Beginner's Guide to Writing Comic Book Stories

If you've been having trouble coming up with your comic story, you came to the right place.  There are many great articles and books out there on how to write novels and comic book scrips.  I know because I own several of them.  Most are long drawn out explanations of the same thing but in different words.  I'm going to put the basic meat and potatoes here with a bonus on how to make it easy and interesting.  Here's my beginner's guide to writing comic book stories.

Plots

Yes, plots.  All good stories have two or more.  But to make it simple, concentrate on a major and minor plot for the back ground.  The plot is defined as the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story...or in this case a comic.  Practically, what's the story about?  The typical main plot is usually your hero trying to defeat the villain or villain's evil plan. The minor background plot can be some new romance or hero overcoming self doubts.

A plot device, or plot mechanism, is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. ... However a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience.

Outline

Make an outline for each plot in your story.  Organize each outline into three parts: the beginning intro, the middle rising action, and finally the resolution.  This is also known as the  story 3 act structure.  Even though stories come in different structures and can have more than 3 acts, we'll be using this type to get yo started.  If you need a bit more information or tips on creating your outline, Writer's Digest is a valuable resource for writers.  Here's an article on Outlines.

Act 1 The Introduction

This is the start of the story; This is where you capture your reader.  In the first act in comics its important to stir up your audience by using a hook.  This is also where you introduce your characters and the world where the story takes place.  


A narrative hook (or just hook) is a literary technique in the opening of a story that "hooks" the reader's attention so that he or she will keep on reading.

Act 2 The Rising Action

Act 2 is basically about the emotional journey of the main character. This is the rising action leading to the climax of the story according to the plot.  Give your characters all sorts of challenges to overcome, because the key in this act is conflict. Without conflict you can’t move the story forward. Conflict does not always mean a literal fight, but it can be all kinds of obstacles that keep the main character from achieving his/her goal/desire. Think about internal and external conflicts. Remember to continually raise the stakes of your main character’s journey. 

Climax is the term used to refer to the part of story or play where the tension or action reaches its highest part. Sometimes, the climax is a "crisis" point in the plot.

Act 3 The Resolution

Act 3 is all about the resolution of the story. This final act should show how the main character is able to succeed or become a better person. Everything that you’ve written in Act 1 and Act 2 leads up to this final act, so make sure you create a lot of interesting tension here as well as tying all the loose ends.  But since comic books are a series and you need the reader to return for the nest story, you will need to end your book with a cliffhanger to introduce your next book and create the tension and curiosity.

The conclusion of a story, often called the resolution or denouement.  This is where you answer all, if not most, of the reader's questions about the plot. 

A cliffhanger, or cliffhanger ending, is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction.

Now that you're armed with this story structure knowledge go forth and brainstorm new ideas and make incredible new comic stories!  

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Articles & Topics

For those of you who have been following us, welcome back.  To all the new readers, we're a blog/soon to be a comic magazine for independent comic creators.  This means everybody who doesn't work for the big two, Marvel or DC.  Our articles range from comic art techniques to the writing process for stories.  We look into the publishing and the business side of comics, especially getting the most out of your marketing efforts.

There seems to be a few great comic art magazines out there with amazing articles, but seldom do they really speak to the unique problems that indie creators face constantly.  Most of them focus on the art, lets face it.  What we're creating here is a magazine that goes into all those issues that come along when you create a comic book for independent or self publishing. We'll go beyond just the art and get into writing stories and converting them into comic scripts, marketing campaigns that will get your book sold for a wide range of budgets, and how to register UPCs and ISBNs. Learn what you need to know to run your comic book creation business.

What's Else is New?

Moving forward to offer you guys a better experience we've added a YouTube channel to stream content related to our articles and even some cool places or neat art techniques that we can share.  We're going to have fun and explore the mysteries of creating comics...I mean come on, that's awesome!  So definitely check it out and if you really like it subscribe to it so you won't miss a video.
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