How do you “write” your stories?

As crazy as this sounds, I usually write the entire story in prose first. After editing this, that is when I consider what I want my art style to be like. For example for one I decided ahead of time I wanted to do Charcoal.

I also tend to do thumbnails, even if I later on decide on a different layout. This provides me a basic starting point to work from. I still have the thirty two thumbnails of my uploaded story, that I used as the base for the story I'm currently working on.

I've always found thumb-nailing to be a great outlining method, since I think in pictures anyway.

I usually get the idea (the plot). Then I think about how the story is going to develop, which happens during shower or walking in circles in my room (I know, this is so sad). With the events still fresh in my head I do the sketch pages on a paper. With the drawings ready, it's time to polish the dialogs.
I usually try to be very careful about what to write, because things on my story are very interconnected (kind like Lost TV show).+
PS: As I don't write any notes, I usually forget about lots of interesting stuff to do. =p

Something I'm experimenting with at the moment, writing a script based on lines in a poem. Then use thumbnail sketches to sketch out the rough version. Then I simply need to transfer them into a cohesive whole.

I guess my reasoning is, as the cliche goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words.

It's not crazy. A good thought out story is great to have. Everyone has some sort of process and I have to agree-- if you can draw different ways it can help with how the story is seen.

... How can that be sad? I think about my stories and pace too. It is good to get some blood flow to the brain since it will help. When I do notes and my process I take small breaks to eat, go for a short walk, do laundry, make dinner, or play a game. To reset your thought process helps keep it fresh longer. ^__^

Just something I've noted to, unlike when I write prose, using a completely text-based script for whatever reason has never been intuitive to me. I feel like I have to draw it before I draw it.

Burning Bright2 was originally going to be a novel, and about half the story was written out in prose before I decided I'd rather make it into a webcomic. I took some time to convert it into script form after that.

My issue with writing anything is powering through the (let's say) "less exciting" parts, so one thing I've discovered that has helped is if I ever get stuck, or if I feel like my writing is just dragging on, I'll stop everything and go write a scene or a part that is farther along the plot line. This has actually really helped me with character and plot development - because sometimes I will rewrite these scenes or parts over and over until it's exactly how I wanted it to be, and then it can really help get out of a writers' block if you have a better sense of where you want the story to go!

I know it seems like a very unnecessary and complicated way of writing, but it can be a lot of fun!

I'm no comedian, but for someone who's comic has a comedy based agenda, I find myself going in a cycle.
- First, an idea creeps up on me in the night.
- I write down and perfect it the next day.
- I look at it again a week later,
realize it isn't as funny as I thought.
- And delete it.
- ...rinse repeat.

I have a long, SECRET process! Don't tell anyone now...

Like everyone else, I picture what I want in mind. For example, my webcomic Beautiful Lies1. To begin with, I write a synopsis of the comic. I need to know the premise, the summary, characters, settings, and so on. Then I think of the chapters. This part takes a while because I'm already trying to figure out what I want to happen in the story before actually writing it out. But once I decided, okay I want say 10 chapters, I write a synopsis of each chapter.

Finally, I use each outline of the chapters to draw my thumbnails. The outlines of the chapters help me remember what I wanted to do. I'm busy with college and work and so much outside factors. While I am drawing my thumbnails, I am also writing the script for each page so I don't forget what they say. This also takes a long time.

Lastly, I draw the actual pages. Most of my pages for Beautiful Lies are digital so that is another process but some pages are done traditionally.

I use Google Drive to write and organize most of my comics. I can get to it from any computer so I'm not wed to one particular workstation. For serious graphic novel plotting, Scrivener is great. It gives you a place to store reference, has built in script formatting and organization as well as an index card/pinboard fuction that allows you to move plot elements around. Highly recommend.

For plotting, I use something like Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet as a reference. I might not strictly follow it but it's good for reminding you to of why elements should and shouldn't be in your story. It helps weed out ideas and can be reinforcement for 'killing your darlings.'

first I write out the script then have my editor go over it and give me feedback, after that I do the storyboards (just recently started doing storyboards) once I'm done with those and reading a new book I just got in the mail today called Framed Ink. Ill start working on the thumbnails. I do my storyboards traditionally and my finalized drawing digitally.

First, after I have an idea, I draw lots and lots and lots of pictures about the characters and the story just in my notebook. It helps to get a general idea of the story down (I find it really good for coming up with new ideas) and also the character designs which I always end up doing first.
Then, I usually type the story down so I don't forget.

A bit later after I have even more ideas for it I do a spreadsheet thing listing my characters, what their motivations are and how they affect the other characters which links it all together really nicely.

Finally, what actually happens in a page and such is usually decided a few weeks before I post it. I'm typically around 3 weeks ahead in thumbnails.

I like this because its relaxed and if I come up with a cool idea while I'm drawing it I can add it in no problem

I've been scripting my comic since 2012. I still change things here and there in the sketching and thumbnailing process but I never stray far from the core of the story. I've pretty much had the story in my mind since 2004 (middle school at the time) tapastic.com/series/shadosassins

Actually, I don't really write the story for the comic right away! When I have the idea, first I play with it in my head, put some pieces together as if it is a puzzle. Then I sit and write it, but not as a script, but as a plan - the basic ideas behind the story that I wish to express and the hidden motives, that make characters act in the way they act. I have to know that, while the reader must get just the surface of the truth. The way I get to express that surface is also important, but that comes when I actually start to draw - then it is as if I am director of a film and I enrich the behaviour of the actors sometimes in the spur of the moment with the new inspiration and ideas that come to me while drawing. Sometimes they act on their own, according to their already established character and surprise me! And it gets even more fun then...

