Jacqueline's Writing - A Cartoon About Writing Children's Books.

Turning Your Book Into A Graphic Novel

Turning Your Book Into A Graphic Novel                By Jacqueline S Miller

I'm writing a couple of Fantasy novels about time travel and magic. I enjoy reading books with illustrations and often draw pictures of the characters and scenes in my own works in progress (WIP's) for inspiration.

I'd been experimenting with adding text and captions to some drawings for the books and wondered whether I should story board the book in order to sort out my very complicated plot.

Then, about a week ago, I suddenly thought that, maybe, I could turn the WIP into a Graphic Novel.

Here is my  preliminary drawing for a scene where the art teacher, Simon, meets a new pupil.

 Simon enters his studio and is surprised to find Amelie there. He suspects that she has been snooping around but he does not mind as he thinks she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He even forgives her when he discovers that she has stolen some playing cards used in his conjuring tricks, as all he can think about is how much he wants to paint her portrait. He would be very upset and surprised to learn that she is a spy and a deadly assassin!

The drawing is in pencil and was drawn freestyle from my imagination. I hope that Simon's frock coat is authentic as I researched what a Victorian gentleman would wear. Of course, he could have been wearing his artist's smock but I think he looks smarter in this!

In this picture you can see my notebook.  I cropped the drawing and  added speech bubbles. I referred to the text from my first draft of the chapter. This is going to be edited as I can see that the dialogue for a Graphic Novel, differs from the text in a normal novel. Telling a story in dialogue, pictures and captions requires different skills to just writing a book.

This was the first time I'd used the app so I'm pleased with the result.

Here, I've added a template, a heading and a caption. I used an Apple Ipad and an app to do this. As there are pictures, I don't need the caption which describes what Simon is wearing.

Now I've added colour. Amelie is described in the book as being tall with pale blue eyes and white blonde hair.

I've returned to the original drawing as I want the colours to be uniform. I may redo the template using this drawing.

Here, I've used the app to crop the picture to fit the template.  I now need to write the script. Writing a comic or graphic novel requires different skills to writing a normal novel.

I'm going to experiment with using my Wacom on the PC to make the deep colours you get in comics.

However, I quite like the soft sepia colour of the original drawings. I suppose I could use both styles.

I'm editing the actual chapter in the book which this accompanies.  I plan to post it later.

Copyright Jacqueline S Miller

Simon and Amelie First Drawing for a Graphic Novel

Simon and Amelie

This is my first attempt at putting a caption on my drawing. 

I saved it in the wrong format originally and Blogger wouldn't load it, but now, as you can see it has been successful.

I think I might write it as a Graphic Novel as well as a regular one. This is such fun!

Copyright Jacqueline S Miller 12th May 2014

Simon and Amelie

This is a preliminary drawing for my WIP which I drew in about ten minutes last night.


Simon, the art teacher, finds a beautiful new student snooping around his studio. He does not realise that she is a deadly assassin although he notices that she is holding a playing card from a pack he uses to teach conjuring to some of his students.

Simon wears a Victorian frock coat. I'm going to try out a new ap to edit this and, hopefully, make it into a cartoon/graphic novel. It's all experimental at this stage.

How to be Green

How to be Green

In my previous post I wrote about how difficult it is to throw things away.

I seem to live my life surrounded by books and other clutter.

Despite this, I managed to give away piles of books to friends, children and charity shops this week.

Whilst clearing out the bedrooms, I found a trumpet in a case which belonged to my siblings but which no one wanted. Just by chance, that very day, a pupil mentioned to me that she plays the trumpet but has to rent one from school. I immediately brought the trumpet down and offered it to her as a gift. She was delighted with it.

I also gave her a set of hardback classic novels while some reference books and educational workbooks were gladly received by other children.

I've learnt from this that the things that lie unwanted and neglected in our houses could be valued and given a new lease of life by new owners.

How To Declutter Your House and Throw Books Away - Or Not!

How To Declutter Your House and Throw Books Away - Or Not!

Today, we're clearing books from the house. It's my husband's idea, of course - I would never ever, of my own free will, throw a book away.

Somehow, books of mine that were on the throwaway pile keep reappearing back on the shelf. It's a complete mystery...

"Have you read this?" my husband asks, pointing at a book by a favourite chick lit author of mine.

"Yes, but I might want to read it again," I reply.

I hold up some old musty science fiction classic with yellow pages.

"Oh, but we can definitely throw this one out!"

"No, that's mine!" he says, grabbing it and putting it back on the shelf.

Then he notices that I have several copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He can't understand why one copy is not enough.

"Well, they're different editions," I say. " Some of them have illustrations."

He looks disbelieving, but lets me keep them.

I think I'm a bit like Smaug in The Hobbit, only I collect stacks of books not gold and jewels.

Of course, many of the books were bought second hand at charity shops or boot sales, but it's still such a wrench to part with a single one.

Being a teacher, I also have loads of papers and out of date course books that I'm holding onto for some unknown reason. Last night I was ruthless and collected numerous textbooks that I bought years ago but haven't referred to in ages.

In the end we assemble a massive pile of books that he immediately takes to the charity shop. I think he's afraid I'll change my mind.

It's a green thing to do and I'm pleased that we did it; and funnily enough once you've disposed of a book you don't really miss it, do you?

I must keep telling myself this...