344. How Visuals Can Create Character Driven Stories with Stan Yan

Author and illustrator Stan Yan talks about how the right balance of visuals and dialogue can create a strong story, what to consider when crafting your visuals, and how he pulled everything together to create The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang.

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Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Traditionally, graphic novels in the U.S. have placed their focus on the plot, but we've seen a shift to character-driven stories. Though some might find this challenging when working with a limited word count. Author and illustrator Stan Yan is here to share how you can use a combination of visuals and prose to create a richly developed character who readers will connect with.

Jennia: Well, it is so lovely to have you here, Stan!

Stan Yan: Well, thank you for having me!

Jennia: I'd like to start, since the book starts this way, with the importance of the number four and the role that it plays in this graphic novel.

Stan Yan: Well, yeah, so the number four was something that I didn't know had significance in Chinese culture until the 2004 Summer Olympics. And at the end of the Olympics they have a little teaser about the next Olympics coming up. And I think this is, if I remember correctly, this is when they had mentioned that originally Beijing had been awarded the 2004 Olympics, only to turn it down because four was an unlucky number. And I think that was the first time I was aware that four was an unlucky number. And later on I became aware that—at least the Cantonese word for four "sei³" (四) is a homonym for the word for death, "sei2" (死) (laughs).

Jennia: Oh yes.

Stan Yan: And I'm like, "Oh, well, yeah, no wonder it's an unlucky number." Because pretty much every other number seems like it's a lucky number in Chinese except for the number four. And so this was something that I decided to use for my book once I decided that, yes, my protagonist, Eugenia, needs to be Chinese American. And so I made her birthday land on the date April 4, or 4/4. Right from the get go that's a bone of contention between her parents and herself because they've never in the history of her life have let her celebrate her birthday on April 4 because of the superstition.

Jennia: Yeah, and then seeing the calendar as each day gets crossed off also. But even visually you're offering this subtle contrast between her beliefs and then her parents' beliefs, but more her mother's beliefs.

Stan Yan: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I don't really get into dad too much. He's just kind of a passenger on this train (laughs).

Jennia: (laughs) Yes, he really is! I think one of his only lines is, "Good question for your mother," after—(both laugh)

Stan Yan: Which is a parallel with my own personal life. Because I can remember a lot of the hot tension in my household was always between my sister and my mom. And my dad was just trying to make his life as low conflict as possible. And so I kind of made the dad's character kind of be like my dad, at least growing up (laughs). I think he's still like that right now.

Jennia: I think that helps, too, because I think if both parents had had that same level of intensity, it might have almost felt overbearing or like, there's no respite within this household of, let me go to the parent who's maybe a little more laid back or doesn't care quite as much. Even if they're not actively doing anything, just that presence alone can help calm down a little bit.

Stan Yan: Yep. Yeah, I agree with that.

Jennia: So what are some of the other ways that you showed some of the different ways that they view the world?

Stan Yan: One of the things that I did subliminally all the way through the story was when Eugenia falls into this vision or dream of her impending doom, I use color to represent that she feels like this vision is a threat to her, or something that's scary. Because it's red. But red in American culture is a warning—like a stop sign is the color red for exactly that reason. But in Chinese culture, red is a color of good fortune. But Eugenia doesn't see it that way, having grown up here in America.

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: And so a few things that I don't mention in the book, but, like, if you ever go to a Chinese wedding, the wedding dress isn't white, because white is bad luck. Because white is the color that you wear to funerals.

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: And so the Chinese wedding dress is typically red.

Jennia: Are there other ways that you used color throughout to subtly share some of these other messages?

Stan Yan: I think that's the main one. I mean, for me, I worked with a limited color palette just because—number one, it was easier (both laugh)—

Jennia: The truth comes out!

Stan Yan: —And number two, yeah, just because I gravitate to books, illustrated books, and comics that have a limited color palette. And so, aesthetically, it's something that I really like. So from a cultural standpoint, I did actually . . . When I was creating my color palette, I Googled "Chinese color palettes"—

Jennia: Oh!

Stan Yan: —and just grabbed things. So I personally don't feel like I'm a master of colors at all. So that's my cheat (both laugh)

Jennia: I never would have guessed (laughs)

Stan Yan: I mean, the other way that I like to grab palettes is like, I'll have this collection of things that I save on Instagram of art that I love. That's exactly what the folder name is called, "Art that I love"—

Jennia: Ohh, nice!

