Creators. how far ahead do you write your longform script?

[Elm]

An open question to all those writers/creators out there with more story-driven/long form comics. How far ahead do you plan out/write your comic/script? Do you write out/thumbnail your pages chapter by chapter or do you (if you have a webcomic with a foreseeable end) work out the fine details of the entire story first? If so, why? Are there pros or cons to this, or is it just simply how you work?

Quite simply, how many of you know where your comic is going?

I've been thinking about going chapter by chapter myself, as it's a little quicker for me. However, I do worry I may forget one or two details that end up throwing the whole story off. Or the flow throughout the comic would become awkward if I didn't look at it from beginning to end.

EDIT: Just to clarify aha, for myself when I say chapter by chapter I mean I have the general arcs planned out and a definitely rising action, climax and end. But I don't necessarily have all the individual beats or dialogue sorted out. This is something I'm ironing out chapter at a time. Regardless, this is a discussion so I'm interested in seeing what everyone else does ^^

[UzukiCheverie]

There shouldn't be a preference with this. As a creator who's worked with longform stories for a long time, going chapter to chapter will probably set you up for failure. Plan ahead. Know how things are going to tie together and end so that you don't end up with loose strings or plotholes. I did chapter-to-chapter back in my early writing days and looking back on those chapters I wrote, there's a lot of stuff that makes zero sense, doesn't tie in well, and is broken.

Plan ahead. It can be a pain at times, especially if you're not a strong writer, but you'll be saving yourself and your readers a lot of headaches in the future.

[joannekwan]

For me, I like to have a set script first before I draw any panels and these scripts usually cover the entire story because I like planning everything out and having a firm idea of where the plot is going from the get-go. Of course as I'm drawing and publishing pages I'll get new ideas and I'll insert them into the script. And since I only release one or two pages a week, I don't have to worry about burning through the script and story too quickly and I have time to edit scenes and dialogue before I draw.
For a couple of my series that I envision as more of an on-going thing like a TV series instead of a stand-alone graphic novel, I'll have multiple episode arcs scripted out.

In short, if a series does have an end, I like to plan how it will get there and map out all the major plot points. If a series is an on-going thing, I like to plan out episode arcs to make sure the characters don't become stale. Either way, I always plan ahead with scenes and dialogue before drawing anything.

[nocuddletime]

I have a pretty solid outline for the whole thing. I also have a couple of hundred scenes or rather "moments" that I have written in detail. Evernote and Scrivener help a lot with this.

As I have to draw everything page by page and have a full time job that prevents me from updating more than every week or so I always end up refining and rewriting and reordering things as I go. Which is scary but also pretty thrilling. I'm imagining it will all need a proper editing session when I get to the end.

[hierogriff]

I usually script the whole thing before I start drawing. But usually, what I write in the script and what actually goes into the comic tends to vary! Sometimes the changes are to introduce visual jokes, or maybe I figure out ways to tell the story better... but the plot points and plot details are all planned. At least, thats how Outside the Box is done. Case 3, baby. It's gonna be huge. Tell your friends.

[Raven_C]

I have a basic idea of what's going to happen. Like I know what scenes are gonna play out, but I just don't work out every single detail about it to its finest detail, especially not the script. To me, having every detail already planned out bores me, and I like my stories to be more organic, changing/throwing away/piecing together what works and what doesn't as I go. I especially think it's important to know a beginning and an end, then work on the middle in which I try to create enough room for revisions. I'm more invested in my project when I work this way. Script-wise, I try to be at least a chapter and a half ahead of what I'm currently putting out.

[eagle1]

How far ahead do you plan out/write your comic/script?

Years.

Seriously, I can't imagine writing a story page to page, let alone chapter to chapter. I can't even imagine how to write without knowing the ending before you start writing!

But one thing I have learned is that a lot of people think they can write that way. And unfortunately, I have read far too many stories on the web that felt like they were being written that way.

Have a plan, as another poster said. When I am reading, I don't want to feel like the writer is winging it, I want to feel like they have a plan. Also, some of the best literary devices such as foreshadowing don't work as well without a plotted and planned story.

Eagle
(It's not easy, but it works best in the long run)

[Elm]

I have a fairly planned out script, but not all the individuals beats/kinks have been worked out. But I definitely know the arcs aha, I was interested to see how many people fully detail it out and how many do not.

[allenthomas]

The beginning, middle, and end of my comic, Shadosassins, and all of its major plotpoints have already been planned. I've gone ahead and wrote the entire script for my comic, but aside from the key moments, they aren't set in stone. This is just to allow for some creativity when storyboarding and plannng panels. I too have wrote stories in the past with no direction and it simply doesn't work for me. At the very least you should know all major plot points and your ending before every deciding to put pen to paper (or however you make your comic). I envy anyone who can create a successful comic without planning the story ahead of time.

[Elm]

I see what you mean about writing blindly. I think in a case like that I see it working if you wrote the script chapter after chapter and then went back to edit all the disgraceful holes that you didn't see.

[Kura]

When I create a story I don't consider doing work on it as a comic until I have an end to the story. I'm not saying I have to have everything written out until the end, I'm still writing out the journey and experiences so to speak, I just know what the end of the series will be and that it will have one. Sometimes in concerns to to comics specifically, I try to have an alternate ending as well, one that unfortunately comes earlier than I would intend for if I find that I can no longer work on drawing the series anymore. It's not ideal and I would rather not use it, but it's there if I need to use it.

I also like to have major events at the least mapped out. I don't know what all these major events will be sometimes, but when I do know what they are I know how the story will get there, regardless of if the script is completely written to that point or not.

