ROCKLAND — Every tween and teen has a story to tell. Sometimes they’re ordinary, sometimes they’re epic. But, to fire up their imaginations and get them to find their voice, some visuals need to go with it. That is the art of the graphic novel.

The Rockland Public Library Children's Writing Club is currently hosting a special Graphic Novel Creation Series for youth ages 11-15 at the Rockland Library on Mondays until the end of June.

Led by library employee Janet Corcoran and run in cooperation with Chelsea Avirett of Spyglass Tutoring, the free workshop is helping kids develop their own graphic novels or comics, in addition to contributing to a seasonal newsletter.

“Chelsea’s done workshops like this before. So in this series, she’s teaching them what the difference is between a graphic novel and a comic, how to do layout, how panels are set up and so on. We’ll be able to publish a teaser of their graphic novel through the CWC and if they continue, we’ll give them the opportunity to publish more,” said Corcoran.

So far, nearly 12-15 students are invested. One of the participants, Patrick Corcoran, 13, explained the difference between a graphic novel and a comic. “A graphic novel is more like a visual story based off an actual book and a comic is more like a short little episode.” He is a big Stephen King fan and was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do his graphic novel on when we spoke.

“We’re talking about what graphic novels are about,” said Averitt. “Some are narrative, some are biographies, and some are short stories. So, I want them to really think about not just how to tell a story but how the pictures on the page interact with the words.”

Topics will include outlining/choosing a plot or idea, panel layout, dialogue, lettering, coloring and more. “It’s a challenge to get them to focus on plot and structure first because what they really want to get to is the drawing,” she added.

The workshop series opened up to participants in the first two classes, but because more drop-ins at this point would need too much time to get caught up, the series has now closed its admission, while Averitt works on building the kids’ skills in the coming weeks.

Participants will publish their attempts/teasers in an expanded summer edition of the CWC News later this summer. Stay tuned for updates on their website, which can be found online.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com