How do you come up with and solidify lore for your comic?

[aqua03]

So I've been working on Drachenseele and i wrote down a general idea of the lore and backstory of the world and I like it, but some things are still needing to be finalized and refined. Which got me wondering, how do you come up with and finalize the backstory of your worlds enough to finally build off of them proper?

Sometimes I wonder if I might be overcomplicating things in general or part of that mindset I've been working on kicking down that things gotta be "Perfect" to work on it or something similar to that maybe.

Maybe I'm wondering if the "Fantasy, but also later on it's revealed to be sci-fi" might not be the right direction to go for my story either. Or maybe I'm just overcomplicating and overthinking things again for myself. I'm not sure.

How did you guys finalize and refine the ideas for your world's backstory and lore and mechanics for your comics?

Thanks again for the help.

[f0nkart]

Id say try finding someone you can throw ideas and explain the lore/plot points you're struggling with to. When actually going through the process of trying to explain your story to someone who doesn't have any prior context to it, it can help you detangle some of the knots that might form when setting up lore and backstory.

Also to your description specifically, "fantasy that turns out more scifi" isn't a bad idea, but what can help is knowing where in the story that reveal is shown p, this way you can build the enviroment and like.. lore around the situations of your characters so that the "reveal" is more impactful, if that makes any sense.

Not sure if this helps, hope it does.

[Wocalich]

I thought and planned a lot with "Psetha" but that got me writer's block so I'm completely winging it this time with "In Love with the Alpha".
I suggest figuring out whether you're a planner or a pantser and not forcing it if you can't plan. Or else, you might get writer's block like me.

[Dane_Sherbet]

I wouldn't worry too much. I have stories that I planned and stories that I just threw together and readers can't tell the difference. As long as it's not wildly contradictory it'll slide.

[silacinnamon]

I don't have a "real" lore for my story, but I have some vague versions of what some cultures/religions believe about the world's creation, etc. I just tried to write a few pages to keep it short and shared it with a couple friends to ask their opinions, trying to explain your ideas to someone else is a great way to develop them ^^

For making magic mechanics and such I also like to write as if I'm explaining it to someone, I keep a notebook just for worldbuilding that's like a manual I wrote for myself lol But I decided to start my comic even without having everything 100% perfect, or else I would never start.

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

My comic is fairly lore light, but it does take place in a world populated by animal people and some pretty far out monsters. I’d say it’s about half sitting down to write things out. The other half is improvisation based on artwork or dialogue from the comic. I’ll ask myself “well if this happened or this thing exists what does that imply about the world of this story?”.

[rajillustration]

When I post a comic or post a story to the internet, I generally have it really planned out and the script is fully finished--but when I'm just writing drafts, I'm hella pantsing it and making it up as I go. Sometimes you just have to try stuff to see what stuff needs to stay and what needs to go.

[CosmicLeon]

I spend a lot of time thinking about my world, and researching things that i want to add into it. I also like to think about the religions and politics of those worlds (if i am making my world separate from reality). Things i usually make sure I understand in my world background it their law system, and social stigmas or acceptances, and cultural motifs. Honestly motifs are really nice to make a city look like it all belongs together, so I just have a ref. sheet on the side to look at. I also ref. real world cultures to get a basis on how they behave and think. Then i take that though process and ask the same questions about my world. like: what is more important to the people; self identity, conformity, acceptance, etc... then pick. or What are the people's views on ______ topic? And then try to answer that.
If you are wondering about the fantasy to sci-fi i would suggest asking yourself if it feels weird. if it does, i would not go that route. if you do, make sure that there is plenty of story connections to the sudden change.
As far as finalizing stories concepts, I usually do what i feel is right. I know that might feel vague, but i think it just clicks. I don't know how else to explain it. But you can use your characters as a foundation for the world, by understanding where they come from.

I'm sorry this is all over the place. I'm having a really hard time organizing my thoughts on this. But i hope it help a little.

[TheGentleArtist]

I pretty much just think about the basic stuff and go from Point A to Point D; in between, I add in some interesting fluffs here and there that flow naturally and has the story be more compelling. It is also good to run ideas by a friend so you can have some pointers.

[jjfresh]

If it's just a fantasy world it's a stream of consciousness, based around a theme, if any (ie medieval world, cyberpunk). For me I just let my mind go wild for a bit. But when you have a story in mind, you need to focus on the story and how the world you created guides the viewer through the story.

A common thing a beginner may do is get so caught up in the religion of their world, that it either steers them off their main plot, or bores viewers with unnecessary details. Or overwhelms readers with a tsunami of details when they barely get to meet the protagonist.

You want the readers to explore the world through the classic "Show, don't tell" concept whilst being immersed in the plot.

