How do you stop fretting about the beginning of your story?

[aqua03]

So as I've began work to work on the third remake of DRAGOONS, I realize I keep fretting over getting Chapter 1 100% right on the story front and it's kind of bumming out a bit. Like, I've got it mostly planned out and locked in, but there are some scenes I still keep going back and tweaking. (More specifically, the action climax that introduces the two main threats the heroes have to face as our heroine awakens her powers for the first time and gets the first taste of her true memories as a result.) Everything else I'm more or less satisfied with, but it's that kind of big part I keep fretting over, which leads to me fretting over the beginning of my comic in general on whether or not it's a good enough start for my comic.

So the question is the following: How did you guys stop fretting so much about the beginning of your comics? I mean, I've kind of accepted that the art's gonna be kinda shaky at the beginning as I find my footing on the style I want to go with. But I always still worry about the beginning of my story given that kind of is the main foundation and intro to my world, I'm afraid of turning people off with my stuff. (That, and I still sometimes worry that I've put too much of my eggs in one basket with the concept of Dragoons and wonder if anyone would be able to take a fantasy comic with sentai-esque elements starring avast of cute, animal-like characters seriously if you can understand that.)

[IndigoShirtProd]

What should I do for Chapter 1? [POLL] [EVERYONE LOVES POLLS!]

I see your struggle and your determination in the creation of DRAGOONS and I think it's time for you to. . . get away from the first chapter. I've been in your position before where you feel like if you don't get the first chapter right, you can't move on to the rest of your story. I think you're in the middle of a really bad cycle of continually tweaking the prologue and the first chapter. And for all I know you're almost done with fixing that part of the story, but if you're not and you fell like there's still a lot of work to be done, I think you should leave that to future aqua03. At the present, I think you should finish writing out the details of your first major story arc excluding the first chapter. When your done getting those details squared away, then you can go back to the first chapter and prologue and decide the best way to start your story. I'm afraid your going to burn yourself out again stressing about how to start DRAGOONS that you're never going to get to the rest of the story.

I know I said this before but. . .

Ok for me, when it came to writing out other chapters I just wanted to get on with the story. I had something to look forward to in later chapters so I wanted to let go of changing ch 1. Another part of it is realizing that no matter how much you think first Impressions matter or how perfect you want the first chapter to be, it doesn't matter that much. You're going to look back on your first chapter and hate it anyway regardless of how much you tweak it. A long form comic can't be made of the prologue alone. I understand wanting to tweak your first chapter, I'm redrawing my first chapter right now. But I also get that there's a limit to how much time I can spend on it. Even if I change the first chapter, my readers want to move on with the story and so should you. You need to give yourself a hard limit on how much time you can spend on the prologue and first chapter. How about one more major change per chapter and two more minor changes for now. Also as you move on with your chapters, you'll realize what necessary changes will need to be made in the earlier ones. We're all waiting for you to take the next step. I hope, for your sake, that it happens sooner rather than later.

[aqua03]

That sounds good. Thank you for the encouragement. I thankfully have the prologue ready and most of the chapter thumb nailed out, so I think I'll implement one major change like you said before finally going forward if that sounds good.

[aqua03]

Do you guys also think it might be a good idea to get a sort of "co-writer" or "accountability partner" for chapter 1? You know, someone to rein me in and put their foot down to tell me when enough's enough for me tweaking my stuff if that makes sense to you guys?

[IndigoShirtProd]

Yeah, getting a second person involved might be a good option.

[aqua03]

Thanks. Now to just find someone who would be up for the task... Might ask the small group of close friends I've built up here if they could help given that they've already given me some on and off feedback regarding my stuff before in the past if that makes sense.

[Rhonder]

I agree with Indigo on this one, or at least I wound up doing something similar for my comic. The whole idea was drafted around the climactic fight at the end of the arc- I knew that I wanted to have a main character using water working with another character who uses fire to create a giant steam bomb to thwart someone who uses vision based abilities.

That scene ended up happening around page 60, but was also the starting point and thing that I was most excited to get to. But then I had to work backwards to figure out the circumstances and how that fight would come to be. The treasure hunter vs. thief narrative was born out of a brainstorming session about what the source of conflict between the characters would be, so then I took another step back and said "how and what does the thief steal?" which set up the catalyst for the conflict, and then taking one more step back from there I worked out what had to happen first: I needed a snappy into sequence that quickly introduced the characters, their abilities, motivations, and weaknesses prior to setting up the conflict, because we needed to know who they were prior to them stepping into the spotlight some 20 pages later.