For the actual script it varies, but I always keep the writing ahead. Some series can be as little as 15 chapters ahead, others can range well into the 100's (the series that jump that far ahead though usually do so because I originally wrote the story as a novel series, and is currently being translated into a comic form) and sometimes 'written chapters' don't always translate into illustrated chapters, so some scripts end up being longer then one illustrated chapter, while others don't have enough content to make one comic chapter so I'll have to work with content from the next chapter to fix that.

For the thumbnail layout, I only work on those on a per chapter bases. I'll complete the layout and such for the chapter I intend to work on, but will not move onto the next chapter until it's done. Mostly to allow myself to improve art wise as I go through the series.

[Elm]

I agree with having the major plot points ordered and worked out. I guess it leaves space for you to breathe as you sort out the smaller beats that happen inbetween.

[elixiadragmire]

I'm similair-sih I have an outline for the whole thing, I have several chapters laid out in advance as plot points. as for scripts i tend to do those a chapter or 2 in advance. I know my beginning, my middle and my end very well plot wise.

same as you I can .... get bored of things if they're SET IN STONE but i like some stability in my direction I KNOW what needs to happen and where they need to go. Mannerisms and speech I like to RP out in my head a few times to get right before deciding on it in a script.

[sketchbooksage]

When you say you write the beginning,middle and end are you referring to your whole comic series or an episode?

[RiverKai]

I thought I might add that writing out a script allows you to foreshadow, which is one of the most intriguing pieces of good stories. Planning out the details aren't as important, and they likely will change. Sometimes most of the script can change or be fixed because a script isn't permanent. It's a tool to support you, and generally ease the stress of being both the author AND artist, which are pretty overwhelming jobs even by themselves.

[sketchbooksage]

Well I script the story at least 20-30 pages ahead of the comic pages, I don't set anything in stone because once it's time for me to actually draw the pages I find that I come up with something that I think works better than what I scripted a week or a month ago. Basically I put what I generally want to happen in the script knowing that it will change when it gets to the drawing phase. Usually when I start to draw a page I start out with rough thumbnails on one side of the page and some written script on the other side, I call it thumb scripting.

[alakotila]

For about a year I was doing the chapter by chapter business. I had an idea of where it would go, but I was pretty much exploring the characters and their rapport. I then traded critiques with a fellow comic creator and realised that … he was right, I needed to clean up my goals! I had also read something by another comic creator who said they scripted everything out and even knew how many pages a comic would be. I was floored. The page count! Does anyone else do this?

But I didn't quite go that far. I knew the main points, arcs, etc already. I had just been filling in the blanks as I went along. I used to write scripts by hand (and I do still write out those quick ideas in my notebook), but one day I happened to have my computer but not the notebook and I just began typing and never stopped. Somehow, within days, I had the entire script defined.

Sometimes a change in my routine can do that. That was probably the best feeling in the world, when I reached the end. I was floating around for days in this glorious haze like, I know where it ends. I have the end. Ah, natural comic highs.

Anyway, the whole thing is planned out. That doesn't mean I am not messing around with it every week! I move chapters around, cut some, add some, etc as it suits the needs of the story. I also have it set out in twine, which is software for making text games, because I can write out main points or things that need to be addressed and just move them around on the board to make sure I am not forgetting them (by accident). It helps me keep track of main points, events, actions and things that need to be revealed before such-and-such incident. (btw if anyone is curious about twine, it's free, you can get it here: http://twinery.org)

tl;dr: Whole script done. I edit very, very carefully about ten chapters in advance. I story-board chapter by chapter. End is absolutely set; other things may move as necessary!

[Elm]

Im referring to the whole comic series. It's the episode details that aren't fully sorted.

[AnnaLandin]

I have a very general outline spanning the entire story of Grassblades - from beginning to the very end. And by "very general", I mean my first chapter is summed up as follows - "Masahiro and Akane meet --> they go to town, he leaves her". That turned into 33 pages and got a BUNCH more details filled in and more stuff tacked onto the end once I sat down and actually started working on the chapter - but the outline is good to have, because it allows me to have an idea of where I'm going, and where each scene needs to end up.

But it's also so general that I can adapt it.

I mean, I know who each of the major characters are/will be, and I know where they'll show up in the story, and I know how everything ends. But I have creative freedom when it comes to HOW all of that stuff happens, and I'm free to add scenes or subtract scenes wherever I feel it's necessary.

I then script the story chapter by chapter; I decide which general notes of the outline should go into one single chapter, and then I sit down with a pencil and some paper and I start storyboarding and writing the dialogue together. I really can't write it all as just plain text and THEN do the storyboards; they kind of have to grow together for me.

This process allows me just the right amount of structure to keep me headed in the right direction, and just the right amount of structure to keep me from getting bored AND allowing me to fix things that weren't super-great in my outline (because you KNOW there are gonna be some of those; sometimes, we can't see the problems before you run into them). For example - I realised that I needed my secondary characters to show up a little more often to keep people from forgetting them, so there's a brand new scene in chapter four that doesn't exist in the outline, and there's another coming up in chapter... six, I think? Also, I can do a bunch of foreshadowing of stuff, because I know where we're going.

I also have a buffer of pages, so that I'm VERY far ahead of what's being posted online (55 pages ahead, at last count) - this means that once I finish drawing a chapter, I can go back and tweak and adapt the dialogue one last time, if that's necessary.

[SpavVy]

I don't write the ENTIRE story by script first because my mind does tend to change as I go along, I know what I want especially for the beginning, middle and ending. The way I make stories is well...I think a bit odd. When I do the writing it tends to change drastically in the storyboards and thumbnails, even though that does tend to happen I just use the script to give me a basic idea on what to do for the scenes. I guess I just write better by pictures shrugs