For Folks in the WIP Stages

[VibrantFox]

So I'm currently in the scripting/outlining part of my story and thought it'd be nice to have a shared thread for folks in the same part of their process

Ideally what I'm looking to do with the thread is create a space for body doubling or parallel play. Ideally folks can pop in if their working on something and check in with progress updates or questions if they have any

The only rule is that questions are limited to no more than 2 a day per individual. The option to open up for more may happen so long as folks are civil in their questions and clear in what it is their looking for. Follow up questions are allowed but try to stay on topic as best you can and be clear in how you ask and what your intents are that way we can avoid confusion and frustration and keep things positive and productive

This is an experiment more than anything since I've not really done this kind of thing online and honestly i feel like this sort of things is probably usually relegated to a discord server or something but I'm trying it here anyways.

[also if anyone would like to shift this to a better topic category please feel free. I've just put this into the art/comics category since the stories I'm outlining are going to be comics]

[VibrantFox]

wanna note i won't be chiming in with progress updates today (and possibly tomorrow) since i'm working on a commission but i am open to checking in on others or answering questions, just be patient if you @ me and i don't respond quickly ^^;;

[darthmongoose]

Might be a good thread to keep me motivated!

I'm currently in the outlining and concept stages of a Middle Grade (age 8-12 or so) Graphic Novel. I have a pretty decent outline where most of the plot points line up and the themes and things feel solid, and now I have to do all this nitty-gritty filling in stuff, and make sure I can tell the story in a standalone book. It's a little daunting! I've made short comics (4-20 pages) before, and long-running comics, but this is my first time trying to plot out a standalone graphic novel to pitch that isn't a series or an adaptation of something. I've left some hooks for a sequel, but it's largely a self-contained story, which has been challenging (because I love complex characters and storylines!).

Here's how many post-its on a virtual whiteboard ended up making up the overview (this was the third draft! ):

Now I just have to kind of script and/or thumbnail it out.

Fingers crossed I can get the pagecount in some kind of reasonable number...

[Freemints30]

This sounds like a lovely idea, I'll try first. I'm more trying to adapt my novel into a comic, so its both rearranging my writing into a script formate and actually drawing it lol. I did finish draw at least the prologue

I kinda like still fency about that fact Its more in a page formate than scroll, so making sure it looks good on phones is like a difficulty. I did intially wanted to do scroll. But I prefer drawing as page especially in thumbnailing

[Nugtown]

This looks neat. What's the program called?

[LouisWinter]

I would like to see how other layout their stories because I'm going through my mines 50/50.

[VibrantFox]

for sake of simplicity i've been working on the "skeleton" of my outline mapping things out in a linear timeline so it's essentially something like

-MC is introduced along with their motivations (leaving home and becoming an adventurer)
-MC sets off on their adventure and encounters supporting character
-MC and SC take on a job quest together
-MC and SC fight their first monster together

and then carries on from there

on top of that i'll likely plug in extra notes elaborating on how certain scenes play out or if there's any extra info i want to put in but for the most part it's nothing fancy just something clear enough that i can go back to for reference when it's time for me to script and thumbnail things

[thepenmonster]

Apologies for the chicken scratch writing. I numbered the panels if you want to strain your eyes reading it. I can translate it from Chicken to English if you wish.

I'm currently in the stage where I'm trying to add more character building moments and world building to the story I already have because I felt what I wrote was pretty thin. The characters were secondary to hitting plot beat 1, beat 2, beat 3, etc...

The above comes after a chase sequence. The short character gets to his safe house and says, "Ditched her." only to have the tall one loom out of the darkness and say, "Nope." Originally I left it at that but I felt it portrayed the taller character as some superhero badass trope which is something I'm trying to avoid in the story. Thus this bit to show that sane folks aren't always spoiling for a fight.

I've been trying to use my spare time I work on this script & thumbnails. Hopefully I'll have more free time soon but in this economy I'll be 79 before I have it. Hopefully it works. It works for me but I'm also the guy who wrote it.

[thepenmonster]

I did intially wanted to do scroll. But I prefer drawing as page especially in thumbnailing

I find that classic dead tree formatting does make for a far better paced comic than the eternal scroll of the webtoon. But since very few webtoon readers actually pay attention to the comic as they rapid scroll it might work against you if you put them all together. Perhaps posting a page a day?

Caveat: I don't know how you're posting now so forgive me if you're already ahead of me on this.

Here's how many post-its on a virtual whiteboard ended up making up the overview

Could you explain this method to me? The top row is plot beats and the posts below them are notes for characterisation? Or is it something else entirely?

[Freemints30]

It is still a work in progress so no worries. and also yeah I may just limit myself to two or one pages per update past the prologue. At least for my own sake cus I got a day job to do .

The panels have thier own folders I can convert them to a sorta pseudo scroll formate when I post on webtoons If I feel the need to, cus I noticed page formatting seems to have thier place on tapas and else where but on webtoons I noticed alot of creators who does pages convert to scroll on there

[Lensing]

This is a very interesting topic for me because I love seeing how other people write their stories and
to learn from them / discover methods.

I only write down a few things. When I come up with a good name for a character, company name etc
Everything else just happens in my head and in sketches. I create the characters in my head and I sketch
them. The same for the story. I do very fast sketches and then connect the parts. This is all long before
thumbnails, it´s just the wip / planning stage of the comic.

Here is an example how this looks like. Opening scene of one character cooking canned vegan raviolis and
the other character visiting him. Character having flashback to explain the relationship between the 2 characters.
The last panel is an elevator and I already have the story in my head which happens after the elevator scene.
The next thing I do is to decide if I sketch the elevator story or what happens in between the flashback and
the elevator scene or if I write another chapter in my head.
This method works well for me.

[darthmongoose]

This looks neat. What's the program called?

It's Miro! There's a site and an app for it. My partner uses it at work for UX design, and now we use it at home for just about anything we need to plan. I planned the print book and kickstater for Errant Book 1 on there, and it was really handy because you can post links, images, shapes, text, post-its and stuff and just move around a big board.

[river121693]

Its super cool to see how people outline.

I'm in the process of rewriting my story after "letting it sit" for a year. My process is to established an arc for each characters. Then I come up with important story beats and free write the rest to fit to the arc.

Now that it's been a year, I'm trying to cut out anything unnecessary and combine characters so nothing is redundant. The hardest part for me is to forget the old plots and see if there are any better potential plots.

This is my notes on character arcs on google doc, with a few chapter summaries already written. I have an over arching plot for the protagonist. But wthin each story arcs are also smaller character arcs.

[system]

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