Advice on how to make comics for kids and make it mainly safe for work?

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

I would like advice on how to make and brainstorm/mind map ideas for my comics.
For genres, I love fantasy and adventure short stories, comedy, slice of life, and other good genres I usually enjoy. Maybe not horror (enjoy creepy cute moments more often), I like comedy and lighthearted and wholesome stories in more higher quantities…. I want to make my own comics. There are comics I would love to make for myself. And there are other comics I want to make for an audience.
Both types of comics I would like to make are related to making comics for kids and teen audience. I don’t know how to make one without talking down to children, or making them upset about stuff? I would need advice for this because I’m not sure how to write for kids yet, but I will do my best even if it’s not easy at first. Comics I would make for myself however, are similar to the kids comics with colorful colors and stuff, but it’s basically like related to young adult stuff, annxiety in my everyday life, and some mature or common topics I would experience.
How can I do that and how can I commit and complete my story? I desperately have ideas and ways to make my comic, and many different ideas and directions on what my major plot point of my story should and definitely will be. But it’s not easy writing them down on paper because I get distracted by my family a lot for one, I have a brother who is younger than me, and I would like to make comics with bright and different colors (not every single color of the rainbow), but with different types of colors for my setting and appearance for those stories. But I know stories and characters come first, but the characters mainly come first. But I don’t know where to begin or start.
I don’t want to wait and figure out where my story would go crudely, because I then the scenes and plans for my story won’t make sense. I also do not want to write with so much detail as well, because then I would suck all the fun out of making the story and will be wasted. I’m the kind that tries to make a deadline, but I don’t stick to it, and end up until the deadline writing through the seat off my pants, eventually making my story incomplete and a failure. The solution according to the video is the Pixar story skeleton, but that’s just it. I don’t know how can I actually maintain my own plotting process of my story, and commit myself to complete the whole story, without letting time pass until someone tells me to write my story immediately, and I do it. I would like advice on how to do this properly?… and how to commit myself to writing a nice story and good characters?…
here’s the video link I was talking about btw. It is from LavenderTowne’s YouTube channel, relating to her comic journey and her own comic (now published in tapas, and through book publishing of tapas, “Unfamiliar”.
Video 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp8t-D6fddk
Video 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG5Wwq8FfrQ

Any opinions? and advice for me?

[Leyelle]

without talking down to children

Well, along the lines of trying not to talk down to kids, I think if you want to try to write a story for kids, just acknowledging that they are "normal" (whatever that means) people is a big factor.

You don't really have to overthink it too much when writing things catered for children (I do this a lot myself writing bedtime stories.) The biggest thing is to remember that you don't need your story to be super simple, just keep in mind what subject matter is appropriate for their ages.

Otherwise, you can still even make nerdy or complicated jokes, lots of kids shows do. This way you'll make stories that help the kids get smarter and learn more even if they aren't intended to be educational, just by choosing to talk to them more or less like anyone else.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Wow that can be very helpful thank you so much! I also updated my message because this one was technically the one that wasn’t that completed the real message was this actually:
“ I feel like making a plotted story with a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes with a “plot to solution” type story.
For genres, I love fantasy and adventure short stories, comedy, slice of life, and other good genres I usually enjoy (kawaii, and cozy feeling stories). Maybe not horror (enjoy creepy cute moments more often), I like comedy and lighthearted and wholesome stories in more higher quantities…. I want to make my own comics. There are comics I would love to make for myself. And there are other comics I want to make for an audience.
Both types of comics I would like to make are related to making comics for kids and teen audience. I don’t know how to make one without talking down to children, or making them upset about stuff? I would need advice for this because I’m not sure how to write for kids yet, but I will do my best even if it’s not easy at first. Comics I would make for myself however, are similar to the kids comics, with colorful colors and stuff and some safe for work stuff, but it’s basically like related to young adult stuff, anxieties and stress related situations in my everyday life, and some mature or common topics I would experience. I would like colors in my comics similar to kids comics, because they remind me of “Didou (Louie) and the Rainbow Fairy” YouTube video, and the Didou (Louie) series that used to be in Latin American discovery kids, and former video can also be found in YouTube as well. In case you did not know Didou/Louie is about a rabbit who can draw and the ladybug yoko and it’s a children show, but the rainbow fairy YouTube video isn’t that violent, but it’s dark in some level to a point when he had to draw the wand, without showing those to draw it, but it was obviously intentional in that part (obviously because it’s easy to draw) because there he wanted to save the princess.
How can I do that and how can I commit and complete my story? I desperately have ideas and ways to make my comic, and many different ideas and directions on what my major plot point of my story should and definitely will be. But it’s not easy writing them down on paper because I get distracted by my family a lot for one, I have a brother who is younger than me, and I would like to make comics with bright and different colors (not every single color of the rainbow), but with different types of colors for my setting and appearance for those stories. But I know stories and characters come first, but the characters mainly come first. But I don’t know where to begin or start.
I don’t want to wait and figure out where my story would go crudely, because I then the scenes and plans for my story won’t make sense. I also do not want to write with so much detail as well, because then I would suck all the fun out of making the story and will be wasted. I’m the kind that tries to make a deadline, but I don’t stick to it, and end up until the deadline writing through the seat off my pants, eventually making my story incomplete and a failure. The solution according to the video is the Pixar story skeleton, but that’s just it. I don’t know how can I actually maintain my own plotting process of my story, and commit myself to complete the whole story, without letting time pass until someone tells me to write my story immediately, and I do it. I would like advice on how to do this properly?… and how to commit myself to writing a nice story and good characters?… ”

