How do we tell stories about the inner world? Our memories, fears, dreams, and emotions rarely unfold in straight lines. Psychological experience is messy, fragmented, looping, and often difficult to put into words. Yet most traditional storytelling structures depend on clear beginnings, conflicts, and resolutions. This mismatch makes it hard to represent what the mind actually feels like from the inside. This thesis begins with the idea that comics offer a unique solution. Unlike pure text or film, comics combine image, space, and sequence. Time is laid out across the page. Panels can break, repeat, distort, or fall silent. Gaps, rhythms, and layouts allow emotions to be sensed rather than explained. Instead of describing the psyche, comics can show it visually and spatially. The reader actively pieces together fragments, much like reconstructing memory itself. Despite this expressive power, research often focuses on plot or genre, not on how visual design constructs psychological meaning. So the central question becomes: can we identify recurring visual strategies that artists use to narrate inner experience? And if so, can these patterns guide creators without restricti
Research Question
- > How can comics narrate psychological experience through visual and narrative structure?
♦ Are there any visual or narrative similarities in these kinds of comics?
♦ If there is, does that give a structure that can be used?
♦ If not, how these stories are told till now?
Literature Review
Before analysing psychological storytelling in comics, the chapter first builds a theoretical foundation for understanding what narrative structure itself means.
There is a key distinction between story and discourse, drawn from narratology. Story refers to what happens, the events, characters, and causal relationships that form the content of a narrative. Discourse, on the other hand, is how those events are presented, the order, pacing, framing, and medium-specific techniques through which the story is experienced. This separation becomes crucial because the same story can be told differently in prose, film, or comics, and each form shapes meaning in its own way.
With this framework established, the Chapter surveys major story-level structures across traditions. Linear models such as Aristotle’s beginning–middle–end, Freytag’s pyramid, and the three-act structure emphasize causality, rising tension, and resolution. Circular structures like the Hero’s Journey focus on departure, transformation, and return. Non-conflict forms such as Kishōtenketsu challenge Western assumptions altogether, showing that stories can emerge through juxtaposition and contrast rather than dramatic tension. Together, these models demonstrate that narrative logic is diverse, not universal.
The focus then shifts from story to discourse, examining practical and beat-based frameworks that organize how stories are delivered. From here, the chapter narrows specifically to comics. Drawing on theorists like McCloud and Groensteen, it explains how comics operate through segmentation, panels, spatial layout, and reader inference. Time becomes spatial, and meaning emerges through gaps, repetition, and navigation across the page. Reading comics is shown to be an active, participatory process rather than passive consumption.
By the end, the chapter concludes that comics are not simply illustrated literature or frozen film, but a distinct narrative language. Understanding this unique discourse is essential before investigating how psychological experience can be structured within comics
Case Study
The case study chapter moves from theory into practice. After establishing how narrative and discourse function in comics, this chapter asks a more grounded question: how do artists actually use comics to represent psychological experience? Instead of treating psychology as a theme or genre, the focus here is on visual and narrative strategies in real works.
The chapter begins by outlining the criteria for selecting case studies. The chosen works are not grouped by genre or popularity, but by their engagement with inner states such as memory, trauma, anxiety, dissociation, and emotional fragmentation. These comics often resist linear storytelling and instead rely on visual disruption, repetition, and ambiguity to mirror mental processes.
Each case is then examined through close visual reading. The analysis looks at how panel structure, page layout, pacing, transitions, and symbolism function together rather than in isolation. Fragmented grids, collapsing panels, recurring images, empty spaces, and shifts in scale are shown to reflect psychological instability or emotional weight. Time is frequently distorted, moments stretch, loop, or fracture, allowing the reader to experience mental states rather than simply observe them.
Importantly, the chapter does not search for a single “correct” way to depict the psyche. Instead, it highlights how different artists arrive at similar effects through different visual solutions. What connects these works is not style, but intention: the use of comics form itself as a narrative device for internal experience.
The reader’s role is also emphasized. Meaning emerges through inference, pattern recognition, and emotional engagement. The gaps between panels become sites where memory, feeling, and interpretation take place, mirroring the way psychological understanding is assembled in real life.
The chapter concludes by identifying recurring visual tendencies rather than rigid rules. These patterns suggest that psychological storytelling in comics operates through flexible strategies rather than fixed structures. This insight prepares the ground for the practice-based chapter, where these observations are tested, questioned, and reinterpreted through the author’s own creative work.
Interviews
The interviews chapter brings practitioner voices into the research. After analysing theory and existing works, this chapter asks how comics artists themselves think about psychological storytelling and narrative decisions.
