Bite-Size: A Creator Discussion and Advice Thread

What do you struggle with personally most when creating settings?

Remembering to describe the setting! I tend to focus on the interaction between characters, their emotions and actions. But I give myself some time to go back and look at what I've written with a fresh eye. Then I ask myself whether important details about the setting or character appearance is missing.

Do you spend as long developing your setting as you develop your characters? Why/Why not?

It kinda depends. If the setting is in a place or an era that I'm familiar with, it doesn't take as long. But if my story is a scifi, I'll try to use reference pictures online and my imagination to figure out how things should look.

Go through you current WIP. How many of your scenes take place in 'blank rooms' with no/few setting details?

Oh boy. So in the current chapter I'm writing, the first two scenes has minimalistic details about the setting. The third scene is heavy in detail because it is the most suspenseful and eerie part. And the final scene I'm writing only briefly sets up the room in the first two paragraphs since it's focused on the dinner conversation.

Okay. Looks like I missed being on time for a section. Well, no matter. I'll try and cover it, then the next!

What is the hardest thing about character creation?
Before the current rewrite of the Curse of Immortals, I did have a version which I finished in August, 2019. One of my closest friends, someone I do trust with stories, noticed that barring a trio or so of characters, a ton of the important cast seemed or felt largely interchangeable. I'm not sure how often any of you may have stumbled onto a situation like that, where in your heart, you know they are different characters with their own set of personalities and intricacies, and yet, from an outsider's point of view, they blanket into being the same. I'm trying to listen to my mind and heart with greater detail, as I build new characters now.

What is the easiest thing about character creation for you?
Not sure. Given everything I've stated above, I've begun to explore the concept of realism while also trying to stick to the lore of my world. They're all difficult, complicated characters, at least in my head. I think what makes it easy for me is how much fun I have exploring their depth. When I uncover a piece that really works, it keeps me motivated and happy towards the whole process. I can't really point to a set of things that works for me though.

How do you choose names when creating characters?
I love playing off mythology and history, fragments, portions, sometimes the same, sometimes a variant. Though, I also have fun running different things in my head to see what sticks. This works well with anything omniscient, races, species, the kind. For example, CoI works on the principle of two gods - Ehedus and Baha. It just popped into my head one day, and it felt right. Godvildian, Noxun, Relictan - they all have an underlying principle to it that just stuck with me. Races here, by the way. But otherwise, just anything with meaning, symbolic to the character's core personality trait. I kind of build from that. Simple example, I worked with multiple languages to hone in on Daiden. In Sanskrit, the name translates to transmission. His given name is Daiden Lost. Overall, it equates to a lost transmission. Won't tell much more, or perhaps even why I went with that meaning, but it's easy when you think from a human level, from an emotional level.

One sentence advice for a newbie character creator:
If you manage to find the heart to love even your worst character, personality-wise, perhaps villainy-wise, you're definitely doing something right.

Phew! Now, to take a break and come back with what's next.

What do you struggle with personally most when creating settings?

Remembering details. I often to go back to how I describe a room in order to make sure I don't just conjure up items out of thin air as the plot depends. It's a pet peeve in movies, it's a pet peeve in writings, it's a pet peeve in comics. I really don't want to commit the same pet peeve, thus REMEMBERING the minutiae of the scene setting causes the most stress.

Do you spend as long developing your setting as you develop your characters? Why/Why not?

It depends on the story.

In Birth of a Sin, it's a comic-book typish setting. So taking place in a modern/contemporary setting with a few other details that include the outlandish (Evil Scientist Lair, Training Military grounds on a private Island, etc). Thus I don't really put much effort in the setting since it takes place in a setting that I'm already familiar with with only a few unusual details sprinkled here and there for that Superhero/SuperVillain feel.

For another story, I am planning a Isekai aka another world. Thus I will have different settings that have a more Fantasy slant (at most a Diesel Punk for Desert city, Steampunk for Coastal/River town, etc). I also plan on having an dimensional, Lovecraftian horror slant so will be looking at how to describe...errr...incomprehensible to the human mind things. This is will require A LOT of research and I'll be taking a TON of notes when I plan out this other story.

Go through you current WIP. How many of your scenes take place in 'blank rooms' with no/few setting details?