I’m sorry this message was longer than I expected.
I wanted to find a way to write my story without making it too cobbled up towards nonsense scenes or parts, or too detailed to a point where I suck out the fun in my written story. I also wanted advice on how to make a good story (or bedtime story too).

[Leyelle]

and how to commit myself to writing a nice story and good characters?… ”

Well, what I find is that it's easiest to commit to a story when I have a clear idea of the characters so I start with those first. once I know the characters well and feel that I HAVE to tell their stories, i'm more motivated to complete the story. also when I started uploading my stories, I felt more drive to complete them because people were waiting to see what happened next.

[Vassia]

I agree with everything Leyelle has been saying about writing for kids. Do you have a age range for your audience? What a five year old will comprehend and a 10 year old will is pretty different. Knowing what age range your writing for might help you decide how to present your story. You can talk to a 5 year old and a 10 year old about anxiety but the way you explain it may differ.

As for motivation in creating it and plot development, what works for me is outlining with bullet points. I tend to have a more developed ideas for the scenes I'm looking forward to writing and those work as sort of goals for me. If I'm looking forward to writing a specific scene it gives me the motivation to write the more difficult ones that are necessary to get there. That and be forgiving and realistic with yourself. Life can get crazy and you don't need to feel guilty for not working on your project. You'll have sprints where you can write entire episodes in a short amount of time and others when it'll take you a month to make a page. Allow yourself to take those breaks when you need them. You don't need to get eveything done at once creating something like this will take time, you will get burned out, but if it's a project you care about you'll come back to it. Try your best to make working on it a habit but don't beat yourself up if you can't work on it as much as you want to or if you can't make your time goal. I find guilting yourself over the little things only makes it harder to start working on it again. Just keep looking forward to the good parts of the story, becuase you can only get there if you work on it. I hope my little rambling is helpful.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Actually I agree with you Vassia and Leyelle, this works out well. My target audience is for 7-12 year olds for my kid and target audience comic and are about adventure, fantasy, slice of life, magic, cute stuff, and morals. While the target audience for comics I make for myself and for “me time” are for 15 years old and beyond, and are about my own stuff I like, hate, and/or worry about, and about childhood and cultural assimilation, and adventure/fantasy thoughts and slice of life.

[NickRowler]

People recommend making the protagonist a child or something a child can relate to (like an animal or small creature). People recommend avoiding adult protaganists unless it's something more ambiguous like Spongebob where he's a childish adult but him being a non-human helps with this.

Said character has to be the center narrative where there actions causes changes in the story. Have them be the one to solve the problem and save the day. Having a story end with "Randomly the day was saved by dad" isn't an interesting narrative for kids. It's better to have the kid's actions be what lead to important solutions. If you really want an adult to be the one to solve things, then set it up like "The girl helped her dad" or "she went to ask her dad for help" but setting up obstacles for her to overcome.

[Amalockh1]

When I was a very little kid, I used to prefer stories about animals than humans...
But one has to keep in consideration than kids are very different from each other.
In my opinion, a good way to create a good story for kids is thinking about the kind of fiction you enjoyed during your childhood and remembering what you liked so much about those works back then.

When I was a kid, I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books, so that's why I ended making an interactive comic.

And if you are worried about scaring kids or making them feel upset, remember what Don Bluth once said: "Kids can accept anything as long as there is a happy ending."

