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queenluaShort little “how to write” guide by a famous shonen manga author/artist. I picked it up because I’d previously threatened to do a breakdown of The Shonen Formula TM, and I was hoping this dude had done my work for me.
Alas, he did not—while he does have good basic storytelling advice, and a few shonen-specific tics (his insistence that the hero should NEVER FAIL feels wrong-overall, but uh, when I think back on how Bleach was structured—yeah, it totally works like that), he doesn’t cover these things in enough depth or detail to be particularly illuminating to anyone who already knows the absolute basics of storytelling.
The best section of the book is the last, when he gives specific, concrete examples of “here’s a storytelling problem and here’s how I fixed it”—and honestly, I wanted a whole book of that. Hearing why he chose specific character types, or why he drew a panel in a specific way, or how he turned “here’s a vague idea that seems fun to play with” into a proper story—that was all great! But there wasn’t very much of it. (In general I would love to see more novelists provide postmorems/breakdowns of their process in this fashion; it’s so interesting.)
Also, I was tickled by his description of his research trip to the US midwest, when he was going to have to depict that scenery in a manga:
Alas, he did not—while he does have good basic storytelling advice, and a few shonen-specific tics (his insistence that the hero should NEVER FAIL feels wrong-overall, but uh, when I think back on how Bleach was structured—yeah, it totally works like that), he doesn’t cover these things in enough depth or detail to be particularly illuminating to anyone who already knows the absolute basics of storytelling.
The best section of the book is the last, when he gives specific, concrete examples of “here’s a storytelling problem and here’s how I fixed it”—and honestly, I wanted a whole book of that. Hearing why he chose specific character types, or why he drew a panel in a specific way, or how he turned “here’s a vague idea that seems fun to play with” into a proper story—that was all great! But there wasn’t very much of it. (In general I would love to see more novelists provide postmorems/breakdowns of their process in this fashion; it’s so interesting.)
Also, I was tickled by his description of his research trip to the US midwest, when he was going to have to depict that scenery in a manga:
“Without going there for yourself, it’s impossible to comprehend the feeling of scale in the midwestern United States, where the scenery stretches on forever and unchanging. The feeling of distance there is nothing like in Japan. Say, for example, an enemy is approaching from afar—at such a distance that escape would be trivial in Japan. In the Midwest, the open landscape remains identical from one hour to the next, and I was struck by the real sense that I could never make an escape from such an adversary; there was simply nowhere to hide. I was able to put that experience to good use when it came time to draw the manga.ITT random tourist understands the US midwest better than the US midwest understands itself, etc etc
Travel there is mostly done by car. When you drive across those vast planes, the scenery is mostly devoid of any ups and downs, and is dotted only by the occasional town with nothing to claim but chain stores, seemingly little to provide amusement aside from watching movies, and you hardly ever see anyone else about. Rather than inspire thoughts of enjoying nature, it felt empty and lifeless and made me wonder if there was any fun to living there at all. A kind of atmosphere hung over these places that felt rich for suspense.”
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Date: 2020-08-09 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 05:24 am (UTC)danke for the recs as always. <3