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Writing Short Manga: Examples
Short manga tends to begin abruptly, right in the middle of a scene, a
small climax perhaps since the page numbers are severely limited. These types
of stories are usually given around 30-40 pages to complete, or 2-3 series of
that many pages.
Short manga do not necessarily have to tell everything, from the history of
the world to the end. Which means using settings that have an easily
identifiable base is advisable. If you suddenly launch into a world setting
that is completely alien where it is important to know how it's run it wastes
precious space setting it up.
Start with your brainstormed ideas and decide on one of the focuses you would
like to use and build a story around it. It can be very sketchy at first. The
story could be as simple as :: Guy meets Girl, Girl likes Guy, Guy hates Girl,
Guy is ill, They fall in Love, Guy dies ::
That is of course, boring. To make your story interesting it has to have
unexpected elements, and expected elements that makes the reader happy or sad,
and eloquence in delivering the message it wishes to tell.
I've decided early on that I want this to be a story with a twist and targeted
at teen-age audiences that like intrigue and mysticism. Involving Love, Magic
and Tragedy. From my earlier brainstorm I had words related to Love and
Tragedy, but not Magic, so I'll do that now.
Brainstorm >> Magic
Arcane, Seal, Star, Circle, Candles, Tarot, Medium, Ghosts, Angels, Demons,
Mirage, Mirrors, Unreal, Metaphysical, Rain, Grave, Flowers, Technology
Now that I have my ideas, I take a few matching ones and develop the rest of
the story. Since I am using magic but want it to include basic ideas that
people can understand about love this world would be a modified real world
setting.
So from all my material put together, I've come up with a few plots.
Idea I >>
A boy comes to the class and sits in the vacant seat next to the girl, the
teacher and students take no notice, she thinks it's odd the teacher doesn't
tell them about a transfer student but says nothing of it.
The boy is always smiling, and eventually she decides that it isn't right of
her friends to say 'Who are you talking about?' when she talks to them about
him. She takes him out on a date. On it, she falls over a bridge and the boy
then tells her that he's a Death. This is the climax of the story, and the boy
chooses to save her, which ends his own 'life' since it is a Death's job to
take souls back where they belonged.
He disappears, and the girl thinks about him often. Perhaps a new enrolment at
the school will be him?
Idea II >>
A guy is searching for 3 million dollars in three days, his girlfriend had
died in a car crash and a scientist told him if he could get the funds in
three days his girlfriend could be revived. He tries the net and finds a site
on the third day that says if he could do three things for them they will give
him 3 million dollars.
One is to find a girl by the picture on the site.
Two is to take her out and help her have fun.
Three is to propose to her and have her say yes.
He finds the girl and manages to get her to go out with him, and on number III
he tells the girl why he's doing all this in hopes the girl would say Yes. The
girl says no instead. 'I've fallen for you,' she tells him. 'And a lie will
not receive a truth in return.'
He goes back to the laboratory in defeat, but the girl goes along. They find
the body gone. He asks the scientist what happened to it and the scientist
points to the girl. 'Her heart is the heart of your love. Her eyes are the
eyes of your girl, her body is hers but her soul is her own.'
They had tricked him, but it was something his girlfriend was in on. What
happens next..?
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