Making Changes

So i’m nearing the end of writing the first draft of the story. Along the way i’ve had so many changes of heart, none of which I have applied to the writing as yet, but i’m hoping to have it all squared away before the new year.

Some of these changes have come from reading other graphic novels where i’m beginning to learn more efficient ways to introduce characters and nice tricks to get rid of sections that might otherwise be a long sections of reading blurb with no exciting artwork.

My story includes many points that require a lot of explanation and for the most part i feel i’ve done well by using flashbacks and collages to describe them – and avoid blurb. In certain circumstances i’m finding this quite challenging as I wish for the story to flow.

I’ve seen how writers break their stories down into books and volumes and to be honest i’m struggling to find suitable breakpoints in my story to enable this. My story is full of action and has multiple timelines (like that of Game of Thrones) which all come together at some point.

For one of these timelines in particular, i’ve sold myself the idea of removing it completely. This way all of the action can be viewed from the eyes of the humans only meaning that everything in-human can remain a mystery unless it is viewed firsthand by a human. It’ll all come out in the end anyway so I feel I could get away with this and it would, as an additional bonus, keep the action fresh and not slow it down with up to 10 pages of arguing or general chat. It will involve a lot of dialogue change towards the beginning to ensure that they remain a mystery but i’m ok with this.

Then comes the main character. There are many characters in this story but I see this one as like the ‘Rick from The Walking Dead’. So far he’s portrayed as a bad ass who can do everything which i’ve decided is no good. So a whole new intro is being whipped up which paints him in a weaker light. It gives him more to fight for and i hope it’ll give the reader more reason to love him and follow him in his adventure of discovery.

Then there’s pace. One novel I read recently, (Brody’s Ghost Book 1) had a really nice slow pace to begin with which helped introduce the main character with next to no words at all. My story seems pretty In Your Face from the get go and so i fear it may be an information overload.

These are all points that i’ll be looking into over the next few weeks. Lets hope i get a nice balanced story at the end of it.