The Graphic Novel and Memoirs (Prompt #49)

Memoirs, being an expression of a personal story or adventure, could probably be told in any format at least to some degree of success.  It is simply a matter of opinion on whether or not the graphic novel style works for your story and the personality of your writing.  I think they are particularly useful because you can rely on pictures to supplement the writing.  Pictures have a great way of showing emotion that would otherwise take a lot of explaining through words to get across.  They can also easily establish setting.  I think the addition of pictures is better able to describe some things that simply can't be put into words, at least not without a tiresome effort.  For example, I particularly enjoyed the part in "Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person" where she is laying in bed watching the word "cancer" jump over a fence over and over like sheep.  This conveys a message that she is being tormented by thoughts of cancer even in her efforts to sleep, but it does so in a way that would not be done justice through words.  The use of broken up segments in a graphic novel also allows for flawless transitions without even having to transition at all with words.  It is expected to be a bit choppy in this way.

However, I think there are a few downfalls to the graphic novel approach.  When you rely too much on pictures, it can result in a loss of linguistic creativity.  Drawings can overrun a story, and you lose credibility as an author to some degree because the eloquent use of metaphors, alliteration, hyperboles, and even simple sentence fluency are replaced by short, choppy, use-only-when-needed phrases and statements.  Also, the tendency to use pictures to show emotions that are not conveyed in words can come across as lazy if not done carefully.  Another criticism I see is that breaking the story up into frames  can disrupt the flow of the story and make it harder to follow.

What it boils down to is that the use of the graphic novel effectively really depends on the type of story you want to tell.  In "Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person" it almost seems to have a negative effect by adding a comedic effect to a story that deserves a serious approach.  However, this may be how the author intended it.  The chunky, casual tone that is typically adopted through this medium may be exactly what a story needs to be brought to the reader in its perfect form.  Even better, one might show their genius by presenting a fantastically flowing, very serious story in the form of a graphic novel.  Overall, I feel as though it is a good approach because it allows for many different views of the story to be seen at once through dialogue, narrative, and pictures.