Tough Stories

[PlotHolio]

Some of you may remember that I'm attempting to write a webcomic with my friend. However, said friend is becoming somewhat unreliable due to a mess of personal problems.

This thread is indirectly related to the webcomic.

I chose to write this particular story in comic form because I had a difficult time writing it as prose. The image is clear in my head, but whenever I attempt to write it out something gets lost. There's a certain atmosphere of emotional and physical isolation I want to portray that doesn't seem to translate well without pictures.

Here's my question: Is there such a thing as stories that are better off in one format than another? If so, would you consider this to be one, or would you consider it to be a personal issue?

 

[Zero Angel]

I think you can make things work in any format, but obviously some lend themselves better to specific things. It could be that writing it would be great, but that you haven't found the voice of the story. On the other hand, if you feel it should be a webcomic, then there is nothing wrong with that and can be a great way to go, or at least experiment with.

 

[Penpilot]

Here's my question: Is there such a thing as stories that are better off in one format than another? If so, would you consider this to be one, or would you consider it to be a personal issue?

Oh for sure. There are books and comics out there that people consider unfilmable. One of these was Watchmen and Snyder goes out and does it. *shrug*

But any ways, each medium has its strengths and its weaknesses. There's a reason why they say a picture is worth a thousand words. On the flip side of that, visual mediums like movies and tv have a harder time getting into the thoughts of characters.

 

[Nihal]

I agree with Penpilot. You can use each medium to focus on a different aspect of the story and sometimes changing the mediums should require a different focus, an adaptation of the story so it fits well.

E.g., going from a book to a graphic novel would require to revise some dialogues, cutting off some of them, changing others to a flashback like storytelling or skipping ahead other ones. Otherwise it would quickly get cumbersome to read big walls of text and see little action. In other hand you could use more non-stop action than in a book.

If I had to do the other way around I would focus more on the other senses besides the vision. You can describe what the characters hear, smell, touch in a better way than in a graphic novel. To some extent you have a greater control of time. You can show more of their feelings, impressions and recollections without slipping in the classical, awkward black canvas full of thoughts of comics. Play with those tools.