Granted, the writing for a short 70 page comic differs a lot potentially from a long form project, my need to quickly establish all of the characters like that was out of necessity of making the most out of my page real estate. But still, it was useful to have a big shiny scene waiting at the end of the tunnel that I was excited to get to, and thus pushed me to get started so I could work my way there. And at the same time, by knowing where I was going from the get-go, I was able to work backwards and figure out how to get there the most effectively. And if you still find yourself stumped with the figuring out part... you might just need to pick something and get on with it lol. Gotta get started or you'll never make it to the juicy parts.

[Hodge]

I'm afraid of turning people off with my stuff.

That fear means you're on the right track, its a good sign!

And uhh money and deadlines help haha.

But I agree, a co-writer or the like would be a good idea. I think I went through 8 versions of the first chapter for my current project. But with the help of my editor it felt like each time was an improvement. Eventually, you'll just grind through it enough times that you'll take the leap.

[droidmonkey1]

The best way to deal with this, in my opinion, is to understand that you'll never feel a 100% with your work.
from start to the end, you will feel you can do better. that's the double edge sword.
on one hand it's something that drives you to improve, but on the other hand, you can do too much by trying to fix your work even if it didn't need any fixing.
so relax take a deep breath, write any ideas you have on memo pads and arrange them like a puzzle or a mystery your trying to figure it out.
I found that by just writing it helps me. and think about it this way, there are more then 10,000,000,000 people in the world even if 1% of them will like your stuff then that's 100,000,000 people even if your trim it down more it is still a lot of people.

[rajillustration]

I changed the beginning of Alchemist Burnouts about...14 times when it was a script. And then when I decided to make it into a comic I changed it twice more when I realized I needed more action before I started posting it. And I'll probably end up revising it again, slowly, now I have posted it and realized how little action there was and how small I made that font. So I wasn't changing it because I was fretting, I was changing it because that's what happens when you write a book. The beginnings of books are usually hella polished vs the middles because they've been rewritten like...so much. You're not alone.

The nice thing about webcomics is that they're fluid. If it's not working, you can change it, but sometimes you don't know if it's not working until you post it or show it to other people you trust. Tapas can be a real furnace fire for comics, in that you do have to put iron into a fire to turn it into a beautiful sword, but...it does mean it may start out looking like a lump of metal and maybe take a heavy beating before it becomes something beautiful.

My advice is that if it feels just really bad and if something feels really off, is to put down your art supplies and keep writing the script beyond this point without looking back and revising until you've finished the script for the whole story or until you have the "aha!" moment of what to do for ch 1. It could be that you don't know how to do the beginning because the middle or the ending hasn't been fully formed yet. Stories are like knitting, with interwoven loops, and if any loops are left hanging because it was never written or thought out, it will undo the entire piece all the way down to the beginning. This may be a sixth sense that you're feeling that...it's still in the scripting stages.

And like, every comic artist is different. Some comic makers can make a story one chapter at a time without a fully finished script. I don't know how they sleep at night. We're all different.

[darthmongoose]

I know I've been giving thoughts and feedback on the manuscript already, but I wanted to discuss here some stuff about the process of planning and making a piece of media because I think a lot of webcomic creators who haven't seen what it's like behind the scenes on bigger productions feel like they're the only ones struggling and that more experienced or pro creators have a smoother process, and it's actually the opposite.

In my day job, I work for a startup kids media company building a new IP around a series of books plus a limited run of online-exclusive episodes of animation with cartoon network. It has taken about TWO YEARS to get the book to the point where it's in the final tweaking stage to go to print, and the animated series to finally have the pilot in production, and details still keep being revised (and note, this book is not long, an adult can read it in about an hour). The manuscript has been jiggled around a lot, with loads of scenes being changed, removed or moved around, and it's been looked over by a bunch of editors, writers, tech experts, sensitivity readers etc. multiple times.

It is perfectly normal for the writing to take a lot of planning. I put in loads of planning work on Errant on both the story and the art. I'm on like.... draft 6 of the story, and the leadup to the comic I actually did a bunch of experiments on the style behind the scenes that have different inking and colouring styles and ways to use the colour palette and do shading etc (Also Urien's hair colour changed because that lilac really wasn't working):

One of the differences between making TV or movies and making animation,comics and other drawn media, is that you can't just roll the cameras while the actors are there, then prune it down because every drawing adds a lot of effort, so making finished, polished content only to cut it is a huge waste of resources. This means you can't necessarily save the movie in the edit like Marcia Lucas did to Star Wars after its disastrous preview screenings, but rather you have to edit before you draw for the best result.

I think spending years is overkill, but I've painted myself into corners with my webcomics in the past or seen my readers get confused about what happened or why, or complain about disappointing payoff to the setup or poor pacing, and if a few weeks of making and checking drafts can help me iron out those problems before I put all the effort into drawing it, I think that's preferable.