I kinda do the same as bluefairy. Well, I dream a lot, so I usually write down the interesting ones (like Furusato House), what can be a story, or just get an idea first, what I start to just open in my head. I try to get to know my characters, what's their background, etc., and things just starts to connect. (Character planning is my favourite part <3) Then, I write a script, from chapter to chapter, about what happens, what the character say, and do, aaaand: Starts to draw it! ^^

I used to start with a scene or an idea and then write my stories (wait for it) word by word until the characters started to take on a life of their own, but the problem there is it takes way to long and most of the time waffled. For an experiment, I wrote a novel word by word, an hour or so each day. Nine months later I gave birth to a first draft of 300k words. I had it printed out and tucked away for a bit. I came back to it with fresh eyes about a year later. Some parts were good. Most parts were bad. Plot holes everywhere, but what did I expect? I didn't really plan anything.

I sat down and studied structure because writing word by word by the seat of my pants just wasn't enough. It would be nice to kinda know where I'm going. Robert McKee's "Story" is a great book if you want to know structure. He takes a very engineering approach to breaking down story and character. Yeah, it's for screenplays, but I think a lot can be gained from it for any type of storytelling. The only problem with structure for me is that I could plan it out to the nines and as soon as I write I'd be off course.

But, I found a decent middle ground. McKee talks about "research" and not just book research or ride alongs in police cars (if you were doing a crime novel), but researching your imagination too. I started to take inventory of ideas. I had an inkling for a story around this time and I began to take notes: what the characters looked liked, their personalities, not all at once, but as they flowed to me in-between all the other things I had to do (work, sleep, eat, etc) -- I did not start the novel. I would be walking outside, and I'd sit down and pull out my phone and tap the notes down as ideas connected in my mind. I organized them in a text file, then later Evernote. I wrote out scenes between characters as if I were writing short plays. I wrote their dialogue, thoughts, and actions -- any combination of them as it came to me. After a year i had accumulated a lot of material. I had a loose structure for a story that I could glue this material too and make up other stuff along the way. So I could have my story skeleton and I could have fun writing word by word because it wasn't just a blank canvas I was starting on. There were scribbles of the picture here and there that I could flesh out and connect them. By then, the characters voices were so loud in my head, in my sleep even, that the story demanded to be written, so I did it for NaNoWriMo and poured out 110,000 words.

For my comic on Tapastic I did something similar but in a faster cycle, and now that the comic is in production, I need to figure out the next story (as I draw the current one), but since I've been writing scenes and creating characters and living with them in my head, it should be faster to create rough drafts this time. Maybe.

I write an entire script first, usually. Occasionally I'll change some things as I'm drawing.

I often get ideas pretty randomly and then spend the whole night thinking thoroughly about the story. When I have the next day off or lectures or job start late, I write it down, more or less detailed based on what I managed to think through properly. The next night it continues until I'm satisfied or have something better to do. Of course, when the next day I don't have time, the ideas often go to waste because I forget them. >_>

What I found important and useful is not to worry about stylistic stuff and write things down accurately and quickly in one giant block. I use paragraphs only when there is a big break or hole in the story I haven't thought through enough.
Also I write important visual things like "morning sun shines through the window", what is lit and what's in the shadow, overall colors etc.

Then goes storyboarding, quick sketching out panels in a prepared sheet of rectangles representing pages (16 pages per sheet I found is the best) with bubbles only rough circles without text to see what space is needed to be left for them. Some scenes that have some important visual lighting I quickly color right in the storyboard process, like the characters' faces being lit by the setting sun in the first row. The right side of the sheet has more space for unused drawings that later got changed to something else or were used in later panels on following sheets.
I highly recommend doing stroryboarding this way, I have been doing it like this for years. If you want, I can send the empty sheet to you.

sheet_ww.jpg587x696 107 KB

What I also found good is to do color marks next to the text of the script (in the upper right corner or enlarged below) when there is something changing in the scene - in this there is sun setting during the conversation and the light color changes as indicated by the color strips on the left. Also, you can see I made vertical marks in the text to indicate what goes into another panel.

Hope this helps!

(One funny note: these storyboards are from a comic I sketched over nights in summer. At the end of summer we had a week long excursion to Germany from our faculty and as I don't like travelling, I thought "I need to finish this before I leave for the trip!". I really managed to finish sketching the last page an hour before I had to go take bus to the meeting place and all satisfied I boarded the trip minibus and fell asleep. Later my classmates who were in the minibus with me told me I kept whispering in sleep and asked me "why my boyfriend has such a weird nickname and why I talk to him in English" (I write and think stories in English though I'm Czech). Huh. )

Sit in a dark room and slowly go into madness... (wings it) :3

I simply write a description of what will happen and then make the character dialogs according from there.....hard to explain....Random example: The criminal breaks out of jail etc and they need to catch her/him...from there you just start writing how he/she escapes and why etc....as for text well that depends on what story your making so it varies