Stan Yan: —And oftentimes I'll sample color palettes from Instagram. But I didn't do that for this one. But that's something that I definitely do for other pieces and upcoming books that I'm working on right now (laughs)

Jennia: As I was reading it, I wondered if you had kept the age range of your middle grade audience in mind that maybe this would feel more mature to them than a picture book, which maybe they've fairly recently graduated from. Where you do see a broader color palette generally, or starker colors being used.

Stan Yan: I mean, that is a part of it. I mean, I think that a lot of the graphic novels that I love are actually very monochromatic or only have a spot color. And one of the things that had been made fairly clear to me by agents and editors that I had talked to, as well as people at children's book conferences that were on faculty, is that for this particular age group and younger, using as many colors as possible was always something that they try to do. And whenever you limit the color palette, typically that's something that you'd see for more adult or young adult audiences.

Jennia: Mmm.

Stan Yan: And so I kind of went into this with a limited color palette, but a little bit wider than I would be using if I was just doing something for an adult audience.

Jennia: Yeah. I was thinking, too, about the use of red and her dreams, for instance. But we see those spots of red just on her clothing and her nightgown and throughout her bedroom. But they're this really soft, muted red that almost blends into, like, a salmon pink versus the dreams where it's very vivid.

Stan Yan: Right. And there are a few things, like all the way through her waking moments where I'm just placing red to guide your eye or as a little bit of a hint or maybe a red herring (laughs)—

Jennia: Oohh!

Stan Yan: Pun intended (both laugh)

Jennia: No, that's good! (laughs)

Stan Yan: So, like, her best friend Keisha, who's the one that clocks her in the head—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes!

Stan Yan: —sends her into this whole storyline to begin with, has, as you noticed, red shoes and red glasses, and is kind of the focus point of her mom's ire throughout much of the book (laughs)

Jennia: She was a very fun friend (laughs)! So understanding too.

Stan Yan: Yes! (laughs)

Jennia: Well, speaking more about the character, what steps did you take to develop Eugenia before you began to write or draw the story?

Stan Yan: I kind of felt like . . . Like, a lot of the characters around Eugenia are kind of fun and have really gregarious personalities, like William and her mom and Keisha and Keisha's dads. And I felt like Eugenia—and a lot of my main characters in my stories are just kind of like—they're a little bit more neutral. They're almost just like bundles of anxiety and worry about—

Jennia: Yes, relatable (laughs)

Stan Yan: —what everything kind of means. So she doesn't have, necessarily, the outgoing personality. Although, throughout the story, she's trying to kind of exert her independence.

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: And as you can see right from the beginning of the story, it's not something that Keisha is used to, but Keisha likes it (both laugh)

Jennia: Yes! She's very supportive—

Stan Yan: She's like, "Oh, yeah, you're coming out of your shell" (laughs)

Jennia: Yes! No, she's exactly the kind of best friend that I think a lot of people wish they'd had at that age and wish they had now. She's just unconditionally supportive, and "Whatever it is that you want to do, whatever it is that matters to you, I will aid you in whatever way possible." And even when it's almost she needs to take that step back for her friend to do whatever they're doing, she's willing to do it.

Stan Yan: Right. Even though sometimes it hurts her feelings, as you can see. Like, as Enrique starts to kind of take a little bit of precedence and some attention away from their friendship, there's parts in the story where you can kind of see that tug and pull. And Eugenia notices it, but she's conflicted.

Jennia: Yeah. Which is such a real theme, too, for this age group where they might have those first romantic interests, even though the romantic interest doesn't extend beyond, "I want to spend some time with this person," or, "I'm confused about what it means, but they're still getting some of my attention in some way, even if it's just daydreaming or doodling in my notebook about them and ignoring my friend who's sitting next to me." Yeah (Stan laughs), so I think that I can see a lot of kids really thinking—from either side—both what it's like to be on the outside while watching their friend drift over to this other person, or being the friend who has that new center of focus.

Stan Yan: Right. I don't think that ever really goes away. Even as adults, I see that happening to us (both laugh)

Jennia: No, it might just be a little more raw and confusing at that time. Just because you haven't ever experienced it before and you don't have the language yet to identify what is happening and why do I feel this way? You just know that it is.

Stan Yan: Right. Right.

Jennia: So moving to the illustrations, how did you use those to give the readers a better understanding of each of the characters? And I think we just talked about this a little bit, but.