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Wow! thanks for hopping in Amalockh1 and NickRowler, the first main reason why I’m actually asking about this “writing stories for kids” question in particular, is because I like animated shows and cartoons for not only mature audiences, but also other shows (not the mature ones) that I enjoy that are for kids but I enjoy them overall because of the storytelling, characters, and the theme of the story or each episode. I know I cannot keep track of every episode which is tough. I had ones that I hated too, but possibly there are always other ways, and other shows/series's…
Another main reason why I’m asking about this question about writing for kids is because this is based on two types mangas or types of webcomics I can narrow it down towards. I’m narrowing my types of comics to these two types of comics: Myungnang manhwa (명랑만화), and children’s manga (子供向け漫画) . But it’s not easy trying to make comics, when the whole plot is in my head, and I need to let it loose on paper, instead of being chained like a dog on a leash with Chain in my head. How do you get to place it on paper? Also I don’t want a formula to make the story, I just want a plot diagram you usually use…and how you deal with writing the whole story plot and script without cobbling out along, or without adding all details and sucking the “fun juice” out of it? Hope this helps?
Also, how can I make good lineart drawings without “chicken scratching” on the paper? Are there good exercises, and tips to making your line art more polished and not chicken scratched? Like hand excersises to making your line art more confident?

[BoomerZ]

The thing about writing for kids is age 5 is very different than age 12. Grown-ups don't give enough credit to how much children understand and can follow plots. Look at Gargoyles from back in the day. It was episodic and had a connected storyline. And kids loved it. At 10 I was watching anime and had no problem following it. There are two ways to write kids stories, I like calling it the Disney way and the Pixar way. The Disney way is write a story for children that an adult could read and still be entertained. Most of the golden age Disney cartoons were this way. Pixar took the other route. They wrote adult stories that children could still enjoy. There is no way that first 20 minutes of UP if for kids. But kids can still watch it, they just won't get the deeper meaning. Both of these work as the target audience is actually much larger than a straight up children's book. Just some things to think about.
.

[Animal508]

My thoughts are that it's best to look at TV Ratings. TV-14 (The first rating that indicates something not being suitable for younger audiences) includes the qualifications of V(Violence) S(Sex) and L(Language). It's best to tone those down for younger fiction.

In terms of themes, it depends. As others have said, it is not a good idea to talk down to younger viewers. Additionally, the best forms of media are those that can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of age.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Yeah that’s good to know, Animal508, But I don’t know how to be myself in writing and drawing the story in my authentic voice, and not talking down to children, I want most of my comics and webcomics to be enjoyed by everyone like you said. I just don’t know how to be kind everyone and as properly as possible, without being rude or talking down to younger people. How can I not talk down to those young kids, as you mentioned before? Like as in the 101 “Do’s And Don't s” of being kind without talking down to kids?

[NickRowler]

Another main reason why I’m asking about this question about writing for kids is because this is based on two types mangas or types of webcomics I can narrow it down towards. I’m narrowing my types of comics to these two types of comics: Myungnang manhwa (명랑만화), and children’s manga (子供向け漫画) .

If you want to make Kodomo, why not read a bunch of it.

I personally find a lot of kodomo to be a bit too simplistic, a lot of them tend to be gag series with very simple narratives.

I think it's worth looking into stuff like Dog Man or Bad Guys. They have a larger overall plot but told with dialog that is easy to read.

[Vassia]

My best advice for this is just start doing it. You'll end up finding out what works for you as you go. Get yourself a group of people to look at your first drafts or sketches and give their input. You won't know how other people see your work until they see it. They'll be able to tell you what they're getting from your work and you'll be able to find out if what you want to say is coming across right or not through them.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

This is really helpful thank you so much everybody! I agree NickRowler I usually prefer not only self contained stories in the course of a book (or each one of all single chapters), but also a large overall plot like you said. Thank you also for the book recommendations! I appreciate it I will read the “Bad Guys” book series eventually when I go to a library, or find books through library genesis eventually…

I got 4 more questions, two of them is about storytelling, and two of them is about comic projects in general:

1; Story Question - How do I practice making make a self-contained story that is short enough to create for my comic?
2; Story Question - What should I practice doing besides reading and annotating books that inspire me? (and what should I take notes on, and how to apply what I learned from the story I read, to the webcomic story I’m making now?)

3; Comic Project Question - How can I complete my project, and make it like a 5 chapter miniseries?
4; Comic Project Question - How can I get other people to read my comic online for the Tapas Global Comics Awards Contest of 2024?

[jadendouglas]

I’d say look at series that already have accomplished this. I think you’ll mostly have to look at animation. Stuff like avatar the last airbender has a mature tone while being for kids. Study study study. Now don’t copy things, but study the greats. Look at marvel and DC comics, watch animated stuff is in the direction you are looking for. While lots of kids do watch anime and manga let’s be real most of those are hardly sfw lol.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)