Graphic Novel Best Practices

My brain loves the internet because I love falling down research rabbit holes. There are more articles and blog posts about writing than I'll ever be able to read. There are some amazing resources like KidLit411 where many of the articles are compiled into one place and categorized. It's a fun place to get lost in multiple rabbit holes.

However, one thing I've run into, is there are far fewer resources for writing and illustrating graphic novels. Sometimes the resources are more geared exclusively towards authors, or more exclusively for illustrators, or if it's a resource for an author/illustrator, it really is meant for those making picture books.

These are the graphic novel resources I've been devouring:

• Kids Comics Unite is an invaluable resource and community, but unfortunately, many of the best resources are behind a $40 monthly charge. (UGH... I AM SO OVER THE SUBSCRIPTION MODEL FOR EVERYTHING)

• Molly Ostertag's substack In The Telling - includes ten detailed posts about her own process from story idea to panel layout to self-publishing.

• The podcast Graphic Novel TK by Alison Wilgus and Gina Gagliano

Additionally, I've enjoyed the Save the Cat approach originally introduced by Dan Snyder and Jessica Brody's Save the Cat Writes a Novel. Using that approach and the traditional 3 act structure, I was able to develop the whole story for Vexed and Hexed... but how does that translate into a graphic novel?!

In 2019, according to Britt Siess (a top kid-lit graphic novel agent), the average middle-grade graphic novel was 150-200 pages. By December of 2022, Kids Comics Unite reported that publishers were looking for over 200 pages, and it should be in multiples of 16 since that's how books are printed. With that in mind, and after lots of Amazon surfing, I figured I would shoot for about 240 pages.

• Act 1 - 25% = about 60 pages

  • Opening Image 0-1%

  • Theme Stated 5%

  • Set-Up 1-10%

  • Catalyst 10%

  • Debate 10-20%

  • Break Into Two 20%

• Act 2 - 50% = about 120 pages

  • B Story 22%

  • Fun and Games 20-50%

  • Midpoint 50%

  • Bad Guys Close In 50-75%

  • All is Lost 75%

• Act 3 - 25% = about 60 pages

  • Dark Night of the Soul 75-80%

  • Break into Three 80%

  • Finale 80-99%

  • Final Image 99-100%

Going through several of the graphic novels I've read this year, I tried to figure out some of the structural patterns. I'm not sure if it was helpful or just another rabbit hole.

Snapdragon by Kat Leyh (240 pages) is broken down into two parts, Aster and the Accidental Magic by Pico and Karensac (224 pages) is more like 2 books wrapped in one package, while Ormsbee and Brooks' Growing Pangs (256 pages) is in four parts that align with the seasons. I tried to figure out how scene changes fit into these parts, but it was challenging. Leyh does an incredible job of weaving past memories in a scene between 2 characters but that scene is actually a flash of a moment being recalled and shared with another character. Ormsbee and Brooks also weave in flashes of memories and cross a significant amount of time within each part which makes isolating single scene change moments difficult.

New Kid by Jerry Craft (with 256 pages) and The Okay Witch (with 272 pages) by Emma Steinkellner both use traditional chapters. New Kid has 14 chapters with the shortest at 8 pages, the longest at 26 pages, and most chapters are 16 pages long. The Okay Witch has 16 chapters with the shortest at 12 pages, the longest at a hefty 40 pages, and most in the 15-20 page range.

The first of Escabasse's Witches of Brooklynn books is a 240-page graphic novel broken into 5 chapters which equals an average of 48 pages per chapter.

Sooooo... after all of that, and not finding a best practice to guide the way, I'm keeping a 20-page average in mind and I'll see where the art takes me as I work through the full thumbnail stage.

At least I've got a detailed synopsis to guide the way!