So, I just let me mind run wild before connecting all the pieces of the universe I created to fit into the plot (let's say, a boy searching for excalibur or smth)

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If we want something more commonplace, I imagine the world will be our world so you can skip all the religion and government structure (unless it pertains to those topics). And build the lore of the characters and their surrounding community to the story (ie, a shy LGBT+ kid, a group of friends who fell apart after x happened)

I know it's hard to share ideas clearly but I mostly think off my head that will build the plot, taking notes as needed (like a messy psychopath-like collage of words on printer paper). Taking influence from real life as well, and friends as @thegreatartisan points out.
Then, I organize it into a specific format I use for my stories. And get into gritty details (synopsis, thumbnails, dialogue, then the actual pages)

But you will have to find the style that works best for you.

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TLDR for my graduate thesis up there,
You want your viewer to take interest and be able to immerse themselves in your world BUT alongside the main story. Though there's different approaches, I'm a big believer of the story driving the world you create.

[ExodusGuard]

Probably good to note that 95% of the lore won't be explicitly mentioned in the script/story/plot. It's nice to know the backstory of the characters and the world, but it's not extremely important to have every single detail filled out. If you find you need a certain piece of information, come up with it when you get to the section of the story that needs it. Also need to consider if that snippet of lore is important enough to the reader's understanding for you to include it.

Other than that, you can always sneak in bits of lore organically through locations, signposts, random chatter from the townsfolk, etc.

If you want to know what sort of lore I have, I have a "lore book" basically. It's a google doc with a 3000-year timeline that lists some of the major events that lead up to the start of my novel. Then character bios, location information, and different types of weapons, items, and mystical objects. Then there's miscellaneous things like religion, political structure, and other topics like that. None of this stuff is necessary. I just did it for fun

My advice would to only build the lore if you need it. If not, just go ahead and write the story/outline.

[ScarletDemon]

I always form an entirely separate document for every story I write that is an outline of everything the story contains: the story itself, character bios, various systems like magic or tech depending on the genre, various abilities and what characters can do and a large section is usually towards lore or something along those lines. Keeping all of the lore organized in some kind of system always helps: bulleted lists, flow charts, any system is fine, just keeping everything conclusive and as orderly as possible makes sure you don't stray or have to read through your own work to find the answer. I have stories where I've had to come up with entire pantheons of gods/goddesses of multiple religions, my novel Sky Garden has a heavy hand in the plot with the importance of religion to the characters and there are many diverse religions that I had to build, form and make as I needed and wanted. I sectioned them all up into smaller things to make is easier for me to keep it all right and together. Experiment with various methods and find what works best for you.

[steffiemusings]

I look for worldbuilding questions and use them to help with my lore. They helped me greatly.

[nostalgicroxas]

For me it's a process that I explain a bit here https://forums.tapas.io/t/lets-share-our-story-building-tools-spoilers/48287 but generally how I work is I have a central.. idea... Like does the world have or not have magic. Is it conventional magic, a scientific advancement of our current technology that could act like magic, or something else (religious). Then I just sort of build off that. Some ideas are more vague like "this soul of this type born into a weaker body does x, but cannot do y or z".
For NTN a lot of it's initial structure came about before writing, and then at some point I worked on the timelines (somewhere around ch35 i think?) and was able to really go farther. I had already been on the lookout for a map generator, and with that happening, I was just able to get it done.
I will admit that some of my older ideas are inspired by lore or pieces of lore I run away with myself, gotten from various mythos around our planet.

[Juas]

Well in my case what I did with a book I wrote is that I used a world I created for a Role Playing Game, I worked the whole quarantine non-stop on that worldbuilding, did the maps, the creatures, the races and all their traits, the artifacts, the different planes of existance and so on, the world is unfinnished but I started play testing it with a few friends and a good story came out from it, that inspired me to write it all down in Word in a novel format, I loved the experience so much that I decided to write a whole novel based in this world, but I took some characters I already had created some years ago, I made those characters have desires, needs, flaws and strenghts and embarked them into a quest, with that in mind the story was improvised, I only had the beginning and the end.
That was what most worked for me so to summarize I would say, first do the characters, then the world, then the story.

[aqua03]

That's neat. What are some questions that worked the best for you?

[Mobby]

make a solid timeline and fit the plot into the timeline. then pick what information is useful to the story and what information isn't how early you start building a character and if you'll be giving hints before they are introduced.
The Lore often involves useless information tbh it doesn't matter as long as it's introduced properly.
the Idea is to organise it in a plan and if you can't your lore isn't solid so go back and work on it then try again
you need to ask yourself when why and how things happen
I hope this was useful !
Have a great day !

[jcmraz]

It's been an over time process. I had a few ideas that I smashed together and fiddled with until it felt right. Certain aspects behind the scenes are still in flux. I basically keep everything just loose enough to fiddle with it until I work on the art for it. I have a lot of background thought processes that also may never be actively explored in the comic. But they're things to influence the aesthetic and some other details about the world. Like in Runner, I know almost EXACTLY how the mana works and why. But I don't think I like what it does to the story if I reveal it. So I'm keeping it more lofty and unexplained. Which makes sense anyway because basically none of the characters know. If you explain everything in your head you get a star wars midichlorians effect where people think it's just a stupid explanation for something that should be left as vague or mystical based on the type of story that star wars tells.