The Written Word - Lesson 2 - the Introduction

In class the other day, I presented to the class the Will Eisner story structure. As discussed in class, we are all aware of the fact that each story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Our each and every day falls into this catagory of storytelling.

example:

Beginning: I woke up.

Middle: I had lunch.

End: I went to bed.

What is this story missing? Why is this story boring?

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The story is boring because there is a lack of PROBLEM. Nothing is being resolved, better yet, nothing is being told to begin with!

The Will Eisner story structure is used so that our stories are INTERESTING. You will find basically no books, no movies, nothing really, that doesn't fall into this story structure.

Last class, we devided pages into 5 PANELS and told the whole story. Michael did this beautifully with detail which is why I put his story on the blog in the previous post.

Today, you will be given 5 PANELS to make an introduction to a story.

This may sound daunting, but remember that an introduction is cast into multipule sections. The introduction of characters, the environment and the general "MOOD" of the story.

Use your characters that were created from a few weeks ago (when the characters "Scarecrow" and "Bulltron Mega" were introduced) ... introduce them to us. Where do they live?

You should accomplish this assignment with both WORDS and PICTURES. First, write words describing each one of your panels and number them. Example:

1. The first panel is an interior of a pizza place.

2. Bulltron Mega opens the door to his day working as a pizza delivery driver/chef.

3. His co-worker, says hello to him and he GRUNTS (this sets the mood).

4. He wipes down the counter and looks out the window at the sun.

5. A telephone call comes in.

Notice how the 5th panel LEADS into the second part of the story: the problem. Perhaps Bulltron Mega's problem is he has to go deliver a pizza!

NOTEABLE INTRODUCTIONS:

Observe the beginning of Dragonball Z and the beginning of a Wacky Racers comic. Is an environment introduced? Is there characters introduced? Arguably, the Wack Racers page is not a good example because the Wacky Racers are ALWAYS in a state of problem solving (they are always racing!). But these are nice examples.