Stan Yan: I'm not sure. I mean, I feel like we had talked a lot about the colors and how we use colors. So every once in a while I'll kind of push a filter on top of a color to emphasize when Eugenia is feeling anxious or if she's feeling scared or frightened. There's a lot of different ways that I do that. Facial expressions, I've always been really conscientious of facial expressions. Just because, even as a little kid drawing my own comics, my major influences were in the newspaper comic strips. They're really good at making "Garfield or "Calvin and Hobbs very emotive—

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: —with their faces and with their body language as well. So I think that I've done a lot of work through the years in kind of marrying the two together. And I teach art classes. I teach sequential art at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and helped co-found the cuddlefishacademy.com—

Jennia: Nice!

Stan Yan: —which is an online kidlit art school where the classes that I teach really focus quite a bit on visual storytelling and how to think about body gestures and facial expressions. And then, of course, ideally you can tie those together.

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: But every once in a while you've got a character, maybe like a robot, like Wall-E, or something (both laugh) like that, where you're very limited on how you can make that character emote. So being able to have all these tools in your arsenal are helpful in getting something to emote—So, like, there's a couple of places I believe in my book where maybe I only have, like, a silhouette, or something like that, but you can kind of still tell what is happening in it, or what the character is feeling. And maybe just the fact that I introduced a silhouette instead of having a fully rendered illustration helps to convey that emotion as well. So I'm not going to get into it too deep (laughs)

Jennia: Yeah, I do have two moments that I thought of as I was coming up with this question. And the first was mom when she's chopping in the kitchen and how you can see that chopping almost just (laughs) become borderline violent from (Stan laughs), "I'm simply making dinner," to you can feel mom's emotion just with how she's treating the ingredients sitting on her cutting board, and that—

Stan Yan: That is from my childhood (both laugh). So, yeah, I mined that directly from my childhood (Jennia laughs) because mom didn't have to say anything. You knew exactly how she was feeling—

Jennia: Oh yes!

Stan Yan: —just based on how she was preparing dinner (both laugh)

Jennia: Yup! I think there's even "CHOP" written in big letters on one of them with the cleaver coming down, yeah.

Stan Yan: Yeah, and that's like a good example of how you can use the rhythm, the visual rhythm, of just, like, how many panels you're using, how much you're dedicating to certain things—

Jennia: Mmm.

Stan Yan: —even if you're throwing the sound effects out the window or whatever. But I do feel like just that whole rhythm of that particular page kind of helps to show how mom's feeling (laughs)

Jennia: Right, yes! And I love that, too, because you can almost feel it, along with Eugenia, why she might have that trepidation about, "Do I go in here? What do I say? What do I not say?"

Stan Yan: Right, right.

Jennia: Yeah. But then the other one was when the—They have a dog, Peanut, and he's going—

Stan Yan: Oh yes.

Jennia: —down the stairs and he does not do so gracefully, and (both laugh) you know that the main character is attempting to be quiet and to sneak around. And so, again, it just adds to that moment, versus if someone had used wording alone to say, "Peanut clumsily followed her down the stairs." Now you're seeing it in real time with every single stair step.

Stan Yan: Yep. As a graphic novelist, you show it instead of saying it. And that was a perfect way. And if anyone's owned a dog before, of course, you know you can't—The dog is, like, the least stealthy character that you can think of. So, like, if you were doing an anthropomorphic comic and you had a ninja character, it would not be the dog—

Jennia: (laughs) No!

Stan Yan: —The dog has the rattling tags on it—But I also wanted to you just kind of show how Peanut is not getting younger. Peanut's kind of an older dog and maybe can't navigate the way that he used to (both laugh)

Jennia: Yeah.

Stan Yan: And he's kind of an important character, as well, because, like, a lot of the storyline kind of parallels Peanut's health journey (laughs)—

Jennia: Mhm.

Stan Yan: —and Eugenia's ability to be aware of the characters around her. Because a lot of her journey is her being very self-centered and just thinking about herself to becoming a character that really is a little bit more aware of what the characters around her need and are kind of trying to tell her.

Jennia: Yeah.

Stan Yan: But she's a little bit just kind of blocking that out at the beginning of the story.

Jennia: Yeah, he's a humorous little sidekick too. I was even thinking about all the different little goofy expressions he has throughout. So she's in the middle of having a teen girl level existential crisis and then he's sitting over here with his derp face and his tongue blooped out and it just (both laugh)

Stan Yan: Well, but he's also kind of her proxy in a lot of places where she's angry, so he barks on her behalf.

Jennia: Yes! (both laugh) Yes, that's true too. He definitely does mirror a lot of her emotions in a more simplified way. Well, moving along more with illustrations too, how you use clothing to give the reader an idea—something about that character. And I've noticed you did this a few times where one dad, I think, had the earbuds in and workout gear.