The rising action would be when Raina has to wear braces, headgear, and undergo other treatments.

The inciting incident would be when Raina knocks out her two front teeth. The main issue that is touched upon the entire story however, is Raina's dental troubles. Since this story is the true memoir of Raina, it describes the bumpy road to adolescents rather than just one trial to overcome. This story touches on many middle-school related topics such as family, boys, transitioning from a child to a teenager, earthquakes, and bullying.Īlthough this story doesn't follow the typical 'rising action, climax, resolution' format there are many highs and lows that take place throughout the entire story. Sixth grade is tough enough, but now that Raina has two missing front teeth, it becomes even harder. This begins the long journey Raina endures to fix her mouth and many other pubescent challenges along the way. While racing home with her friends one day after Girl Scouts, Raina trips and knocks out her front two teeth. The story starts off when Raina is 11-years old, in the 6th grade and takes us on a four year journey. But drawing the story has connected me with hundreds and hundreds of kindred spirits.Smile by Raina Telgemeier is the true autobiography of Raina. Going through those experience as a kid, I felt really isolated and weird. Everyone has a dental horror story of some sort. It's cool to be able to focus on SMILE full-time now! (It's going to be published as a complete graphic novel by Scholastic in early 2010.)The thing about SMILE that has surprised me the most, is how many people can relate to it in one way or another. I've been working on SMILE as long as I've been working on the BSC comics-for the past four years. I let things unfold organically, writing the comic in 10-to-20-page increments, and taking breaks whenever my BSC schedule ramped up. As the strip hit the web week after week, I found my readers really responding to the relationships and character interactions. But I had so many anecdotes about my awkward teen years, that fit into the time period of my tooth story, and it made sense to work them into SMILE. (For those who don't know, I knocked out my two front permanents in a trip-and-fall incident when I was a kid.)I had no idea how long the story was going to be, though, and what kinds of extra plot elements I would explore. Telgemeier discussed the origins of the book with CBR while she was still in the process of working on the book back in 2008, 'It had always been my intention to create a comic about my teeth, mostly because I found myself telling people about what happened to them over and over again.

The book tells that story, but that's really just the framework for a compelling look at the average day to day life of a young woman through middle school and high school in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Smile comic book