Broken Frontier

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the single most crucial question you have on your side in storytelling is making people ask “What will happen next?” Put another way, we could say that audience curiosity is our most important commodity. Curiosity is especially important at the beginning of a story because we want to grab onto the reader and pull them into our story as fast as possible.

One of the smartest ways to exploit this need is to start with what is known as the “visual puzzle.” The visual puzzle is an image which the audience can’t figure out at first. This leads them to immediately begin working out what the image is, thus piquing their curiosity and actively involving them with your story.

Truth be told, most comics don’t exploit this idea. In fact, I flipped through a stack of all the current titles I’m reading (including some graphic novels) and I couldn’t find one that did what I’m talking about. Instead, they commit the same error that David Mamet believes most American movies commit: they start with a wide shot (or a TILT DOWN FROM THE SKY TO REVEAL). In other words, they give you the whole picture and then -- maybe -- zoom in slowly on a specific area. If you think about it, however, the wide shot does little to inspire reader curiosity, mostly because they can pretty well see everything and so aren’t inspired to wonder what the picture could be.

The best example I can think of is the cover of the trade paperback edition of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In fact, it’s the very definition of the visual puzzle. Part of our mind recognizes the bright yellow and the black oval, but without the whole picture of the happy face our perception is confused and we are made to wonder: “What the heck is that?” The intrusion of the blood further piques our interest. I daresay that cover inspired many people to pick up the book and look inside -- just to find out what that image is.

The other basics that you want to set up in the first sequence answer what are known as the journalist’s questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Of course I don’t mean that you literally answer every facet of each of these questions -- that would likely bring your story to an end. But you must establish these key elements as early as possible in order to take advantage of what I like to call “R.P.,” or “reader’s patience.” This is the idea that most readers are usually fairly patient at the beginning of a story. A friend of mine once told me that his favorite part of a movie was right when the lights went down. “That’s because it still has a chance to be the best movie you’ve ever seen.” In other words, we are more willing to go along with a story for at least one issue and maybe two before we get a pretty good idea of whether or not we are interested in what’s going on.

The most important person to introduce is, of course, the protagonist. I daresay that even in an on-going superhero book such as Superman, Batman or Spiderman, the protagonist is not necessarily going to be the title character. In the strictest sense, the protagonist is the main engine of the story. The story would not exist without the protagonist wanting something, trying to get it and encountering difficulties. Keep in mind that as you give us exposition about the protagonist, you are also setting up what Paul Gulino refers to as the “flow of life” prior to the intruding events of the story. As he argues, the stronger the flow of life you can establish, the greater the sense of intrusion once the story gets going.

That first intrusion comes at the end of the Sequence A, known in this case as either the “point of attack” or the “inciting incident.” This is not the major turning point of the story (called the “predicament”); that comes at the end of the next sequence. Instead, the point of attack hints at something bigger to come.

Let’s take a look at A History of Violence, the latest graphic novel to be turned into a film. The inciting incident is when Tom Stall shoots the intruders in his diner and becomes a national hero. This moment hints at something bigger to come, even as it shows that his flow of life (which had already been established) has been interrupted by this incident.

The best writers will also make the inciting incident a direct reflection of the thematic concerns of their story -- what the story is about. In the case of A History of Violence, the story is thematically interested in whether or not violence can be avoided as a solution in some cases. Tom Stall is forced to shoot the intruders and the rest of the story will spring from this action.

As you can see, Sequence A is packed with information that must be carefully thought out. A casual approach to exposition can exhaust reader’s patience and make them give up on your story even before it gets going. But by carefully manipulating their curiosity, you can inspire them to buy your book next month, too.

(For those of you both inclined and in the financial position to do so, I highly recommend the purchase of the two best books about the sequence approach to screenwriting: Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, by Paul Gulino, and The Tools of Screenwriting, A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay, by David Howard.)

Until next time, keep writing.