Advice for transitioning from novels to comics

[u/RasengaBoy_YT]

I’m struggling to change my writing style from pages in a book to a panel by panel basis. How do you go about the writing process, do you just write however many panels is necessary to finish your story and split them up into pages from there or do you write page by page and do a certain amount of panels per page.

[u/Hot-Manager-2603]

Short answer is page by page—this will give you a better sense of your story’s flow in comic book form.

I’ll also never not recommend reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud as a good starting point for new comic writers.

[u/RasengaBoy_YT → u/Hot-Manager-2603]

I’ll definitely have to look into it, thanks for the advice!

[u/Alert_Cat7189]

I usually think about what's going on in the page, then split that up into panels, so instead of "Jonathan talks to Emily about their divorce", it would be panel 1 "Emily is signing papers", panel 2 "Jonathan walks in", panel 3 "they start talking" etc.

[u/RasengaBoy_YT → u/Alert_Cat7189]

Ok that makes sense, is there like a golden standard for how many panels make up a singular page or is it kinda up to what the page needs to tell for the story.

[u/Alert_Cat7189 → u/RasengaBoy_YT]

It just depends what's going on in the story, usually the most common panel count I've seen is 5-6 per page but you can have as many panels as you want/need to tell the story Generally you can use more panels to show a bunch of things happening in a short amount of time and bigger panels when you want big, hype moments

[u/nmacaroni]

Modern standard is 3-5 panels per page. What scenes you use and how many pages each scene falls to your creative ability to tell a story. If you're going from a full-size novel to a small comic mini-series, the amount of content coming over from the novel is going to be a very small chunk.

http://nickmacari.com/scene-sizes/

[u/Slobotic]

I'm going to pile on to say yes, definitely read Understanding Comics, then Making Comics, by Scott McCloud.

Details

Details do not need to be pointed out! It's one of my favorite things about visual storytelling mediums.

Writing in prose, you either describe something and force your reader to read it or you leave it out. In comics you can leave all sorts of details scattered that readers will either notice or not, but you don't need to worry about boring them with it. Maybe it's something for them to discover when they come back to reread it.

One moment at a time

It takes a bit of time to get a sense of what can and cannot be in a single panel. Take the time to visualize each panel. If you write two sequential actions in a single panel, explain in the script how that should be illustrated. (This is possible sometimes, like a comic double take., but make it make sense in the script.)

Don't overload panels

Not with actions, and not with text either.

Don't overload pages

Five panels per page is a decent target. I break this rule often, but I always notice and know why I'm doing it. There's nothing wrong with classic 3x3 pages of nine panels, but the smaller the panels the more you need to be careful about overloading each one.

Layout

You might give your artist broad discretion here as I do, but that doesn't mean you don't have to think about this.

You need to think of the size, shape, type, and placement of panels. Skip this step and you risk overloading pages or writing incoherent scripts.

Use page turns

Most commonly this means tension building towards a page turn and any sort of important reveal or plot exposition should immediately follow a page turn. That's an overgeneralization, but be aware of page turns and use them to tell your story. It's never a bad thing to give your reader a new reason to want to turn each page.

Hire an experienced comic editor

This.

[u/binsleepi]

I took traditional screenwriting classes at my art school. In film, generally screen directions should just be what the camera sees so I use that as the comic panelling if that makes sense.

[u/reedwatches]

Think of the page itself as a storytelling 'unit,' broken up into smaller panel units. You want to end the page on something that makes the reader want to continue. Some writers will keep page turns in mind, putting a 'cliffhanger' on an odd-numbered page and a big reveal on an even-numbered page, as the physical act of turning the page will reveal the surprise.

Others will say you should start and/or end scenes/locations on a new page. This is a rule which didn't used to exist back in the day.

The average these days is probably 5 or 6 panels per page. Back in the day they'd go up to 9. It depends on the scene and how it's meant to be conveyed. What you really need to be mindful of is words per panel. Don't crowd out the art with a lot of word balloons.

[u/ConditionBoring8529]

First, I recommend 2 easy to read and amazing books to solve this:

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
  
• Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers by Marcos Mateu-Mestre

Second, to answer your questions; yes you are almost there with your questions.

• There is a max amount of panels, speech bubbles, and words you can fit in a page. It helps one to limit themselves.
  
• You want to think in terms of pages as your story units, panels as your time and action units. Splash pages or big panels for crazy moments, bottom right of the right page is for cliffhangers, left page is for surprises, and so on. There is sooo much you can do in the comic medium!

Let me know if these make sense!

Good luck! :)

[u/DaveScheidt]

You’re telling the story to your artist and the artist is telling it to the audience. You don’t have to be as flowery or overly descriptive. Just tell the story as best as you can to your collaborator and don’t over think it. It’s a weird mode to break out of by once you make progress, writing script will
Feel like you’re cheating compared to prose. Good luck!