First thing's first...

For anyone coming in late to the party, I'm starting on a STARFISH graphic novel to be published by Arcana Studios. This blog will chronicle my progress for posterity's sake.

So far one of the decisions I've had to make is how to reformat the story which was intended to be a comic series in the traditional "floppy" format. I had outlines for individual stand-alone chapters which would have been serialized. The first story arc was going to be told in five issues. But now that I'm doing the story in graphic novel form, I've had to retool the story a little bit. This has given me freedom to re-imagine the first storyline as more of a movie rather than episodes of a TV series. The hardest part for me in writing a story has always been how and WHEN to reveal various story elements to engage a reader more effectively. How do you present the story in a way that will hold a reader's interest. So you play around with the chronological order of events, foreshadowing, and changes in narrative.

Some of the pages already posted in this blog will be included in the graphic novel when it sees print but may be changed somewhat to better affect the difference in format change. I've decided to start the book off with a bang and get involved in the story right away in the middle of that action. I want to go against the traditional origin story. The main thrust of the book will be Starfish, the heroine herself, discovering her own origin as the reader does. This will incorporate a little bit of a mystery into the story where it really had none before. I also have figured out a nice little twist ending that'll serve as a little bit of a shocker in the end.

Arcana wants me to put together a pitch package that will consist of the first five pages, a synopsis, and the cover image so they can post on their site. So that's what I'll be working on in the coming week.