Advice You Might Not Want to Hear

[KiabIce]

Thanks. That is very true.

[KRWright]

Rebooting: You can try to reboot a story over and over again to make it perfect, but because your art skill and critical eye constantly evolve it will (probably) never be what you want. Just make your story, even if it isn't perfect. Because NO story is perfect, and I mean not a single one.

Oh god yes this. Stop redoing your same idea over and over again. Make one, move on to another. You'll improve by working on lots of different projects, but only return to an old project if you're absolutely certain that your skill level will be so improved as to make it 100% better.

I see this is the FF7R rule. Don't return to something old unless you're commited to completely overhauling everything and can back up your claims that you'll make every aspect better.

[darthmongoose]

Original or unexpected doesn't necessarily equal good:
One complaint I see over and over again is "why do people like this thing that's just the same tropes as other things! MY story is totally different from everything else, it subverts every expectation you might have and has a completely unique setting that's nothing like anything anyone's ever seen before and plot twists nobody can predict, but nobody's reading it!"
Yeah, it's because if you go too far outside established narrative conventions, and too far from patterns or archetypes people can relate to or that ground your story, people stop being able to connect with it emotionally. It becomes just a bunch of random incoherent details lacking a clear pattern. Choose your subversions of archetypes, narrative structures, settings and the like very carefully, keep them to a smallish number, make them count.
Also if some of your more attentive audience guesses your twist in advance, it means you foreshadowed it well; don't change it to something that makes no sense just to try to outsmart them. Getting payoff to a setup is one of the greatest feelings you can give your audience, whether it's a surprise or not. Don't rob them of it by having some random crap happen!

[KilljoyConstruct]

You’re a new creator who has an amazing, wonderful, totally cool idea that’ll take years to bring to fruition? Save it for later

This was a mistake I made with War Cogs. For context, War Cogs is a story of mine that takes place in WWI. It is going to be a multivolume, thousand-and-possibly-more page comic.
When I first started making comics, I made War Cogs my first project. I was so convinced that it would be the greatest thing I had ever created. I thought that it would be successful right out of the gate. I thought making a comic and gaining a following would be easy. Oh, how I was wrong.
I only ended up disappointing myself. The art was crappy, I hadn’t done enough research on WWI to create a respectable story based around it, and I burned out after finishing two issues. In short, using War Cogs as my first ever comic was a complete and total failure.
So if you’re a brand new creator and have a story that you just know is gonna be the best thing you ever make, and you’re really excited to work on it, my only advice is this: don’t. Not yet. Start with short projects. Make mistakes. Learn. The time will come when you can bring your “masterpiece” (I say “masterpiece” because I read the original post) to the world, but now is not that time.

[MeltingCORE]

Honestly, these are all excellent points. The second one really resonates with me because I've seen so many people over the years who believe they are entitled to popularity as a creator because of x, y, z reason. No one owes a creator anything but hard work can certainly pay off if whining about "not being popular" is put aside. And like? I can understand the frustration when it feels like you're being ignored. But acting bratty and being aggressive towards everyone will certainly not resolve the issue. I've seen the aggression come out with some of these creators. I remember being shocked about 3 years ago when I had a Twitter account because there was a viral post with an artist saying things like "you better f*cking retweet and comment on my art" to their followers. Comments/likes/etc are earned when your work resonates with people. I have some things I could certainly wave in front of my audience to get pity-points but I choose not too. I'm not owed anything because I have z-thing lmao. I've earned my audience though hard work. Not emotional manipulation. So have many others. Being told I should follow a person not based on the merits of their art, but other things is insulting.

And going off of your last point in relation to art instead, sometimes you may have become really good at art... And you may be really good at some things like character creation or color theory - but yes, you're not a genius. I've witnessed decent artists who get upset when people don't kiss their butt and instead try to help the artist become better. Not accepting criticism will only hold your work back! If you're serious about being an artist, if someone tells you that you need to work on anatomy or compositions or whatever else... and they're not being a jerk but genuinely trying to help... It's being said for a reason. I've even witnessed artists asking for critique... And then getting upset when critique is given! Like, did they think everyone was going to call them a master artist...?

[Crusoe]

if you ever want to go professional, you better study your ass off.

If you ever want to be a professional in any field, you better study your ass off. Don't think you will be the next Stephen king unless you've read as much as that man and don't think you can work for a comic book company unless you've got your comic basics down. That's not just true for creative jobs, researchers need to do it as well.

