| Level: | Intermediate / Advanced |
| Tone: | Beat Sheet Breakdown |
| Pages: | 63 |
| Published: | 2010 |
| Arbitrary Rating: | 4/5 |
| Plan to Reread: | Yes |
What's with these books having massive titles? This week I finished up Tim Stout's "Short Notes on Long Comics: 10 Great Examples of Story Structure in Graphic Novels". Fair warning, the intended audience for this book is pretty niche. The author does an amazing job of breaking down popular comics into Blake Snyder's popular plot structure. You can find a detailed explanation of the structure on Tim Stout's own blog at:
https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/
The only reason I can't call this book perfect is because the ten titles he chose mostly fall outside my preference. On the plus side, if you're interested in writing it's a safe bet that at least one of the comics he chose will be exactly what you're looking for in an example.
The best fits for my goals are Batman: Year One, Hellboy, and The Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper. Two out of three I already own and one is on my to-read list. There's a spoiler warning in the front of the book, but just to be extra safe I'll repeat it here. Short Notes on Long comics contains spoilers, since the author systematically brakes down the stories and explains where they fit in the plot structure.
With less than 100 pages you can easily crunch this book out in a single setting, but it has a great re-read value since you can revisit it whenever you're stuck on a story or having a hard time figuring out what to write next.
No comments:
Post a Comment