Comic pacing in webcomic

My advice: write the script and draw a storyboard/guide of a whole part of the story/chapter before actually drawing the pages. Don't work every page from scratch. You're making a long story, and those work much better if you have everything clear before you start drawing. It sounds boring and a bit unnecessary, but trust me, unless you're a script genius it's the best way to get the pacing right. I may not be the best at drawing, but I've written lots of scripts and stories.

For The Lonely Moon I have a text doc where I wrote down every single important thing that needs to happen to reach the end of the story, in a very simplified way (ex: girl arrives, meets boy, they meet x character, this other thing happens, the planet explodes, everybody die). It doesn't have to be pretty or too detailed, you're the only one who's going to read it. It really helps you write each scene if you know exactly what's going to happen next and how soon, or how far you are from a certain important moment. For example, if your character is a happy-go-lucky boy and by the time he meets a certain other character you need him to have matured a bit or something, you'll know exactly how much time you have before the meeting and you can pace the character development accordingly.

Whit that file all nice and ready (not really nice, you'll change things, move them around, add things, remove others, it's a changing text file! But the main skeleton will ideally stay there), you can start writing the script. You can do it movie-style and just write the dialogues and explanations of what's going on (again, only you will see this so even if you write it terribly messy as long as you understand it it's ok), or if you want to have better control, just draw a really rough storyboard. But don't do it page by page, do the whole chapter or at least a big group of pages (10 or more, for a really long story).

I used to just draw every page without much previous planning for my earlier comics. It works, but on the long run it gets messy. And you suffer stupid writer blocks more often. I started working the way I just mentioned when I started translating my works into English; since I needed help with the translation, I got used to writing whole chapters and then sent them to my translator and/or beta reader, to give her time to work. And what do you know, it helped me too.

Maybe you're already working with storyboards or scripts, but I really suggest having the big skeleton thing written down too. Even if you already know your whole story and everything that's going to happen. Trust me, it's really different to have it only on your mind than seeing it all written down in order.

Hope it helps somehow, sorry for the lame English

This matches my process pretty well too. I work out a general outline, then script, although I do do the script page by page. After I have that basic script, I set it aside for at least a week. Before coming back to it and doing a rewrite. Repeat until you're happy with the pacing.

One big difference, I can't say no one else is going to see it. Now I hand it off to the artist. They will have their own ideas on pacing, etc., and may change a few things, though i have to approve. I usually do as this is a visual medium and they are artists, not me.

Yeah, it's a bit different when you're writing for someone else. I've written scripts for other artists. Sometimes I just hand them the script and do as you said, I give the artist freedom to move things around if they want as long as we can talk about changes and discuss them together. But other artists have asked me for a storyboard, and even though I have also told them on these cases that they have freedom to change things a bit if they like, they rarely do. So I end up having to make more elaborate storyboards in these cases (mine are just waaaay too messy for another artist to work comfortably with them). So yes, in my case there is a bit of difference between something I'm doing that only I will see and something that someone else is also going to see. If you have a partner in crime, you have to be more clear and explicit.

I have found that the medium affects the pacing. For example, our webcomic is paced in such a way that it page breaks are meant to bring people back in. When I wrote a straight out self contained GN it was very different because I knew people would be reading it one sitting. I thought it was interesting how they different presentations created different pacing issues.

But for the webcomic, we do try to end on some kind of beat until the next update. I know it is hard for readers sometimes (they say so) because they just want the next page and it takes a while to get to it. I kind of like doing the self-contained stories that would be in one book (as a reader) because you don't have to constantly stop and come back. It is kind of the issue with doing a webcomic. Even if you write it all out before you start, you still have the time gap in between pages and just the nature of webcomics and updates can create pacing issues.

@lira @bpotts
I've just been storyboarding without scripting and I think this has made me stop and really sit down and script it out before taking it to the next level. So thanks to all the people who shared their tips here and @elixiadragmire for sharing the topic

I think my writing has probably been sort of webcomic oriented. I use a dense panel count, which makes the scenes fewer pages, and try to end each scene at the end of a page. So with most scenes being one or two pages long, many of my episodes are complete scenes or complete a scene.

It better if it quality pages, quenching for thirst of readcan be difficult if the author/artist always busy with their life. Though it's understandable that now people depends on the internet for quick pace and simple technology. In other words people are too lazy to even go to the store to buy the books. Rather order it from amazon or eBay. Just what ever works for you fast or slow readers will just love the the web comic as long as it stays awesome.

A lot of readers binge read in any case, coming back only every few weeks, even months and reading several pages at once. At that point, it almost becomes a print comic from a reading perspective.

I agree with @lira. Writting a whole part of the story helps you a lot (for long stories, not strips or 4-koma). You know where to go when your do your storyboards, and of course, you can figure out how you'll make your pacing interesting. It is true that the reader must something to ask himself/herself about your story, so that they will continue to read your webcomic.
Sketching the whole chapter helps a lot too : you see that sometimes, your panels don't show the feelings you wanted to put into, or it lacks of everything. Or you see that what you wrote in the script doesn't work. It happens.

Personnally, I've worked my whole story before scripting chapters. Then I draw a storyboard of an entire chapter before going to another. That's how I see when pages don't work, so I retake them and work on them again !
I didn't do this before, and it was a real problem. I didn't see that I went wrong on some pages. I rushed some little things that didn't need to be rushed.
Then, I'm trying to always have one page foward the publication, in case I have a problem and I can't upload a page. A page per week is a good ratio, because it depends of what you do beside it (if you work, if you're a student, etc...)/

Well, it also depends on the comic, my comic is structured very much like a regular print comic, so it can be a little dense. There are a lot of other comics on Tapastic that are long, but they were also designed for the web and breathe better visually.

I had a look at Silversong (which is quite pretty!) and I think it works perfectly fine.

That's the joy of comics, though. The reader ultimately decides the pacing. I always think my pacing is too slow (my comic here5) because it takes forever to make but when I read through it's about right. Try sketching thumbnails of the pages and then stapling them together in book format. Then, give that a read through to get a feel for how the reader will see it.

hmmmm I guess it's hard to keep readers waiting on a particular page to advance the plot >.< tough decision

I've been told the pacing in my Webcomic is pretty good so I guess that's worth something in this thread?

This is all from my own personal opinion and how I treat my webcomic but the thing I keep at the forefront of my mind is that when I'm telling something it's telling me xx amount of time to tell it or show it.

For example I've seen a Webcomic that was designed to be printed have 3 pages worth of scene setting, literally pretty much just panning and zooming around the scene, they updated once a week meaning that it took almost a month to set the scene.

The other thing to keep in mind that even if your pacing is a little slow as long as the journey between plot points is engaging it more than makes up for it (IE. teaching people about the characters or the world)

I seem to have this problem too hehehe I get caught up in drawing out a scene for too long! though yes I already have a storyboard in place with the layout of each pages but sometimes I don't know but I feel that it's a shame if I put in a lot action in one page... anyway it's not like it's in print format that I should be weary of the number of pages in relation to the cost... but yes I agree to what most of you said, I must learn how to make each episode linger long to keep the hype up...