there, but the next step would be to create a rough draft using thumbnails. It sounds extremely tedious, but I do agree that it is the best way to plan out the story without having to go back and fix mistakes on the finished product. Sounds hard, but extremely rewarding. I think I will eventually give it a try, but it may not be anytime soon.

In my search about graphic novels, I came across some interesting 'how to' sites for other types of stories, which I just have to share.

Short stories. I have a goal to put together a book of short stories with my friend Jenni. It's a project that will probably be years in the making, but I'm excited to work on it and this information will help us get there.

Obviously, the first step would be to read short stories, which I've been trying to do when I have spare time. Then, you gather ideas for the story. We have a general theme, so hopefully those ideas will develop in the next few months. From there, you familiarize yourself with the format of a short story. These include rising and falling action, climax, and character development. For specifics, you'll need to check out the link. But ultimately, the idea is to write and never give up.

Children's books seem easy, but are much harder than they appear. You need to focus on keeping the story simple, yet entertaining and educational. It's important to keep the audience in mind as you write and be sure to have a child do a test run of it. If they have to stop and ask you what a word means, you need to revise.

Lastly, the stories I want to talk about are the ones we tell on blogs. I found this fascinating post about the 14 types of stories you can tell on your blog and I had to share them, just for fun. I think it's interesting that my blog falls into the first category, Personal Discovery Stories. I hope to be able to share more Success Stories, but I haven't quite earned those ones yet. Maybe someday I'll have earned the right to share some.