The novel you are working on, thinking about and pouring your efforts into is taking form. You can almost touch and feel the characters and scenes laid out on the page as you type. The action is high pitched and the dialogue strong. So, what are you creating? Could this piece be ripe for reworking into a graphic novel?
Many publishers today, are trending toward remaking both popular current novels, as well as successful books of yesterday into a new format, and the results are graphic novels of all types.From middle grades and young adult pieces to adult material, graphic novels have taken hold of both the new and the old.
Whether we’re talking about Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Eternal, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Mariah Marsden’s Anne of Green Gables or Homer’s The Odyssey, each has been reformatted into pages of illustrations and speech bubbles. In all these examples the publisher of the graphic novel made the decision to convert stories from their original format.
But, perhaps your novel is already headed in that direction, mine certainly was. The images of an amusement park, the eclectic characters that gathered to work the machines and the crowds begged illustration. The daunting task that stood before me was taking the 380 page novel and paring it down to a 120 page screenplay.
The journey has begun and I’m happy of it. I bought a screen writing program to help me lay the story out, studied many graphic novels and went to work understanding the process. I’ve learned many things and among them, more is not always better. But, being concise and well structured around a strong story arch continues to be a thing of beauty. Sinking my teeth and brain cells into well paced and meaningful dialogue is also a grand element of the process. Best of all, I have a new vehicle to employ in expressing my vision of story: growing, learning, seeing a little better and appreciating so much more.
Rose Houghton