Un(Epic) Wonder Woman Assignment #2: Storyboarding your Super-heroine’s Origin Story

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Here's your May assignment!  Please upload studies by May 16, and give feedback by May 23.

ASSIGNMENT:

Write (or otherwise compose) your super-heroine’s origin story.  What was the crucial, formative moment in her past that made her what she is today?  If she has a superpower, how and why did her superpower emerge at this moment?  Tell this origin story through a comic-book story-board style.  As per Amar Chitra Katha’s style, there should be 3 major kinds of text/narration (with 4-5 as options, but not requirements):

(1)  Omniscient narrative, which is enclosed by horizontal straight lines across the page.

(2)  Dialogue: indicated through dialogue balloons

(3)  Thought bubbles: indicated by bubbles, and sometimes including imagery instead of text

(4)  Footnotes: asterisks which explain culturally specific terminology and/or non-English language

(5)  Voice of God: used when you don't actually see the god

Here are examples of ACK storyboards illustrating these 5 types of dialogue:

from "Bheesma," illustrates 1, 2, 3

 from "Kabir," illustrates 1, 2, 5

 from Kabir, illustrates 1, 2, 4

BACKGROUND:
This assignment takes inspiration from Zhan Li’s insightful theorization on super-heroes, as well as the technique of developing back-stories for character development.  These back-stories may or may not appear in your final product (short story, dance, video, comic-strip, screenplay), but deeply inform the character’s inner motivations, personalities, and actions in the plot.

As Zhan wrote (see his comment on our earlier post for his full discussion on US super-heroes):

"Origin stories are a more universal attribute of US superheroes than superpowers - a significant minority of prominent US superheroes lack superpowers (e.g. Batman, everyone in The Watchmen except Dr. Manhattan) but all virtually all prominent US (superheroes and supervillains) have origin stories - the moment in their past which made them what they are today. This typically might involve an incident or series of incidents which gives them superpowers (The Incredible Hulk), or an incident which is traumatic and the trauma moves them to adopt a new heroic (or villainous) role (Batman) or often it might involve both (Superman, Spiderman). (There are other cases which don't quite fall into these categories - e.g. Wonderwoman's origins are mythological and divine)." [emphasis added]

OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT: BACK STORY

If you find it useful, you can engage in further back-story writing apart from the origin story itself – figure out aspects such as your character’s parents, hobbies, job, childhood environment, where she lives, first love, etc and how those impact her convictions, values, personality.  Here is a quick example of questions you might address:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/creating-the-backstory-for-your-screenplay.html