Visual Writing and Thinking

Once the visual component of my literacy narrative was added, I had a clearer direction for my storyline.  I’m definitely going to go back and rewrite or at least revisit my literacy narrative, because the visual helped narrow in on the direction and message I wanted to focus on.

When deciding what to draw in each frame, I focused on either the setting of the scene (i.e. the library) or a line that I could create visually (i.e. “follow in her footsteps”).  I realized after creating the comic that I don’t prefer alphanumeric writing because I find it harder to organize my thoughts and find the words that express what I’m trying to convey to the reader.  I noticed that none of my frames have people actually talking to one another, and I think that’s because I’m not the best at drawing people.  Also, the story is written in the past tense so adding conversations would be switching to present tense, which could be confusing for both me to create and for the reader to read.

One aspect of my comic I tried to portray was how the lamp was bright when my mom was healthy, and then everything went dark after she was gone. I didn’t use words to express that and left it up to the reader to figure out.  I also used less detail as the story went on to symbolize the emptiness in my life without my mom’s presence.  I took up both of the last two frames for dramatic effect and to try and  represent a moment with a greater and significant impact.

Writing my literacy narrative was one thing, but making a comic out of it was a challenge from a whole other world. When writing my narrative, I did not have to focus as much on the fluidity of an actual narrative, which led to some unnecessary information regarding the narrative to be uselessly scattered throughout. Once I had to put my narrative into a comic, I was forced to rethink everything I had written down in order to properly narrate it and pass it onto a coherent story. Passing it as comics made me realize what parts had to be readjusted, and what parts required more emphasis in order to make it a more effective narrative.

As I developed the comic, I had a clear idea of exactly how I wanted to develop my images in order to portray the story in the way I wanted. However, there was one problem with that: I have no illustration skills whatsoever, so I was limited to the few drawing skills I possessed in order to create the images I had envisioned. Hypothetically speaking, I would have been 100% satisfied with my literacy narrative comic if I had a private illustrator to whom I could explain all my ideas in order to properly place them on paper.

This was a great experience in my opinion, because even though I will not be an illustrator or writer in the future, it made me improve my writing skills and the way I approach narrating anything as a whole, given that this project helped me discover the best ways to display and properly narrate anything.