Narrative, the Scientific Method, & Character Voice
Like a good research project, a good story starts with a problem. Identifying the problem and working toward the solution is both scientific method and narrative story arc. In one of our recent collaborations we worked with the Norwegian Institute of International Affair (NUPI) and the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) to create a four page comic for their research on climate, peace, and security which they created for the UN Security Council on Climate and Security. In this comic the research and the narrative problem become one in the same as the story journey’s with the NUPI and SIPRI research team as they explore interrelated pathways to analyze the relationship between climate change, peace, and security, and suggest pathways forward to prevent and reduce climate related conflict in vulnerable locations.
While we collaborate with and rely on the researchers we partner with to inform the narrative of the comics we create, this was a unique case in that I, as the scriptwriter, was writing a story with and for the people who lived out the narrative. Specifically for this comic, I was provided some of the formal research conclusions and fact sheets created by NUPI and SIPRI, and presented a narrative outline that included all their conclusions. Their respective research teams then filled in the specific scenes based on their research experiences.
For the dialogue, I was given videos of presentations made by NUPI and SIPRI members to the UN Security Council and tried my best to give appropriate voice to each character. But I also had the benefit of the NUPI and SIPRI team members to edit themselves as characters in the comic. As a comic writer, it is often intimidating to put words in the mouth of characters that are based on real living people, and I always approach doing so with much caution. But on this particular project, getting to work with the people who were characters alleviated that stress, and resulted in one of my favorite comics I’ve had the privilege of writing for SP Comics!
