kiplet
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- Nov 6, 2021
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Paul Levitz has written a lot of superhero comics, and he has a neat trick for keeping track of multiple plots that's useful for anybody who's doing longform, episodic, serial work. This is how another comicbook writer describes it:
So each row is a plot, each column is a chapter or an episode or an issue or what-have-you, and you can keep track of how your characters are going to bounce along through each.
And this is one way to visualize it:The writer has two, three, or even four plots going at once. The main plot—call it Plot A—occupies most of the pages and the characters’ energies. The secondary plot—Plot B—functions as a subplot. Plot C and Plot D, if any, are given minimum space and attention—a few panels. As Plot A concludes, Plot B is “promoted”; it becomes Plot A, and Plot C becomes Plot B, and so forth. Thus, there is a constant upward plot progression; each plot develops in interest and complexity as the year’s issues appear.
So each row is a plot, each column is a chapter or an episode or an issue or what-have-you, and you can keep track of how your characters are going to bounce along through each.