This post is another step in my efforts to write and draw a graphic novel called The Walk. Paid subscribers to Random Orbit can follow along as I plan, write, and draw this book. Free subscribers get a taste of it with these posts, and are encouraged to upgrade to support this work.
A note to subscribers
While it might seem like I’m telling you about this project I’m working on, I really have a secret plan: I’m really writing this story. Back in 1994, I’d just begun writing the story that became my graphic novel, Dear Julia, and I didn’t know where it was going or what happens, really. My friend Victoria and I would often meet for coffee or dinner, and she always wanted to know how the project was going. Much of the story was written as I explained it to her. This happens, and then this happens, and she’d ask questions, and I’d try to answer. As this dialog took place, I realized that I was literally storytelling. I was solving structural roadblocks and imagining major plotlines right there at the diner, over coffee.
And that’s kind of what I’m doing here. This story isn’t written. I know where I want to start, and where I want to end, but I don’t know yet how to get there, save for a few plot points that are more or less parallel to the picture book the graphic novel is based on. For the next several posts about this project, I plan to just start writing about something that’s holding me up — theme, character development, plot — and see where it goes.
And like Victoria, I encourage you to ask me questions. Leave a comment. Let’s make this work.
Thanks for reading.
Picture books are a magic tricks. The best magic tricks seem simple, so easy, that when you’re fooled you nearly kick yourself. How did I miss that? Picture books are like that. They’re quite simple things. Often, as a reader turns the last few pages, it seems that there is just no way that this story is going to wrap itself up. How is the bear going to get home? How is this relationship going to be mended? Does the dinosaur, in fact, get a new car? And then, voila, it happens. And, with the good ones, it’s perfect, and it couldn’t have ended in any other way.
