Monday, July 29, 2013

Forced to be brief

The major thing I struggle with when creating my caps is brevity.  I enjoy creating all the details in my stories, laboring over the adjectives and adverbs, working endlessly to create the sense of place and time that I envision in my head.  As a result, the first draft of my caps often end up as illustrated short stories.  I then need to work at editing and removing details to create a 1 or 2 panel cap - hopefully one that still has a good flow as it tells my story.

Several months ago, Rachel's Haven held a monthly cap contest that required each cap to consist entirely of dialogue.  It was a good exercise for me to work on my brevity, while still creating a cap I could be proud of.  Here are my 2 entries for the contest:



What do you think?  And don't feel the need to be brief - shower me with loving, adoring, admiring praise!!

Ciao! Elise

5 comments:

  1. Both caps are well done and i think you have it down as to what makes a "short caption." Some details aren't required for every story as long as you know what you want to convey.

    Detail has it's place, as does brevity. It's just a matter of knowing your story. I especially love the image you used for the second one. I've always loved it and I don't know WHY i haven't captioned it yet!

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    1. "I've always loved it and I don't know WHY i haven't captioned it yet!"

      What are you waiting for? We could have a bright, flowery, pink time together in those dresses!

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  2. So glad you enjoyed that contest .. as I helped designed it AND I'm a huge fan/proponent of brevity. I think one of my first "shop talk" posts were about brevity and how to edit.

    Some things people have done for fun with captions to inspire people to make shorter works include speaking in haiku's, dialog only, and trying to convey a TG transformation in less than 20 words. When doing things like that, a great picture helps you immensely .. hence that whole "picture is worth a thousand words" saying.

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    1. I've always admired your ability to tell a story in 1/100th the amount of words I would use!

      I really enjoyed the dialogue contest and am working on writing more caps that are completely (or almost) dialogue. I really like the haiku and 20 words idea, and I'll have to give them a try sometime.

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  3. While both caps are extremely sexy, I have to admit, the second is my favorite. It's just so devious! The two naughty girls hiding the fact that they have been bad! But the best part, they look forward to being bad again! I especially love how it ends with Renee offering to "help out"! I'm betting she's just yearning to get in on the action! Great caps Elise!

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