Tao of Guerra

Short stories may give you a new lease on your imagination. Since they don’t require the commitment of a comic or a full graphic novel, it’s easy to let your imagination run wild. That’s true both for the story and the art style. Get as crazy as you want since it’s not a big investment or your time. You can work on your story telling and plot development (keeping it short and to the point isn’t always so easy), expand on your art skills (get out of your comfort zone), and give yourself the sense of accomplishment when you’re done.

It took almost two years to complete the first two volumes of my graphic novel series, Samurai Elf – a mammoth undertaking. It sucked a lot of energy out of my creative juices, so during the break in between, I wrote and illustrated a 4-page short story called, “Bed Bugs” that was published in Heavy Metal (July 2007). It felt great to finish something so quickly and the style was something new for me.

Since then I’ve realized the major benefits of short stories, which I’ve listed here:

1. Time saver.


2. Keeps you sane.


3. Might bring in some extra cash.


4. Some ideas as too short for a comic series or a book, but they’re still good ideas. Don’t you hate reading something that has a great idea, but they drag it on too long?
   
5. 
   It’s a huge challenge to write not just a prose short story, but a sequential short story in 1-8 pages, where every panel is prime real estate.


6. Helps you to grow as a writer, storyteller and/or an artist.


7. Immense sense of fulfillment once you are done.


8. A chance to break free from the usual. Experiment with everything, even your sequence or looking camera shots.


9. Try different genres.


10. Different methods of coloring to suit the stories.


11. Improves your storytelling for both small and large projects.


12. Opens your mind up to new ideas. From every short story I do, a new river of ideas flows.

The best advice I can give? Keep it simple, but compelling. A lot of editing may be necessary, but you’ll love the end result. If you want to publish your stories, do some research on different magazines. Find out the submission editor’s name and address, how long the story should be for their publication, and always match the genre to the magazine.

Post by Miguel & Suzy

For every story, the author must create a world that the reader can get lost in. Fantasy or speculative fiction worlds need even more detailed work to be convincing. Easier said than done. It’s sort of like building a car. You can play with the design, the purpose (make it fly, swim, hover, travel through time,..), what it’s made of, the color, etc., but you still need a solid engine that lasts. The strength of the engine depends on how much effort you put into building the world around your story.

How do you take your ideas and give them structure? This was the foremost question on my mind when I first thought of “Samurai Elf®.” I had the idea, but there’s a world of difference between a figment of my imagination and a fully developed concept. I turned to my old friend – books. Whenever I need ideas or inspiration, I flip through books to get my creative juices flowing. Here are some ideas to help you build your world so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

Anyone interested in creating a world should read George MacDonald’s essay, “The Fantastic Imagination.” If you’ve never heard of George MacDonald, he’s the guy J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis looked to for inspiration. What’s some of his no nonsense advice? Make a world that is grounded in common sense. Once you’ve established a rule, don’t break it. If only Hollywood followed these two simple rules! If you think those rules sound familiar, many have repeated them, but not given credit to MacDonald who lived from 1824-1905. Here are a couple of excerpts:

“The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms--which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation…

His world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must hold by those laws. The moment he forgets one of them, he makes the story, by its own postulates, incredible. To be able to live a moment in an imagined world, we must see the laws of its existence obeyed. Those broken, we fall out of it...

A man's inventions may be stupid or clever, but if he does not hold by the laws of them, or if he makes one law jar with another, he contradicts himself as an inventor, he is no artist.”

“How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy” by Orson Scott Card and “Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy,” by David Gerrold helped me to think of all of the details that a world needs to successfully draw in the reader. Card discusses the mechanics of the story, such as plot, pacing and characterization. But most importantly, it helps you understand how to edit your own work and give it a formal polish. Card’s book focuses on science fiction writing, but it’s really a book on writing good fiction. Gerrold discusses working within a logical framework when you're creating your own world. He emphasizes that, "you have to write each moment as if you lived it yourself." This book is not a specific checklist on what to cover, but it helps give you inspiration (always welcome) and encourages you to stay within the logistics of your world.

These books can go a long way to helping you to flesh out your ideas. It gave me a structure to work with; a starting point. They can help you to organize your thoughts and dig deeper into your story. For example, what’s the weather like? Is there magic? What kind of technology do they use? What kinds of religions do they follow? What’s their political structure? Is it a tribal society, or a modern or advanced society? Both Card and Gerrold ask a lot of questions. If you answer them all, you'll be able to breathe life into your world and the characters that live in it.

Another tip I use is to save articles that give me ideas. News and science stories are always good for future reference. Sometimes you read something and it helps you to fill in small details, other times it causes a maelstrom of ideas. I encourage anything that sparks that “what if?” moment in my brain. Another advantage of using articles is they can help make your fantastical idea plausible.

