English 2045: Syllabus Graphic Novels. Teaching Graphic Novels. How to Plan the Panels for Your Graphic Novel—The Complete Idiot’s Quick Guide. One of the most important aspects of writing a graphic novel is planning out your panels—it’s the storyboard of your work. Unless you’re writing Marvel style, you’ll need to break the contents of each page into panels. A panel is a tricky thing, full of possibilities and limitations. In this guide, we’ll show you how to plan your novel for the best pacing and storytelling. Breaking the Page Window Is a Pane The dialogue in a panel may cover 20 seconds, but the picture itself is a snapshot, a second in time. You could show that in three panels, one with the penguin being picked up, one with Loretta turning, and one with the penguin being flung.
Another limitation is that you can have only one important visual concept in each panel. So you need to break what happens on the page into a series of individual visual moments. Use the Rhythm Method It’s useful to start by picturing every page as being made up of the same number of panels. Panel Planning Possible layouts. Mysteries of Harris Burdick. "An Introduction to the Graphic Novel" by Vicky Maloy. Troublemaker. Untitled.