How do you feel about spoiling your own story?

[Van]

Or revealing plans on your social media

Sometimes I can't help myself but reveal redesigns, future character designs or hint at possible story plot points floating through my head.

At first I felt kinda bad about it, but then I realized, who cares? I don't really have fans yet and if it does change, who'd even get mad?

Nowadays I try to keep quiet about plots (because my mind keeps changing at a drop of a hat) but I still draw things that sort of spoil certain parts

[Crusoe]

I like secretly hinting at plotpoints, but I prefer keeping things under wraps, because in that case it's way more satisfying when my readers are surprised by plotpoints

[MegaRay]

Never. I don't even 'correct' people who get things wrong plot/story-wise in the comments section.

[TedGravesArt]

I try not to at all costs, even with posting concept art or preview images. I used to feel inclined to talk about the story to commenters when they'd guess at how things would go, but it's hard to talk about the plot, or even the world building without giving things away.

[therosesword]

Never. But then I'm a pantser so revealing something is counter productive, I may not go that way. The closest I've ever gone that way was to put up the first chapter of the second volume of my Bright Morn series at the end of the first volume. Even then, when I finally released it there were some small changes but nothing that made much of a difference. Just clean up.

I'm revamping the cover art but that's not a spoiler.

totally agree with @MegaRay

[BreakingChalk]

I try not to, but I kinda like it ¬u¬, but to stop me from spoiling everything I just put some subtle hints here and there to relieve myself.
Like Salamon using TNT.
Though it more or less came out of nowhere in Chapter 5 because I tried to stick to 32 pages for Chapter 2 (in which the TNT part was going to be mentioned and even used!), I put some TNT tubes here and there in Salamon's house or in Salamon's drawings there are some more here and there and about some other stuff:

[IndigoShirtProd]

I try to abstain from it. There's so much art work I want to make but feel like I can't because a character hasn't been introduced yet. I've given hints before but they're super subtle. I don't know, I just prefer if things are surprise even if it doesn't really matter.

[HGohwell]

I try not to, because I love the satisfaction of pulling off a major plot twist without having spoiled it and the reactions. I always feel so proud of myself. I'm also on the pantsier side of planning and then I feel awful for having revealed something that never happens because my plans changed. But also I'm actually awful for spoilers. I will spoil everything at the drop of a hat. I don't fret about it too much, because I think if the only thing going for a plot is the element of surprise, there's a problem, but I do try to avoid it if I can help myself. So I do things like have an unrelated friend to spoil things I'm excited for to, or spoil small thing that don't matter.

[freneticmind]

This is actually a funny question for me because I recently decided to do just that as a kind of advertisement on social media: (spoil something about the story that readers don't know in the beginning and won't for a while.) It actually drew more people to my story! Obviously, I didn't give away the ending or anything, just something exciting!

[freneticmind]

I try not to, but I kinda like it ¬u¬, but to stop me from spoiling everything I just put some subtle hints here and there to relieve myself.

I feel the same. It's hard to accept, but not everyone is as attached to my characters as I am right from the get-go. Just how it is. When people know they have something to look forward to (shrugs) sometimes it's fun for everyone. I love hints and foreshadowing like nobody's business.

[Legendofgenii]

If I don't talk about it or show my work etc. I'll explode.

My instagram and the Sketch a day thread (in the forum here) is full of spoilers. I used to be precious about it, but most of my readers aren't in the forum anyway.

I think it's good to get excited and share that enthusiasm with others.

[ar-ninetysix]

Much as I'd love to talk about it.. I've read a few studies that suggest talking about projects (or goals, really) before they're fully completed have the same psychological effect of talking about it when you're done for specific people. In other words, you trick your brain into thinking it's done so you lose the motivation to actually finish it. That's a struggle I've dealt with quite a bit, so I try my best to refrain from talking about it more than I have to.

It's not even about the spoilers for me at this point tbh, I just wanna be able to continue making my work lol

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Nobody will cares anyway for me.

[BreakingChalk]

Yes, it's hard to make people care for the characters, but the idea of "showing something that hasn't happened yet" kinda works, as you said in the other comment.

[HippieGhost]

It really depends on the spoiler and how severe it is. I like to leave a lot of foreshadowing in my stories, but it also depends on what I'm going for. Some stories are better as a "This is where X is, how did they get there?" and others are better as "The truth is in the details." The main I care about is making sure all the twists make sense.

[ble]

I have almost no social media presence, so less risk to spoil things there. My biggest audience is from webtoons.

I may post future stuff or things like that, but it would be mostly Patreon exclusive content, like early access episodes or W.I.P.

[CytricAcid]

anyone who follows me on social media right now probably knows the main relationship that's going to be the focus of my comic, as for how it concludes? not even i know, because our RP hasn't gotten there yet. lmao

there's only so much i can spoil, because its an RP adapation, and everyone who is a part of the RP knows what's going on, so i can't spoil it to them. that being said, people outside of the RP group just know vaguely about my characters and not why Edwin is a terrible person (we'll get there eventually) and it would be too much work to explain all the weird shit that goes on so i'm not TERRIBLY worried.

The one thing is that I don't know if i'll ever catch up to the RP with my comic or not. There's a lot of funny moments I want people to see but if I give up on the comic, all i'll ever be able to do is summarize the RP plot...

[Iris-Grimoire]

I WANT TO, but I don't want to have someone waltz into my twitter to follow future updates and just get their suspicions confirmed right away, so my lips are sealed. But not every spoiler - a character that gets introduced later, or a concept for a scene out of context, they're fine to draw if I have the time.

[OffBased]

I really want to since I’m excited about it, but I think about how it feels for me when I see people revealing stuff about their stories before they publish it. So often I’ll find cool OCs on Instagram with paragraphs about them and I’m like “cool... I guess?” I’d rather wait for them to post an actual comic or whatever so I can get to know that backstory for myself.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I won't be using social media like Instagram going forward, but I do often share new character designs. In my Discord and on the forums here.

By the time they appear in the comic, they've usually changed a lot since I'm a pantser, so I'm not worried they won't be fresh.

As for lore/world building I don't see the harm in sharing it really. It's not going to show up in the comic very much, so I'm not really spoiling any story elements. (Which do change a lot as well before actually appearing in canon)