How long does it usually take for you to come up with a plot all the way to finish writing the overall plot of your webcomic?

[catty152]

I'm trying to write a romance/adventure story and it's taking me forever to get a solid overall plot line of the story. I was wondering how long it usually takes you.

[eleoza]

I started with no plot at all, the plot for my comic grew while drawing.
After a few pages I started to get into it and I wrote down idea's that popped in my mind. Still doing that, even though I have the plot done in the big lines, like the major events and ending there's always room for idea's inbetween.
I think creating a plot is timeless, new things will pop up ever once in a while. It's all about little pieces fitting into a big puzzle.

[indagold]

few years most of the time. I come up with a small idea then elaborate on it over and over again, rethinking the plot over a long period of time. Once I'm satisfied with my idea I write it down and keep working on it. That can take a few months to a year or two.

[Ringarune]

For my comic Star Pace it was weird. I usually come up with a beginning premise and don't have an ending in mind at the time, but for this one I had both the beginning and ending in mind at the same time. After that I just worked out some middle segments. Time wise, I've had this idea for 3 years before I started drawing it (although I worked on it very scarcely during that time period since that's an extremely long time)

[Kayke]

It depends on the length of my story! For my webcomic, I have the basic plot of the story outlined, knowing how I want the comic to end and what events need to happen before I can reach that point, but I don't have the whole script written out or anything. I do the script by chapters and usually just keep one chapter ahead of my art. So yeah... technically this comic is taking me YEARS to write because I write it in chunks.

When it comes to shorter one-off comics where I write the whole script, it can take a while. Right now I'm working on a 200 page comic and the outline took about a week and the script is taking about a month and a half? I don't work on it every day though. Hahah, I guess how long something like that takes is really hard to measure because there are so many factors.

[BeetleMilk]

In short, a long time Haha! The idea for Psycho Babble actually came from a pet project I did in high school. Then from that it was in the process of becoming an animated short in college. That fell through, but I still wanted to make the story happen, so I decided to make it a comic.

The story was actually separate from the original and I ended up mashing them both together with help from my husband. It had to be reworked, rewritten, edited and such. Even still with it going into chapter 4 soon, we rework and rewrite parts to help it flow better. I think things like web comics- especially with the format of posting a page at a time vs. chunks of the story at a time, gives you a ton of wiggle room to add bits in at the last second. You can use this to your advantage too! See it as an extended opportunity vs. you being unsure of how to approach it!

For me it has taken roughly six years (for development) with adjustments still being made to the story, and it has been roughly a year and a half since the comic has started.

[mkrenez]

I just used the old fashioned mind map and think about what situations can be stories. Then drawing it out, the story seemed to unfold itself and it got more and more interesting to me, so I write out plots while I draw. I also research story elements and see how they fit so that's another thing entirely.

[joannekwan]

Depends, if it's a shorter story, something around 10 or so chapters, I can come up with a plot and most/all of the events in a week. Shorter if I'm really feeling it. If it's a long-ass saga, well, I still have ones like that that have been simmering since 2013.

[JessJackdaw]

Actually, pretty mine was a pretty similar development as @BeetleMilk where it was a little fun idea I had in high school that never left me. I wouldn't say I was writing for five years but the ideas have probably been brewing for that long. XD Everyone is different, so don't sweat it if it takes awhile to settle on a concept you really like.

Also, no matter how grounded you think you are in your story, it will always change as you make it. Especially with webcomics being a long process to begin with, nothing is ever solid. No idea first conceived is a grand masterpiece from the very beginning. So don't be afraid to let it evolve. :}

[WakaXO]

It took me 6 months to a year to work out my plot from 'first brain-bunny' stage to having the first 4 chapters scripted out and a rough idea for the middle and ending arcs.

