A roundabout way

It has been a while since the last entry. There are two reasons for this, I have been busily working on the Otto and Victoria book and then there is the "day job." I just finished up my work on the upcoming Disney film, "wreck-it Ralph" it is an amazing movie and I put a lot of time into it. Now that it is done my nights are free again to delve into my personal project.

I thought I would talk a little bit about my process of developing this book. I have never written a storybook before but I have been in the business of telling stories visually for a while. The biggest thing I have learned so far is that there is no formula to telling a good story. The best thing you can do is being adaptable and let the story tell you where it needs to go. The only thing you need is that one idea to start the ball rolling. Something unique yet universal. Your job as a storyteller is to find that one notion that people hear and go, "cool". It is just a spark; it could be an image, a song, or a character. For me it was a drawing of a girl walking a pet octopus. I had now idea that that image would catch on as it has let alone that I would be creating a book around the whole thing.

I am a visual person, I am more eager to sketch 20 drawings than write 20 pages. For this project I borrowed from the animation way of story development. I have basically been drawing several quick sketches of my two main characters in various situations and in doing so have been able to draw together a flow of ideas and yes even a story. It is why this entry is called a roundabout way. When storyboarding a movie you draw hundreds of quick sketches showcasing different thoughts, emotions and action but that is only half of the process, it is the ordering and prioritizing of those ideas that creates good storytelling. This non-linear thinking opens up new possibilities and connections that might not have revealed themselves if you were going about it in a more straightforward fashion.

So right now I've been telling people that I am not writing my book, I am drawing it. Hopefully the visual storytelling will win out so that the words are just a texture to what is ultimately the most important thing to me, the story.