[joannekwan]

You have to learn to

NOTHING is perfect. Not even Elsa's braid that phases through her arm.
Especially debut and sophomoric works, you'll only get better if you go forward. Don't retread something until it's buried under a layer of mud in the ground. Press on forward, complete a full script. Chances are, at the end of your story, you realize what may be lacking in the beginning and then you can go back and polish the start.

Someday you might look back and lament how much time you've sunk into overthinking the beginning of a story.

[unknown_user]

I don't. I'm still fretting about the beginning of my story...
...but desire to continue the story further is more strong, than to remake the beginning. So, sometimes I return to fix some art aspects of the beginning, but put the most of the work into continuing the story. Just according to my priorities.
When I want to put too much time into rework the beginning, I say myself: fine, but in this case, who'll continue the story? I already did something here; now it's time to draw and tell something new. Both me and my readers are waiting for the continuation! Maybe I return and fix beginning's problems in the future, but only after I'll show this, and this, and this scene after the current point of the plot... The knowledge, that I can return to the beginning any time, but I have developing the story in priority, helps me to worry less. Also, I hold myself from remaking all the story from scratch, because it'll postpone it's developing even further!
So, I'd suggest to sit down, think thoughtfully and establish your own priorities, and then always remember about them. This may mitigate this problem and give you more clear direction to go...

[DiegoPalacios]

I try to keep it simple. After planning the general direction of my story i focus on the essentials of the story.

See what readers need to know in the beginning and what can or must be revealed later. You don`t want to overwhelm them with info.

In the case of the beginning, the main goal would be establishing the main conflict, main characters and getting readers emotionally invested in the plot and characters.

If you wanna do early cameos and foreshadowing go for it, but dont overthink it. Worst case scenario, you can add those hints later if you realize are neccesary.

[HGohwell]

Honestly, just stop worrying about it. In many way "you gotta hook the reader in the first 5 seconds" is outdated advice. Look at how many shows have ridiculously slow/bad first episodes or even first five minutes and then make it huge. Look at how many webcomics start with iffy art. Look at how many (especially long running) manga/anime are just kinda weird in their first one or two dozen chapters before they get it down. Especially theses days when I'm not in a book store about to spend upto £15 maybe more on a book so it'd better be good. Webcomics are (mostly) free. They often come on recommendations. The way Tapas works you get to see the latest episodes before the first episodes anyway. The best way is to have everything planned out perfectly so your start is full of foreshadowing ect but honestly, if you don't ever get past the start you're never going to have anything to show. Done is better than perfect. If you can't let go and just do it you're still going to be fretting over your perfect start on your deathbed at 100 and something and never actually produced anything.

[aqua03]

Thanks for all the help guys, I think I'll keep working on what I currently have given that I'm pretty satisfied with what I have apart from that one action scene at the end for Chapter 1.

[arcojawa]

I'm sure there'll be a lot of optimistic responses for your question... which makes me a little nervous that I'm about to offer a less-then-happy take on it.

I've been writing comics since I was young and, perhaps unsurprisingly, my early attempts were haphazard and all-over-the-place. I was pretty hyper-creative when I was younger which ended up being less helpful and more counter-productive then you might think.
I worked for a long time on a fantasy/sci-fi that I had been writing since I had been maybe 8 or 9 years old. I was constantly having ideas for how to making more dramatic! More varied! More everything!.......... which made it more confusing, gave it more plot-holes, and forced me to restart the comic over and over again when I realized what I had added made the comic just... not work.
... The comic was my little baby... the story I had been writing since childhood. And because of that I stuck with it for much longer then I probably should have. And when I finally dropped it it stung a bit, the realization that it was just too much of a mess to continue and I really needed to move on to more concrete and thought-out stories.
I stopped writing for a while after that. I guess leaving that story behind made me kind of sad.... but.... it was probably for the best. Maybe someday I'll revisit that old comic when current projects have settled my writing style a bit.

[aqua03]

Okay, so here's the new plan I think. I think I might chop up the original plan for Chapter 1 into ".5" chapters that would a serial of sorts in between main chapters if that makes sense. (I.E. the first .5 chapter would be Zephyr finding Selena on the beach and taking her in, the next Mini chapter would be Selena getting used to her new home and discovering her powers, next mini chapter would be her training with said powers, next one would be her fighting against her fist monster after awakening her Dragoon powers, etc until I've burn through the original Chapter 1.) Does that make sense and sound like a good idea to you guys?

[JRHoch]

Now, when I go to sleep, I dream of Dragoons. Help me...

[aqua03]

Wait, what? Seriously?