Breakout Session #2: Scripting a Graphic Novel with Shannon Hale

  Scripting a Graphic Novel with Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale (Author) is the New York Times best-selling author of fifty books for preschoolers, kids, teens, and adults, including multiple award winners The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy. With LeUyen Pham, she created her best-selling graphic novel memoirs Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever, and the Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn picture books. She co-writes books with her husband Dean Hale, like the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge (with Nathan Hale), books for DC Comics about young Wonder Woman (with Victoria Ying), and best-selling chapter book series The Princess in Black (with LeUyen Pham). She lives in Utah with her four children and two ridiculous cats.

"There is not a standard for what the script looks like. It varies. Screen writing does but with graphic novel writing, everyone has a different look of script."

Shannon spoke about the very unique format. "Graphic Novels are a medium, NOT a genre." 

• Completely unique art
• We don't have the cushion of narration we have in prose 
• Unlike in movies, we don't have the cushion of sound, music and movement 
• Art through a series of static images
• The reader must be able to final in the space between the panels on their own
  

With graphic novels, "you can tell any story you want, not just superhero ones."

1. Choose what story you want to write: Is there a reason that this story needs to be graphic novel rather than prose? 

"So there's just a million ways to take advantage of this format that I find so playful and enjoyable." Shannon appreciated graphic novels because it allows you to contrast the mundane look of reality with the color world of the imagination. 

"And the juxtaposition of the narration saying one thing, and then what's actually happening being something different. It's something that you couldn't do in prose." Think about why your story is a graphic novel verses proses. 

Graphic novels are a great opportunity for "show, don't tell"

The composition, the color scheme, the softness/hardness can all be little clues to the reader, even if they might not stop and notice those things. But they feel them and absorb them.

"So, with graphic novels, you can be very thoughtful about all these little choices that you make." There are endless opportunities for "show, don't tell" with a graphic novel.

"What your secret to writing a great graphic novel script?

OUTLINE.

"Each line represents one page of art."

"So, it probably goes without saying, but I need to be really familiar with graphic novels and comics as an art form in order to write in it. To understand how much you can tell on a page."

Shannon meticulously decides how much information you can give in a single panel that's going to communicate and work. So reading a lot of graphic novels is super important. "Sometimes my graphic novel outlines can be a higher word count than my actual script."

One reason why Shannon needs an outline for graphic novels as a prose writer is that she is used to solving the problems and to seeing the story in that way. And before she starts breaking it out into individual panels, she needs to see the narrative flow, because that is how her brain works. 

"I can solve so many narrative problems, so many plot problems, and character problems and arc problems in outline form before I start to panel." So she spends most of her time outlining the story. She can spend months outlining but once she is done, script writing comes easily. "Focused, heavy work before I start to script."

One thing to keep in mind when you're structuring your story is that because a graphic novel is a visual format, readers are going to intuitively expect a kind of 3 Act structure that we're used to getting in movies. Doesn't mean you have to follow it, but it is a tool in your toolbelt.

Shannon continued on about narrative tools, the story "beat sheet" as well as other tools she uses to complete a graphic novel script. Another one that I must rewatch as there was so much jam-packed in this session, and as I have a graphic novel in mind, I want to take all the notes I can.

This session as well as the many others will be available to rewatch over and over until September 14th, 2025 through the Membership portal!

Happy Conferencing!