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Leyelle
Mar '24

For "Damsel in the Red Dress" every chapter takes about one draft, and then another edit of the same draft, then it's run past my editor who will make punctuation corrections and pick out words I scrambled accidentally. Still, it's usually just one draft. I am SO much better at novel writing than comic writing.

I spent a lot of time thinking up a title for "Sun with a Painted Crown" and "Damsel in the Red Dress" was originally called "Tic Tac Toe" though probably nobody here saw it with its original title and cover.

"Hushabye Prince" almost destroyed my brain in the beginning, though I'm finally getting into the flow of making comics. my last few chapters have required many fewer edits and redrafts, but in the beginning, it was like 3-5 drafts per episode dies a little bit

It's original title from its first version I made four years ago (when I was fourteen) was "Muddled Dreams" I had a difficult brainstorming session with my partner (the artist) to come up with the new title. I'm normally pretty good at coming up with interesting name ideas, but i think the stress of working on this project really messed me up in a lot of ways

So what about you?

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    Mar '24

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BoomerZ
Mar '24

I do a rough write to just get it on paper. It doesn't really much here other to get what I think the dialogue should be and the pacing of the 30ish panels for my episode. I use an outline style where each point is one panel. Then I start tightening up the dialogue with read throughs. Lots of read throughs. This is when I start figuring out the scene and placement of dialogue on a panel. This is done for a day then I let it sit over night. The next day I start reading through it again with fresh eyes. This is usually where I catch the missed words and misspellings that my brain was auto filling. I also cut or add what is needed. Every script I do takes 2 days to finish using this process.

Animal508
Mar '24

The chapter I am currently working on has gone through 5+ drafts as of far. Probably more to come. (It's going to be a turbulent chapter, so I want to make sure I stick the landing)

TheBlacKat333
Mar '24

I usually take like 4+ hours to write down EVERYTHING that happens in the story one time, and then make a very rough second draft a while after. I’m not very good at deciding what’s gonna happen and then sticking to it, I wanna have a lot of wiggle room for new ideas

kyupol
Mar '24

A lot. It's never good enough that's why I just stop writing when I got a lot of chapters written then focus on drawing.

And when I'm about to draw pages, things get modified up to the last minute

KennethLopezJr921
Mar '24

It depends honestly. Usually, I'll already have a detailed idea of what I wanted a chapter to be about, with any tweaks or changes being made on the fly. So ideally, a chapter could have only one draft if everything goes perfectly. But of course, that's not always the case. Sometimes the initial plan I had for a chapter doesn't end up working as I had hoped, leading me to go back to the drawing board. But other times, the specific goals I had for a given chapter aren't enough to where the story would write itself.

Feuertrunken
Mar '24

First list the ideas, to have an outline of what is going to happen and to be able to put the ideas down on paper, as mentioned above. Trying to memorize everything makes the process more complicated.
So, for example I start with "Character X goes to Z place, but is interrupted by H."

Then a big draft of the chapter following that structure. And at the end corrections.

Leyelle
Mar '24

this is a lot like mine. i'd never trust my memory to write a story like that

XiuLyn_12
Mar '24

I usually write the episode dialogue first, then fit it into the amount of panels I'm making (about 40 panels)!
Then I draw the rough paneling on paper to check the readability.
Lastly, I go straight to comic making! :smile:

Leyelle
Mar '24

since i'm scripting my comic for an artist i'm working with, figuring out how many panels that will be is trickier

allenT
Mar '24

3~5 times on the pages: firsts are the early drafts, each iterations are more & more clearer & detailed than the last. (sometimes i change the story parts/layouts/pacing) The final draft l is always the bigger detail thumbnailing-- before drawing the pages on my manuscript papers.

Shanny8
Mar '24

Not many. I usually nail my writing on the first try...I don't try to finish and write out everything with in a certain time frame coz that usually leads to bad decisions- I have a mental outline of where I'm trying to go with the main points of the story; everything else is me trying to find/create the most viable and logical way to piece or bridge those events together without deviating from or changing the main points.

If I get to a place where I'm "stuck" I don't try to force a situation or solution- I pretty much quit at that point and allow myself to creatively think of a solution while working on other aspects of my comic or even other [art] projects.

Now I will go back and occasionally change dialogue(or ad-lib it while doing the actual lettering) to something that works for the effect of that page and the conversation in general.

Leyelle
Mar '24

wait so you mean you do your second edit while you're drawing the comic?

15 days later
Leyelle
Apr '24

A few of my upcoming chapters, like "Cooties" and "Babble" took like 3 or four drafts. They are super important chapters, and Cooties was rather complicated in structure, so it was a struggle to make sure I did it right.

13 days later
Leyelle
Apr '24

Not me looking back through my drafts and realizing I never once used the name I had originally planned for Melissa's son in a single draft of the chapters, just in the chapter outlines. For the life of me. He's been "Rodrigo" since his first mention.

Vassia
Apr '24

I don't count exactly but somewhere from 4-5. Difficult chapters get more love. My first draft is technically a screenplay that I wrote a few years ago, that I've been novalizing. Then draft two is my mess of a chapter that usally has a lot of fixing. Draft three I fix most of it. And then draft four I go over for grammar and anything left. If there's a draft five that's usualy because there was a difficult scene for me somewhere that I needed to think about more.

I'd love to have a round of beta readers for my drafts eventually and an actual editor but I can't really afford that right now.

Leyelle
Apr '24

definitely lol, my hardest chapters take like 3-5 drafts often times.

Oh, I know an affordable editor if you're interested.