There’s a great new writing software called Scrivener that lets you type, bring in pictures, use note cards, link to supporting docs and reference materials, and almost anything you can do with paper, except it saves it in one file. It saves you from having to go through files full of paper. Keeping yourself organized will keep your story organized. The only drawback is that it’s only available for Macs.

Some great fiction books I’ve read that sparked many ideas include, “Dune,” the foundation series by Asimov, and the “Lord of the Rings” series. On the comics front, “Watchmen,” “Battle Angel Alita,” and “Ghost in a Shell” are great examples of worlds that completely immerse you. They show you the power of having thought through all aspects of the story, leaving no room for plot holes or awkward moments due to inconsistent storytelling.

Be creative, go wild! Just remember to give your plot a solid structure, your world plausible rules, and of course, great characters. Fantasy in the realm of possibility makes your story believable.

Post by Miguel & Suzy

The Fifth Dimension
Back in the day when I sat down to read Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. Wait a minute! What do parallel universes have to do with art? Art and science share a great many things in common, but you’re right, I’ll get to the point. Kaku described the early decades of the 1900s as a time when people were fascinated with the fourth dimension. Artists were obsessed with how to portray multiple dimensions. Ever thought about what Picasso was doing when he painted all of those disjointed looking people in his “modern art” pieces? He was trying to illustrate how images without a set fixed point would appear. If we can’t see into the fourth dimension, then higher dimensional beings would look like blobs or disjointed beings. When you understand what Picasso was trying So next time you think Picasso was smoking something, you might think twice and realize that he was trying to do something most people today still cannot begin to conceive. Picasso was brilliant in his observations and mixing that with his imagination. Here’s a great quote from Hyperspace:

“Picasso was once accosted on a train by a stranger who recognized him. The stranger complained: Why couldn’t he draw pictures of people the way they actually were? Why did he have to distort the way people looked? Picasso then asked the man to show him pictures of his family. After gazing at the snapshot, Picasso replied, “Oh, is your wife really that small and flat?” To Picasso, any picture, no matter how “realistic,” depended on the perspective of the observer.”

Drawing Realistically
This may seem like a strange introduction to a post on realism, but it’s an important place to start. Many times, artists forget that we’re drawing on a flat surface. We’re not re-creating reality like a photograph, we are interpreting reality and then creating a representation of it through a series of dabs, lines and scratches. Perhaps every artist at some point wants to achieve an ultra realistic style. Although this poses its own set of problems for comics, seeing that there aren’t big bold black lines outlining living things. So, trying to achieve realism with an ink line is next to impossible.

Balance
I like having my own style that falls somewhere in between realistic and cartoony. Drawing realistically is an important skill and helps you to hone in your craft and challenge you. But when you choose a style in which to draw, more often than not, the more realistic art is the less emotion it can express. In general, the harder you try to make a face look real, the more dead it appears. Emotion comes from the exaggeration of the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and body language. I think that’s why artists who are completely in the realism camp like to draw things more than people. Cars, buildings, everyday objects…things that don’t express emotion.

Curiosity Makes an Artist
Parents often push their children into adopting a realistic style. This is especially true in the west, where we have the perception that the more realistic something is, the better it is. The drawback to realism is that you don’t get to fully exercise your imagination. If you’re too busy developing your skills as an artistic stenographer, meaning someone who’s concerned with drawing things exactly as they see them, that can be frustrating and unsatisfying, especially for young artists. It’s like taking a left handed child and forcing them to use their right hand.

People need to choose their own style (or multiple styles) and develop that, not what someone else imposes on you. As individuals, there are certain tendencies that we naturally gravitate to. If not, all art would look the same and what a boring world that would be. Even among realistic artists there are differences. The important thing for growing as an artist is to try new things. The best way I know to do this is to switch up your style. Get out of your comfort zone. If you are more drawn to realism, try drawing cartoony and vice versa.

People have a tendency to pick the path of least resistance. How many artists do you know whose art never changes? I don’t mean that their publisher only buys a certain style so that’s what you see most of the time, but their overall portfolio looks almost exactly the same, year after year. How boring! As an artist, you should be hunting for new ways to do things; hungry to improve. Why? If you’re not curious and constantly developing new and better ways to do something, then you’re not an artist. It’s that simple. It’s what drives you.

Next time you get a chance, go to a museum and see paintings from some masters. I recommend this over books since prints never do the original painting justice. Take a close look and see how the brush strokes eventually build up to create an illusion that you can fully appreciate when you step back. They knew they couldn’t reproduce the real, so they found ways to fool your eye.

What do you think? Realistic or Cartoony?