...Crap I have to read back my own chapters?! PHOOEY! PHOOEY I SAY!
...
Honestly, I think I'm pretty good with adding SOME details of the setting. Usually when it comes to the characters themselves. Though I write in Third-Person Omniscient, during my POV switches, I tend to describe the setting as it appears to the character. If they are leaning against something, I describe what that is. If they are looking around, I describe what they see. If I don't describe it as much it's because, well...the setting is not super important because a character is not in focus. Typically.

Also, some chapters coming up have 'blank rooms' because the room itself is suppose to be sparse...being a prison cell setting.

@KRWilliams
I think it may have to do with the way I think xD I like to go through tiny details, and then see what each detail brings to the table. Like, if I make this country do something, then what happens to the others? Maybe the readers will never see it, but I want to know xD.

Plus my story is a big one with no set ending so I find it's better to have a full world planned out, and in the grand scheme of things the time I spent worldbuilding is small compared to the time spent writing and drawing.

I guess I wouldn't recommend that approach for everyone. But people that enjoy RPG's and all the little details behind them may find that way of creating a world fun.
I do get that it can burn out the passion though. And I've seen other creators fizzle out during the worldbuilding part, and I'm not sure why exactly, because I really enjoy that part.

Show Don't Tell

What do you think this advice means?

Usually I think this advice is a way to get your characters more engaged into the story by bringing them into the POV characters view. I may look at someone and go "They are tired", which is the result, but how did I know that?

Maybe cause they have bags under their eyes.

They are holding a large take-out cup of coffee.

They are out of breath.

They yawn.

Etc.

Humans observe the world around them and take those details to reach a conclusion. Not only can 'showing' this reveal the world in a natural way but it can also tell A LOT of the POV character too.

'His eyes kept fluttering open and close. He raised his hands high above his head, long fingers reaching towards the ceiling. His lips parted slowly and he released a low groan from his throat.'

VS

'His eyes seemed to drawl down his face and red veins pulsed against the whites of those swollen orbs. His jaw lowered and he released a groaning bellow while stretching his arms above his head, cracks popping from his fingers."

The first one, the POV is describing the tired person rather sensually while in the second, the image is not nearly as attractive. They both described someone being tired, but the mood is decidedly different.

How do you approach 'showing' things

I will fully admit that I don't read a lot of long novels. Instead, I watch a lot of movies, a lot of anime, and read a lot of graphic novels/manga. So I approach 'showing' the same way I watch movies; I imagine the motion as it comes into view. I want to describe what I experience as a viewer to my readers. Thus why I tend to put things like setting after I bring in a character. Only when the character interacts with the setting is when it becomes more important. So it's very...scene by scene I guess ^^;.

How do your disguise exposition in your work?

Ughhh...hmm...Usually within the thoughts of the POV person. Or describing how things are through the lens of the POV person. If they see a bird drinking from a fountain, I find that to be a good opportunity to bring up some memory that describes the person's past, instead of just spelling it out. I hope that's clear ^^;

What do you think this advice means?
Exactly what it says, finding ways to show, rather than explain. Though my first thought is usually "yet another crushingly restricting guideline."

How do you approach showing things?
By...drawing...them? Being an artist, I have that advantage xP but seriously if I can't fit it in a speech bubble, and it's not dialogue or narration, then I need to draw it.

When do you think it's better to just tell your readers information?
Probably on things like in the comic world's history. Also if it's a narrative part, like a character telling a story and I don't want to show everything all at once. In these cases it's usually to move flashback scenes a little faster. (I did it in my one shot: Dino Orphan, where Rip's adopted father tells the story of how Rip's parents met and eventually gave him up.)

How do you disguise exposition?
I try to keep it as subtext, or hidden in the background. Like in my main comic Dragon Sparking...in the past Vykir waged a war on his own race, so I hid little destroyed ruins in the background, and hinted at it via the villain who challenges Rip and the nation by waging his own revenge Ragnarok. (I did this so I could show that the past often comes back to haunt the unaware. Vykir never told Rip or his other child, Freya, the full extent of this past war, and swept it under the rug.)

So I try not to drop exposition all at once, I try to divulge it slowly both through small dialogue and information hidden in the world.

@KRWilliams thank you! Even stuff like lighting is interesting to see as a prop - in a fantasy world where you can just make things glow because a wizard said so, there's a lot of room to just do weird things that work on whole rooms or just bright enough to make the scene have a certain mood.