[Puppisama]

VCvsDvsCFAD just popped in my mind one day, I was thinking about corgis like all the time and then... what IF I fuse cerberus + corgis = majestic corgiberus, then everything flooded like an alien message. I have up to chapter 4 written, but got a short sinopsis of what will happen from start to end, and a rough estimate of 100 chapters to end it, I have traced the main points of the story, so even if I don't have all the chapters written I know how to drive it. I decided to start drawing it right when I got the idea, since most of the time, you'll spent and inmesurable amount of time "making it perfect" but not making it real.

[Tiny_Waffle_of_Doom]

Well the one I'm doing right now is just exaggeration about life. (But I plan on plotting out a short webcomic at some point. I should plot it out but I'm a lazy potato)

[jacintawibowo]

If I'm under a deadline I could get a story done in a day or a weekend? Something like Manna Magi (a one shot, 24 page comic that feels like an episode of a tv show) took my sister and I a weekend to write and thumbnail the whole comic (very detailed, full script and thumbs).
My on-going webcomic, Tales from the Well took...one day to pitch the loose overall plot (We were under a very, very tight deadline). I keep the details vague though, as I like to keep ideas fresh. But the overall arc and ending is figured out already.

Is there a specific element you struggle with?

[AnnaLandin]

It depends entirely on the comic.

Grassblades has an outline of all important events from beginning to end, but I only write it - with dialogue and detailed events - as I thumbnail upcoming chapters, and I'm usually about 2 chapters ahead of my readers, so it's an ongoing thing. And in this particular case, it took me 4 years to come up with that general outline, because for some reason it took me that long to come up with who the antagonist should be. I'm looking at a total of maybe 5 years of drawing/posting it, so all in all, about a decade, if you count planning time from "man, I should do a comic about a wandering swordsman, that would be cool". ^_^;

When it comes to shorter oneshot comics (like, 20 pages or less), I can put one together - from vague idea to finished dialogue/thumbnails - in a couple of days if I have to. I'm working on a 24-page oneshot right now that took me about 2 weeks to plan/write, and I just finished the first-draft thumbnails on a comic that will end up being around 90 pages, which took me several months to plan.

So it depends mostly on a.) the intended length of the comic (longer comic = longer planning time), and b.) how much time it takes me to work past any plot-issues or concept art hiccups. Some comics come together very easily, others are a long, slow slog. It varies a lot!

[purrlpankras]

I've been planning Two Faced for years.

It's a long form comic. I have the ending in mind but it's not solid yet. I just plan as I go along really. Every chapter I write is based on the old version I did on Hatena (back in the day). And even when I get to painting them, they still change. I change the little stuff every now and then to avoid plot holes. I've had to cut alot of stuff out of the old one too. heh It's gonna be a loooong comic.

[misterloki]

Short comics take me anywhere within a day to a week to write before I start drawing them.

My longform webcomic Until the Last Dog Dies took me 5 years to flesh out into its current rendition, however there were a lot of remakes and worldbuilding that went on during that time and I was not working on it actively the entire time.

[KSlinger]

For me major events like the story's start and end were set in stone within the first few months. From there, as I came to know the characters better, I began to see where individual plot line and turning points fit in between. Minor details like where a character is stood and what they say change all the time, sometimes even as I'm drawing a page, and sometimes characters will do something I never expected that ends up changing the whole story, or at least their part of it. The script itself is one long document with line breaks to distinguish the scenes and I re-edit that script all the time, even shifting scenes around like cards in a deck to improve the flow or maintain the balance of tones and ensure all characters get even development. Really, it's an endless task. Only when the page is posted and done do I feel like I've set something in stone. From there it's a game of remembering all the rules I've made and trying to fit in everything I need and want as well as making sure everything makes sense to boot.

[Kyuu]

There is a Korean manhwa artist that I really respected. He has like the best story in the whole manhwa history, so I look upto him esp for storywriting. I remember in one of the interview he said he keeps in mind few scenes (major plot points and ending), and fill in the rest as he draws. In that way, his story is more flowy and organic.

SO that's what I do. I keep certain major storyline and just go into rough draft straight away.