Further Progress: Finishing "Snow"

I am progressing with this story and plan to complete it by the end of the week.

I have been giving a lot of thought to backstory in my graphic novel, as well as the aesthetic. My mother own a wonderful book series entitled "This Fabulous Century," which has a book dedicated to every decade of the 1900's. This has been helpful research to me. I am particularly studying the 1920s. The book covers the history, the Crash, the fads, the fashions and pop culture of the decade. This is helping me write what leads up to the events of "Snowfall," which is set in an alternate 1929. For what is going on in the story's present to make sense, I have to flesh out the past.


Many of the characters in my novel are older to help establish some of these references to what happened in the world before my character, Snow, came into it (many older characters often reference "The Greycliff Siege," my world's version of WW1.)

I have also decided to include segments that are in the style of radio broadcasts, so that I can provide some exposition and still have these transitions fit the period (well, the fantasy version of it, anyhow) that I am writing for.

I am also continuing to experiment with creative transitions. I have taken an interest in pages that have no formal separation, but chunks of dialogue. I find this style interesting and I think that it can add a feeling of surreality and the abstract to my story.

For example, in the illustration on the top left, Snow is at a ceremony commemorating the life of her late adoptive father, a world famous physician and philanthropist loved the world over. The event is being broadcast over the radio and as part of the ceremony, people can speak about any experiences they had with Dr. Light.

A man gets up tells a story of Dr. Light saving his sons life. This experience can be paralleled in Snow's life, as Dr. Light also saved her life. I thought that to keep this feeling, I wanted this sequence to all be one page. For me, it just made sense.


Another thing that I want for a lot to be shown, not told. The "telling" is a common and tempting pitfall as a writer (or at least for me it is), but it is so much more powerful to show and with the ability to show through descriptions AND illustration, there is so much potential for a really striking image that says everything.