May 2018
2 / 10
May 2018
May 2018
indigodrawing
May '18

I was trying to draw up scripts for the comic I'm working on. The upcoming event for the characters is their university's Fresher's Week (this is a thing that happens in UK universities, if it's not a thing elsewhere. Essentially the week before the academic term proper starts there are a number of events organised by the university (and various local businesses in recent years) to help new students get acclimatised, encourage them to make friends, sign up for extracurricular clubs, have fun, etc. The businesses sponsoring it tend to hand out lots of free stuff, discount coupons, etc to encourage students to patronise their businesses).

I needed to get an itinerary for this even over somehow and I was banging my head against the script for a good while because I'm trying to write so that each comic is at least reasonably interesting in some aspect, and having the characters talk to each other about what's going on on what day just wasn't interesting at all, no matter what I tried. And whilst this information might be important to me for the sake of story planning and continuity I don't think it's really hugely important for the reader. Basically it killed the pacing stone dead. It wasn't interesting, it wasn't funny, it didn't reveal anything about the characters, etc

I was really pleased with the idea I had for getting around this problem. Instead of having one or more strips where the characters talked about it I'd instead have a chapter devoted to Fresher's Week and the title page for that chapter would be a picture of the schedule sitting on one of the chatacter's desk, perhaps with coffee stains, phone numbers and addresses scribbled down on it, doodles in the corner, that sort of thing. This gets all the info out there in one go for anybody who cares enough to read it and even if you don't there's still a nice title page for the chapter.

So have you ever run into points in your story where you couldn't find a way of getting something across in an interesting way? Did you hit on a clever solution for that problem? What solution did you come up with and did it work as well as you hoped it would?

  • created

    May '18

  • last reply

    May '18
  • 9

    replies

  • 1.3k

    views

  • 8

    users

  • 17

    likes

CurlyComics
May '18

I had a similar problem to yours when I was thinking the chapter I currently am now in my comic. My problem was that my readers were- are still- begging for some action (it being a fantasy comic and all) and I wanted to devote one chapter to character growth and bonding. My initial idea had a chapter full of interactions between the characters in a vacation like setting. which would be boring for the most. (not me tho)
How I solved it : I introduced a conflict of sorts that would lift the boredom and also progress the story.
Whereas your comic is very different in nature from mine , I believe you could jumble an interesting plot point you want to happen together with the info you wanna give for fresher's week :slight_smile:
hope i helped a bit ^^

fakey
May '18

I had a problem with pacing when I went back to look at the second draft of the comic I'm currently working on. Two chapters, about 40 pages combined made little progression in the story and a lot of their content was fluff and pointless dialogue with no direction. So for the final draft I decided to try and combine them into one chapter for better pacing.

I heavily outlined the new version of the chapter by picking out what important story beats I wanted to cover and how I could get the dialogue to serve them, rather than being fluff. In the end I managed to condense those 40 pages into a single 17 page chapter and I think it was better in the end for it.

sei_gogone
May '18

I feel like a lot of my problems are solved by the same solution: reading it out loud - or in some cases acting it out. Hearing a scene out loud lets me know if something doesn't play out right. For example, if there's an intense argument, something someone says might not come off right when said out loud. At that point, I either have to justify through current or previous actions or I have to rewrite the scene entirely.

Also going back, reading, and taking notes helps me keep some manner of consistency. They don't even have to be detailed notes. It could be things relative to surroundings, conversation topics, attire, whatever I feel is important to a chapter or a scene. I ran into this issue with Mortal Machines where everything I wrote so far isn't matching up to the tone of an important scene coming up in the future. So I tailored small aspects of the introduction to foreshadow (or set foundations for) events in the future.

Hexigate
May '18

I worry about pacing in my story, mostly because of what I want to include VS. what I think the readers want. Like @CurlyComics said, I like to include development, and the most obvious way to develop your story is to have dialogue. However, those moments always threaten to slam the brakes on the pacing. Each "page" of my series don't have an abundance of panels, and I only update once a week. I worry that such slow pacing would bore out my readers.

This is where I tell you to condense everything and pack as much as you can into every scene. Story critics, especially film critics, love this stuff.

They'll tell you that every good action scene is not only thrilling, but fueled by the context of the conflict and the attitudes of your characters. That way, said action scene will serve to develop your character and their approach to the situation you've placed them in.

With dialogue, they argue about "good writing"; what they mean by that is, "make it succinct". On top of that, facial expressions and speech patterns would go a long way towards building a believable character.

This is just a personal add-on:

I'm inclined to agree with all of these points, but storytelling is such a fluid art, I find it difficult to find any "universal" theories for it. People want consistent pacing, but I personally see potential in manipulating the pacing between slow and fast.

Say, a roller coaster: You tend to have a slow build-up point, where you're climbing up to the peak and start speeding down. Depending on the coaster, it'll do this multiple times. A slow-paced build-up period can enhance the story experience when the time comes for that climactic, fast-paced race towards the next scene.

Also pacing is something people feel, I suppose; it attributes to something like a smooth, consistent ride on a road. You can turn people's expectations on their heads with a purposefully disruptive brake on the pacing. It'll wake them up and pay attention to what you have to say.

People like well-written dialogue too, but there is a power in silence. People can speak out their feelings, and that's conventional and expected. Silence, if done right, can speak ten times more words and convey your character's inner thoughts in ways that regular speech can never hope to convey.

I hope SOMEONE finds all this useful, because I just spent 30 minutes of my life typing this out. Gonna go eat something now.

Shanny8
May '18

With pacing for "quiet" scenes, you need to mix things up- change scenes every so often; it helps to keep the story/pacing from becoming monotonous & boring.

craftymarten
May '18

I use this clever trick called "realising your pacing is bad right before you're about to post and having to draw up extra pages really quickly to try and correct it".

Usually I cut any page where new information is't given but I have a hard time doing it sometimes. If you say "this page shows-" and are struggling to come up with an ending I'd cut it. Then I think about my pages and if I have too many "this page shows (example) how this character feels about this" then I try and cut them. Nothingis worse than reading a conversation the characters have already had.

DiegoPalacios
May '18

The trick i use is to ask these 2 questions:

1.Is this update relevant?(does it advance the story or is important information for the future?)

2-It is entertaining? (entertainment comes in many forms, it can be a hillarious page, intense action, an emotional sad or hearthwarming moment, etc...)

The ideal is to have a yes in both questions, but i ocasionally upload if at least one of the answers is yes.

indigodrawing
May '18

This stuff is all great advice.

I was looking for tales of Eureka moments, like you realised "Hey, there's 10 pages of boring stuff here in this script, but if I do this then suddenly all I need is one page and I can make something cool out of it after all!"

If you've had an Eureka moment please share it!