How many drafts did your story have before you published or drew it?

[JoshRaed]

I can honestly say for me personally, I lost count, maybe 4 or 5, definitely more than I would have had if I didn't write extremely slowly up to this point, and more than I wanted to. But in terms of what's finished, once I finish my first real complete draft I'm probably going to make a second one, then either publish it or make a third and final one.

[2DLenzy]

As far as comics, I limit my draft layers as much as possible to save memory and sanity

1) thumbnails sketches
2) composition - building up characters and scenes
3) text/speech layer - change panel layout cause everything's always too cramped
4) line layer - I don't often go back and edit, I stick with the first or second attempt
then color, render, sleep, and publish whatever I end up with.

I know I should be more diligent about editing and formatting, but it gets old staring at the same panels for several days and I'd rather progress forward than backward, no matter how iffy it looks. Lingering on making things perfect is a quick way to lose morale, in my experience.

Hadn't written anything in a while, so I forget how long it took and how many drafts (one story of mine took ten years before I abandoned it), but I know I'd be working on it forever if I tried (which is why I chose comics)

[ThunderChicken]

An infinite number. And even now, if I re-read a part of it, I will find a stupid mistake: Spelling error, grammatical train wreck, incorrect character's name used, etc....

[sleepykuya]

I wanted this to be like a webnovel where I write chapter by chapter—not really having a plan. But technically, this is the 3rd draft. I do the basic draft, come back, edit. I do a quick run through before I post it, so yeah. Three before posting!

[AmysGames]

Technically, the first draft of Niji Chikara (the first chapter) was done all the way back in 2008. So, uh... a lot?

[Tanako]

I use to have drafts then i realized that I was focusing too much on the draft and not the actual comic. not only I would easily get bored after creating the draft then go back and change it. I realized that this was tedious work so i completely got rid of drafts. well not completely, what i would do now is come up with an idea, make a quick short draft then dive right into the comic, this way, if i do change my mind it’s already too late and this will encourage me to keep what i already have and move forward instead of re creating scenes i have already done.

[Emalie]

Very good question!! I started writing my novel in 2018, the circumstances were going to occur in a warlike world in which most of my characters, according to the plot, had to die. Then I decided to change the story to something more realistic and romantic where none of my guys died and there was a happy ending. The thing is, the original story seemed like a nonsensical genre mash-up and the plot was inconsistent as it progressed. I made so many versions that I am aware that I can write another story completely different from the current one but based on that draft.

[WorldBreakerNovels]

Gluttonous: The Devil's Mistake is the first story I've ever written. Like, it was a written novel prior to the graphic novel we're working on now. I've changed many, many, MANY things in it since then, but certain things have stayed the same for the sake of story and tickling the emotions.

When we first started the graphic novel, I had begun with an artist on Fiverr since I have no ability to draw, nor did I know anyone who knew how either. In the beginning, my writing was bad, and he didn't see the vision, so there were a lot of changes to fix the scenes.

However, after years of working together, he's got the vision down perfectly, and he knows exactly what he's doing! I couldn't even express how grateful I am for him, and if we ever excel to greater heights, he'd be the first to reap the benefits! I swear my life on that!

Read Gluttonous: The Devil's Mistake Vol. 1 :: Gluttonous: The Devil's Mistake...

[rosierubycardinal]

If I’m going to be honest here, this might be a little embarrassing but zero. I wrote it at 2 am before my math exam and published it the same night! Don’t do what I did, kiddos.

[vapidink]

Most of them are my first drafts because I really wasn't posting to make money or get published, lol. I do little edits before I post, like look over grammar, spelling, etc. just to make sure it's not totally unreadable.

The only exceptions are the Tapas version of Vigilante which is technically a second draft, and my current WIP. I'm working on my second rewrite for that one because it just needs more planning since it's meant to be a trilogy and also because I have some people who'll be taking a look at it for possible future opportunities.

[Garchompula]

Mine is a bit weird, it started as an entirely separate story when I was 15, as I grew older I remained attached to the designs but rewrote the story and the character's relations with one another. That again, got thrown out. I liked the characters and motivations, but the story was disjointed and not really going anywhere. Another 100 pages of script, and I finally came up with a rough draft I like!

[LostKelp]

1, it was pretty drastically different from how the story is currently going. There have been 5 other drafts made mid production. This has lead to some stuff being set up in the first few chapters which weren't super relevant later, but I don't think this would've been solved by further drafting. I like the ideas I've come up with on the fly and they still connect back to the story pretty nicely.

There was some ideation before STS but most of the cast was different, the story was only semi related. The only thing that stuck around was Alya and Najm and vague scifi themes and aesthetics.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Difficult to say. Every time I look at the draft or start writing more, I make more changes but I don't save them as separate files, so there nothing I can look at & count.

[Lensing]

I use the same technique in writing which works for me in music and drawing

-rough sketch
-refined sketch
-finish

When the refine stage takes too long or gets complicated or I have to do multiple drafts
and it still doesn´t feel good then I look at the rough stage again.
It always means that the foundation / initial idea wasn´t good and
that means that I have to trash the idea and try something else

[kalmia]

I’ve done 5 full entire rewrites since I started writing mine back in I think 2017-2018. But i’ve done probably hundreds of mini drafts where I take out scenes, dialogue, add in characters, remove characters etc. I’m constantly growing as an artist and as a person so my skills and interests are changing rapidly making it really hard for me to keep my story relatively the same every time I do an edit because I notice things that I don’t like as much anymore or that just don’t sound/feel right.

[morganicfoods]

I'm a meticulous(ish) planner and don't write until I know exactly how I'm gonna write a scene. But I often change, rewrite, add, and remove scenes as I go whenever needed. But there's no draft 1 and draft 2 kinda thing.

I draw my pages far in advance and then edit them a little before I post, mostly just correcting areas where my characters look too off-model for me.

[GumshoeComix]

technically this is the 4th or 5th draft the original was made all the way back in 2011 and i took a huuuuuge break from the story
and at some point I went fuck it and just started posting it

[NetherSlayer]

For my novel, I currently write and edit each weekly episode... well, weekly. If I'm lucky and have time, I can write one or two episodes ahead, but usually I'm spending my time finishing and then rereading and editing just the next episode.

For a long while, I was constantly paralyzed by my inability to move on; I published the beginning of my series a couple years ago, and it was painful to write because, since I didn't push myself to make weekly uploads, I was writing the same sections and scenes over and over again, every part at least twice and some up to about five or six. It was horrible because I couldn't move on and get to the next scene, which ultimately injures the writing process more than having written something and not edited it at all; you can go back and edit more efficiently once you know where you're going with the story/writing.

[julias_art_universe]

my comic script say attempt 4 in the name sooo I think I know