Think Like a Cartoonist #3: Character Development

Using symbolic details, not backstory

Back in 2018, I took an intensive week-long comics course with Tillie Walden at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT.

And...I failed spectacularly at the first homework assignment.

The task: draw your life in one page. On an 11x14” sheet of paper, we had full reign to lay out the page however we wanted, with as many panels or as few.

When I took that paper back to my hotel room, I started by creating an actual GRID of my life by year. I was 36 at the time. That’s a lot of little squares.

The squares contained a lot of words and a handful of images. An airplane here, a book there.

It was a real mess.

I realized my mistake the next day when another student in class—a teenager, mind you—showed their homework.

Centered on the page, they’d drawn a large self-portrait. In it, they wore jeans dribbled with paint and a Yankees baseball shirt. And in their hand, they held a pride flag, a paintbrush, and violin.

That was it, their life on a page. And it fit not only on a single page but in a single panel.

I was impressed.

I’d missed the point entirely with my grid of squares.

The point was not how much information can you fit on a single page.

The point was how much information can you show about your life using visual symbols. When you choose details intentionally, you can show the outline of an entire life without resorting to a long-winded backstory.

Here’s an example: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can be a mouthful to explain, and people don’t always understand right away what it even is.

When I first started drawing my Floppy comics, I used sewn threads to symbolize the a connective tissue disorder (i.e., it’s everywhere). This picture really emphasizes joint problems, so it doesn’t give the full picture. But it’s a more efficient place to start that jumping right into collagen matrices and genetics.

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Exercise: Life in symbols

Take your main character (or yourself, if you write memoir). If you’re okay with drawing, draw a self-portrait (it can be a stick figure/doodle!) in which you hold (or wear, or stand in front of) objects that symbolize your life.

Alternatively, imagine such a portrait and write a short description of what you see. What do the clothes say about them? Are they holding items related to their nationality, their profession, their hobbies? How does their body language or face express their personality?

All this to say, you don't always have to write a backstory to show a character's backstory. Well-chosen details can do the same thing much more efficiently.  

Let me know if you did this exercise! What objects did you choose?

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Have you drafted a memoir or a book of essays? Are you ready to make your manuscript as compelling as possible, the pacing smooth, and its “aboutness” sparkling clear?

If you have a manuscript that’s as good as you can make it on your own, it might be time for a developmental edit! I’m currently booking clients for early spring. Follow link for more details.

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