The chapter begins by explaining the intent and structure of the interviews. Rather than focusing on technical methods, the conversations are designed to explore creative thinking, intuition, and personal process. The interviewees come from varied practices, offering multiple perspectives instead of a single viewpoint.
As the interviews unfold, several shared themes emerge. Artists speak about representing inner states indirectly, using visual metaphor, pacing, silence, and fragmentation instead of literal explanation. Layout, panel rhythm, and repetition are described as emotional tools rather than formal devices. Many emphasize the importance of leaving space for ambiguity, allowing readers to participate in meaning-making.
The chapter concludes by positioning the interviews as a bridge between theory and practice. These reflections both support and challenge earlier frameworks, grounding the research in lived experience and informing the final creative work.
Synthesis
The synthesis chapter brings together the theoretical frameworks, case study observations, and practitioner insights developed throughout the thesis. Rather than introducing new material, this chapter identifies points of convergence across research strands and clarifies how they inform one another.
Narrative theory establishes the distinction between story and discourse, case studies demonstrate how psychological experience is shaped through comics form, and interviews reveal how these choices are negotiated in practice. The synthesis aligns these perspectives to show that psychological storytelling in comics emerges through the interaction of structure, visual language, and reader participation.
Key patterns are consolidated, including the use of fragmentation, spatialized time, repetition, and ambiguity as narrative strategies rather than stylistic effects. The chapter concludes by framing these strategies as flexible tools, not fixed rules, forming a conceptual foundation for the practice-based project that follows.
The chapter later consolidates the research into a practical narrative framework developed through theory, analysis, and practice. Drawing from narratology, comics theory, case studies, and interviews, the chapter proposes a five-step structure for psychological storytelling in comics.
This structure does not function as a rigid plot model, but as a flexible narrative progression that supports internal experience rather than external action. Each step addresses a different phase of psychological movement, allowing stories to unfold through emotional shifts, visual rhythm, and spatial sequencing rather than conventional causality.
The chapter explains how this structure emerges from recurring patterns identified earlier: fragmentation as a reflection of mental states, spatialized time as a tool for pacing emotion, repetition as memory and fixation, and ambiguity as an intentional narrative space for reader participation. These elements are mapped across the five steps to show how meaning accumulates gradually rather than through climax alone.
The synthesis chapter brings together theory, case studies, interviews, and the outcomes of the workshop to form a cohesive narrative framework. Rather than remaining purely analytical, this chapter translates research into practice through a five-step structure developed, tested, and refined across multiple stages of the project.
Narrative theory provides the conceptual distinction between story and discourse, while case studies reveal recurring visual strategies for representing psychological experience. These insights are then actively examined through a workshop setting, where participants apply, question, and reinterpret narrative structures in real time. The workshop functions as a testing ground, revealing which ideas remain adaptable in practice and which require rethinking.
Feedback, observations, and produced works from the workshop directly inform the final five-step structure. This structure is not presented as a fixed formula, but as a flexible progression that supports emotional movement, spatial storytelling, and reader participation. Fragmentation, repetition, ambiguity, and pacing are positioned as intentional tools across each step.
The chapter concludes by framing the five-step structure as the synthesis of research and practice—forming the methodological and conceptual foundation for the final creative project.
The Comics
This is the final comic book, also the project made for this thesis
Read here:
https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/shirin-dont-run/list?title_no=1114822
The Conclusion
The conclusion reflects on the research as a whole, reaffirming that comics are uniquely suited to narrating psychological experience through their spatial, fragmented, and participatory nature. By combining narrative theory, case studies, interviews, and workshop-based experimentation, the thesis demonstrates that internal states can be structured visually without relying on conventional plot-driven models.
The proposed five-step structure is presented as a flexible narrative tool rather than a prescriptive formula, supporting emotional progression, ambiguity, and reader engagement. The final creative work stands as both an outcome and a continuation of the research, suggesting that psychological storytelling in comics remains an open, evolving practice. The thesis ultimately positions comics not just as a medium for telling stories, but as a language capable of thinking, feeling, and reflecting alongside the reader.
Limitations
This research is exploratory in nature and operates within several limitations. The case studies and interviews represent a selective range of works and practitioner perspectives, and therefore cannot claim to encompass the full diversity of psychological storytelling in comics. Cultural, linguistic, and publishing contexts outside the selected scope may produce different narrative strategies that are not addressed here.
The five-step structure emerges from practice-based experimentation, including a workshop setting, and reflects subjective interpretation and creative bias. While this subjectivity is central to the research methodology, it also limits the framework’s generalizability. Additionally, reader response is discussed conceptually rather than empirically, leaving room for further audience-based research. These limitations point not to shortcomings, but to future directions for expanding and testing the framework across broader contexts.