• Show don't tell is about integrating information into the story, and not just its text; as well as avoiding making the characters repeat things they know for no discernible reason or even to break out in monologue for the reader and no one else.
• I usually have notes down on the time the characters or the reader should know something and work towards a scene where that can come up; dialogue or actions. Then, after I made too many walls of text or extra exchanges that just dragged on, I go around and go cutting anything that is actually unecessary for that "main information" to be absorbed and discovered, until it's still natural, but not detailing someone's entire lunch discussion.
• Through idle chat(people reading Splitting Image may notice the crowd chatter isn't scribbles when I want it to be readable, as long as it's within the lead characters' earshot), through environmental storytelling (pamphlets, papers, books, damage to structures if a strong opponent is about to be faced), and by blending important things or odd behavior from characters in scenes even if it won't be obvious for a while. In prose, that last one is the most important, since it's going to be too obvious if a character reads the coincidentally important paper on the table. Gotta play the long game!

Yo is it too late to talk about Setting for a bit because I didn't scroll down far enough and didn't realize there was a new topic before I finished this.

What do you struggle with personally most when creating settings?

Eh perspective and doing repetitive details. It's kind of boring, although satisfying at the end.

As for writing, I struggle with knowing where to put the setting in context of all the dialogue. I like to really dive into words when I have the chance, and so I'll start talking about the history of the windows and the different architects that built each extension of the building the characters are standing in and it's like "Rach no. This doesn't go here. We're talking about something serious right now in the dialogue we cannot segway into windows right now." But I guess that's what rough drafts are for--to get out all that extra nonsense and only keep what matters.

Do you spend as long developing your setting as developing your characters? Why/why not?

Yes and no. It kind of depends. I like to think of settings as a character unto themselves. I love it when settings have a personality to them, a sort of energy that affects the characters as if it were alive--like the Mines of Moria, like Hogwarts, like Ankh-Morpark. And even settings that aren't fantasy should still have a living energy to them.

My favorite book is the Hunchback of Notre Dame because I'm a sucker for wordy old books, and while Victor Hugo goes waay to long about the history of Paris, the best chapter in that book is just about Notre Dame. It's so freakin beatiful, and is sometimes abridged out, which is a shame because while it's just a setting description--it's sooo well written. (it's here ps, such a good chapter https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2610/2610-h/2610-h.htm#link2HCH00141 )

Now I would never write as wordy as Victor Hugo and expect that to fly unless I was as eloquent as he is, but I think there's a lot to be learned in just giving your settings a connection to the people in it in a lot of the same ways you would a living character. He's not just talking about a building and what it's made out of and the dimensions of it, he's giving it life. Not only that, but he's making bold statements about art history and religion and politics of that time period that blend seamlessly into the history of this building. It becomes so much more than a building description.

And that last line if that chapter? "The trunk of a tree is immovable; the foliage is capricious." Holy crap. What a perfect way to describe an 857 year old building. What a summary. He clearly spent a really long time learning everything there was about this building, and it really came through in the final draft.

Go through your current WIP. How many of your scenes take place in blank rooms with no/few setting details.

I probably did too many descriptions tbh. My current comic was a book, so I have the opposite problem of too many words and too many details, so I'm currently trying to double back. With comics you really have to know when to edit, and most of the history of Pendleson's Academy and it's many rooms goes to the cutting room floor.

As for Show don't Tell (because maybe I should just drop in today's subject while I'm still here) I think the meaning of the phrase is sometimes taken too literally. It's not that you can never tell things--and often you should, especially in comics where a few lines of dialogue can save you 20 pages of comics to draw. But, I think it's more about being succinct. If you have shown something--you don't have to describe it. Don't be redundant.

I think the hardest part about it is learning how to recognize it in the first place. Having a second pair of eyes really helps in pointing out areas that may be happening that have slipped past your notice. Hell I know I still do it all the time.

As far as exposition, I like to disguise it by just not revealing things that don't need to be revealed yet. Start as broad as possible for an exposition, and only dive deeper when it's required.

I heard an author say "don't spoil everything at once" and that's how I like to think about exposition. You invented it in order to make it as entertaining to reveal as possible. Sometimes the slow reveal of exposition is half the fun. There's a mystery to it.

Like I think a great example of exposition is Cowboy Bebop. You don't realize what's happened to Earth until kind of a ways into the anime. They slowly start revealing bits and pieces of lore about life in space and how bad things have gotten, so when you find out about Earth's history it's more of a satisfying "woah!" moment than "ya ok lets get through this prologue already, Earth had an incident, people moved to other parts of the solar system, yada yada" You don't want to spoil your exposition by just revealing it all at once.