[Tanako]

You're not writing a masterpiece:

LMAO wow that really hit hard but so true

[migxmeg]

Urgh that always makes me angry! It's hard to give a good critique - it takes time and effort. Someone has to care to bother to give you honest feedback and being a jerk about receiving it is... jdkaljfdkljsd

[HGohwell]

if you ever want to go professional, you better study your ass off.

If you ever want to be a professional in any field, you better study your ass off. Don't think you will be the next Stephen king unless you've read as much as that man and don't think you can work for a comic book company unless you've got your comic basics down. That's not just true for creative jobs, researchers need to do it as well.

Also related to this

You're not going to make money unless you treat it like a job: the people who make money of webcomic/novels, treat it like a job. They work 8-10 hour days, constantly and solidly. If you treat it like a hobby, you'll only make hobby money. If you want to live of it, you have to treat it like a job.

[milejdyvan]

Really good advice in this thread. Would add some of my own but I feel like everything was said in one way or another.

Well, maybe just one...

Patience, hard work, and consistency

I'm pretty sure this was already mentioned in some way or another but yeah, if you're looking for an audience, it won't come any time soon. Remember that you are not looking for an audience, your readers are looking for your story in the sea of other amazing gems. They will find it, but you need to put in a lot of hard work and be consistent with it. Going back and redoing stuff is fine, but settle at a certain point and come to the realization that this is how it's going to be and finish your work finally. There's nothing more admirable and satisfying than finally finishing a project that you put your heart and soul into.

[LadyN]

This thread is full of amazing advice. I have nothing to add to it so I guess I’ll just bring in an opinion:

Just because your main character is a good person, doesn’t mean they’re a good character.

Most characters telling the story are the main character. I personally think outweighing their positives with flaws is a good thing, as it makes them seem realistic. Humans are born imperfect, so your character shouldn’t be completely good. Unless they’re not human. Then I think that is excused.

[Jenny-Toons]

Adding one that I think a lot of peeps need:

Pushing yourself to the brink will NOT improve your art: Did you skip a meal to finish an update? Stop and go eat. Do you find yourself nodding off and really, really tired? Stop and go to sleep. Take care of your body, be it when you're sick, needing basic care, and just taking breaks. The starving artist is not a healthy mindset, and your art WILL suffer because of it. Yes -- you can take some inspiration from your experiences, but do that AFTER you take care of yourself. You can't work on art if you're not in the right mindset or circumstances to do so.

[Isfet]

I'm just loving all of this - it's so grounding, I kinda needed that rn
Thank y'all for this thread!

[DiegoPalacios]

exactly, there are good subversions and bad subversions. What works and when it works will depend of your story.

[IntoTheTempest]

To piggyback off the hating on popular creators point.

Another creator's success is not your failure.
It's easy to feel jealous when all the people around you are getting opportunities and it feels like you're being left behind. But you if you put all your energy into shaking your fist and grinding your ax, you won't get anywhere. Instead work on improving your craft. Learn from those who've played the proverbial game and won; there's no shame in asking for help.

[surenlicious]

Might be an obvious one, but let this grandma talk for a minute.

Learn to promote/market your own work.
Yeah, keeping an update schedule is all beautiful and what not, but you're not getting your readers if you don't go out there and use the many tools we have today (your social media sweetheart) to reel fresh eyes in. The writing and drawing your comic/novel only takes up this much of the whole gig, you need to show off just what makes your work interesting. Ain't nobody gonna just find your work, go and scream it off the rooftops.

[KiabIce]

That is wonderful advice! Treat this like a job

[KiabIce]

Good advice. Thank you for that

[sxxaint]

Expanding on these two points as well - something that really clicked for me after doing a bit of research on horror genre conventions

When you subvert expectations/tropes, you are subverting the delivery of the content, not the content itself
Genres exist, as you two have said, to satisfy what the audience wants when they pick up your genre. Unique storytelling arises when you present these familiar points in an unusual way. This is not the same as not including these conventions at all, because this is when you stop writing genre fiction, and this is why you need to know your genre before you subvert it - no matter how you build a house, you need walls to keep the wind out, and a roof to keep the rain off, otherwise it's not a house.

[KiabIce]

This thread is having major good advice from everybody. They're like precious pearls of knowledge that have been crafted with blood, sweat and tears.

Thanks to all who wrote in this thread and the advice given.