99 Ways to Tell a Story : Exercises in Style

by Madden, Matt

• ISBN13: 9781596090781
• ISBN10: 1596090782
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-25
• Publisher: Chamberlain Brothers

Summary

99 Ways to Tell a Story is a series of engrossing one-page comics that tell the same story ninety-nine different ways. Inspired by Raymond Queneau's 1947 Exercises in Style, a mainstay of creative writing courses, Madden's project demonstrates the expansive range of possibilities available to all storytellers. Readers are taken on an enlightening tour-sometimes amusing, always surprising-through the world of the story. Writers and artists in every media will find Madden's collection especially useful, even revelatory. Here is a chance to see the full scope of opportunities available to the storyteller, each applied to a single scenario: varying points of view, visual and verbal parodies, formal reimaginings, and radical shuffling of the basic components of the story. Madden's amazing series of approaches will inspire storytellers to think through and around obstacles that might otherwise prevent them from getting good ideas onto the page. 99 Ways to Tell a Story provides a model that will spark productive conversations among all types of creative people: novelists, screenwriters, graphic designers, and cartoonists.

Author Biography

Matt Madden started self-publishing minicomics in the early 1990s. He published his first graphic novel, Black Candy (Black Eye Books), in 1998, and in 2001 published Odds Off (Highwater Books). Madden lives in Brooklyn with his wife, author and cartoonist Jessica Abel. He works in comics and illustration; he also teaches comics at the School of Visual Arts and Yale University. His latest work appears in A Fine Mess, his biannual series published by Alternative Comics.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(2)
Template	3	(2)
Monologue	5	(2)
Subjective	7	(2)
Upstairs	9	(2)
A Refrigerator with a View	11	(2)
Voyeur	13	(2)
Sound Effects	15	(2)
Emanata	17	(2)
Inventory	19	(2)
How-To	21	(2)
Welcome to ``Exercises in Style''	23	(2)
Retrograde	25	(2)
Tense	27	(2)
Flashback	29	(2)
Deja Vu	31	(2)
Unreliable Narrator	33	(2)
Dailies	35	(2)
Political Cartoon	37	(2)
Photocomic	39	(2)
Underground Comix	41	(2)
Manga	43	(2)
War Exercise	45	(2)
Exercises in Love	47	(2)
Fantasy	49	(2)
Plan 99 from Outer Space	51	(2)
High Noon	53	(2)
Police Procedural	55	(2)
Humor Comic	57	(2)
Furry	59	(2)
One Panel	61	(2)
Thirty Panels	63	(2)
Plus One	65	(2)
Etcetera	67	(2)
Opposites	69	(2)
Reframing	71	(2)
Inking Outside the Box	73	(2)
Palindrome	75	(2)
Anagram I	77	(2)
Anagram II	79	(2)
After Rodolphe Toppfer	81	(2)
A Newly Discovered Fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry	83	(2)
What Happens When the Ice Truck Comes to Hogan's Alley	85	(2)
Exorcise in Style	87	(2)
Dynamic Constraint	89	(2)
Ligne Claire	91	(2)
Superhero	93	(2)
Map	95	(2)
ROYGBIV	97	(2)
Exercises of a Rarebit Fiend	99	(2)
Esk Her Size end Style	101	(2)
Homage to Jack Kirby	103	(2)
Exercises in Closure	105	(2)
Public Service Announcement	107	(2)
Paranoid Religious Tract	109	(2)
Cento	111	(2)
Two-in-One	113	(2)
Digital	115	(2)
Graph	117	(2)
In Case of Exercises in Style	119	(2)
Storyboard	121	(2)
Brought to You by . . .	123	(2)
Calligram	125	(2)
No Pictures	127	(2)
Personification	129	(2)
The Next Day	131	(2)
Nested Stories	133	(2)
Overheard in a Bar	135	(2)
Happy Couple	137	(2)
Unhappy Couple	139	(2)
A Life	141	(2)
Around the World	143	(2)
The Critic	145	(2)
Evolution	147	(2)
Creationism	149	(2)
A Lifetime to Get to the Refrigerator	151	(2)
Actor's Studio I	153	(2)
Actor's Studio II	155	(2)
Horizontal	157	(2)
Vertical	159	(2)
Extreme Close-Ups	161	(2)
Long Shots	163	(2)
Extreme Zoom	165	(2)
Things Are Queer	167	(2)
Isometric Projection	169	(2)
Our House	171	(2)
One Horizon	173	(2)
Too Much Text	175	(2)
No Line	177	(2)
Silhouette	179	(2)
Minimalist	181	(2)
Maximalist	183	(2)
Fixed Point in Space	185	(2)
Fixed Point in Time	187	(2)
What's Wrong with This Comic?	189	(2)
Different Text	191	(2)
Different Images	193	(2)
No Refrigerator	195	(2)
No Jessica	197	(2)
No Matt	199	(2)
Notes	201	(4)
Acknowledgments	205	(2)
About the Author	207