How much of your story is written before posting?

[miseryhunting]

Hello!
I've always loved comics and I decided to make one. I have lots of ideas, however I'm not sure I would be able to do them justice at my current level so I decided to make up a brand new comic story with the purpose f it being "training comic".

My question is: how much of your story you have figured out before posting? Do you figure it out as you go along, do you have the 1st chapter already tumbnailed, or do you know what is going to happen from start to finish?
Which one is better? Can you actually make a good story from page-to-page?

I am fairly new to the community and I searched for similar topic but couldn't find one, so feel free to delete this one if it's a dublicate

[donathinfrye]

Hello there, and welcome! I generally write the first 22 pages before I ever send anything to an artist. Then, once about half-way through the art being finished for that chapter or issue, I begin to write the next 22 pages. Before any of that, I outline the entire story in a very generalized way, and make notes for places where subplots and new ideas might be developed easily. If I'm writing a story that I know is only meant to be a short, four chapter/issue story, I'll outline with a lot more detail as nailing the narrative beats for that small of a story requires a lot more planning and careful usage of space. Because I write, and rarely do anything more artistic than coloring, my process might be a little different than people who do it all themselves. Still, I think good narrative planning is very important to telling a coherent and effective story.

But everyone has their own way, and that's totally cool!

[Jabbage]

The whole thing is scripted out in detail, because I am definitely not someone who feels comfortable improvising! Since comic pages take so much time I try to make each one count and that takes a lot of planning. Saying that though, I only tend to thumbnail a few pages in advance and sometimes I add something in when I realise I need to after transferring script to comic page - normally something to do with the logistics of how people are positioned and what stuff they have with them!

[heterodont]

It's best to know what's going to happen in your story from start to finish because heaps of problems can arise if you're just making a story page-to-page. Not that it can't be done! I feel like that sort of methodology is best if you're doing a 'choose your' adventure comic thing - where the audience can participate in deciding where the story should go. However, with anything else - you have to deal with creators (?) block if you don't know how the story should progress, possible shaky sequence of events and so on so forth.

I didn't figure out my first story/long-form comic at first, which only lead to bad pacing and a confusing read at first. People seem to understand the story better second time around - but I would've been infinitely more comfortable if I knew where my story was going at first and how I could've fixed the problems that plague my readers.

Now that I'm starting my second long-form comic, I set aside a whole week to type out a draft of the entire story and its chapters, then read over it with my partner and hammered out any problem areas.

[SirHellsir]

When I think of a nice concept for a story, first I think how it can start and if the concept will be enough to develop a story, I go like a week with ideas taking for in my mind.
If I think it will work, I start planning what can happen during the story and how can it end.
Then I write the dialogues and do the thumbnails for like 5 chapters before moving to sketching.
My current comic is my training comic, I'm experimenting with a style and how characters behave, but overall I already have a full world planned.

[DMBrigman]

I wrote an outline of the first "arc" of my comic and then wrote the first three chapters before I began the art. This allowed me to include some foreshadowing, figure out if I had to add more detail in the beginning to set things up. It also means I have a good amount of lead time to figure out the last two chapters before I begin drawing.

[shazzbaa]

For Runewriters, which was the first long form comic I was drawing and also writing, when I started:

• I had a very vague ending in mind
• I had the whole story divided into three parts/acts
• for the first part, I knew the basics of what needed to happen in each chapter (e.g., this is the chapter where they meet so-and-so, this is the chapter where they get kidnapped, etc)
• I knew sort of what the heroes would be dealing with in the second part
• I did not know what was going to happen in the third part. I had some rough ideas and assumed I'd just build towards the ending when I got there.
• I had page breakdowns (page one: this happens, page two: this happens) for all of Chapter One
• I had an actual script for the first 15 or so pages of Chapter One

and then I started the comic. As I was working, a lot of things changed. The script for the second half of Chapter One ended up deviating from the page breakdowns as I had better ideas. There were a lot of things I learned just by making this comic that I couldn't have foreseen. The outline for the entire second part of the story has changed pretty hugely since I started!

So I'm all for having a rough outline of the whole thing, but just the first bit of script, so I can have a combination of both. I'm not making it up as I go (I think it can be really hard to have good pacing and set up your narrative well if you do this) but I also don't have everything already figured out -- I give myself some room to put everything together more fully as I go!

Another thing is that it'd be really easy to get bored if I had the whole thing worked out already. Like, it's a good feeling to be working on Chapter Three but getting more and more excited for Chapter Four as I work out the details for the first time.

[kambreapratt]

For the current comic we are doing we have the basic premise figured out. We know the ending and we know important points we need to hit though out, but the rest is written as we go. It's a long form and we knew it would span several books. Currently, I have 3 chapters written ahead of where we are on posts.

For our prequel it was meant to be a self contained GN, so it is written out in it's entirety.

[AshKetchup]

My current comic is pretty much a joke comic with a story XD
I make the story up as I draw the comic but I also have an idea for the ending for it, which is a little weird considering the kind of comic I'm doing...

[Sanz]

I use to make it up as I go along, till i took an extended break and forgot what was going on Lol...now i script out the whole story. it works really well for me plus i don't have to think about anything but the layout ! btw WELCOME !!!

[F31]

The Story I am working on right now is actually pretty old.
I already have the overall plot written down, but as of the details and chapters I am mostly working on them while posting the chapter prior to it.
But I just started today to get active again and I have like legit 1 subscriber, so don't put too much into my comment XD

I'm new to the community to by the way

[nathankschulz]

Well since I'm the writer and my artist is a separate person, the script is 100% finished before she even gets to glance at it. As for the rest of where the story is, its not all written yet, but I definitely know the big moments that are going to happen. Though I'm always open to the story changing itself. That does happen sometimes.

[Shanny8]

So far I've scripted the first "chapter" of my series- as I start dropping the episodes, I'll start piecing together ideas for the 2nd chapter. So far this story isnt as well thought through as my other comic- but I'll get there.

[Dingbat1991]

My webcomic is comedy based but I do do arcs. They can be on average 15 episodes but I usually have the whole story fleshed out by the time I work on the 1st episode in the arc unless I think of something funnier to replace a segment in the story.

I have story ideas which are worth a couple of years in the reservoir and I tend to continue thinking of them based on observances and nuisances.

[Kamikaze]

For Kamikaze, a very long form comic, I tend to write out the ENTIRE 'episode' of each installment before we even get started drawing. I come from a screenwritng background, so the idea of writing with no idea of where the heck I'm headed is a great way to turn me into a puddle of anxiety.

So I have an entire arc written out, with the very, very basic stuff laid in place. I've broken down the series into around 7 'seasons' of 13 stories, or as I call them 'episodes'. Each episode is 5 acts - 0 throught 4.

Each episode is beaten (screen writing term for figuring out the plot mechanics of important points) out and then separated into acts. From there I flesh out each beat with a more detailed description of what happens. Then the the beats are grouped together into scenes and separated into acts. Finally I start writing, skipping around to what I reeeeeally want to write first. This is the cool thing about planning stuff out: You can skip around and still have things in order! That action scene you're dreading writing? SCREW IT! Write a different scene! It's so liberating!

For anyone doing long form comics I REALLY suggest doing live read-throughs with people who don't know the story. Your writing, especially dialogue, will be much, much better for it.

The way I do it is a slow process, but when you're writing 30 to 45 pages of comic, you've GOT to have a plan.

TL;DR - I'm insane and write 30 to 75 page comic scripts all at once, before putting pencil to page. Then I edit, and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.

Accurate picture of me writing:

[eschaefges]

100% of A Legend (of some sort) was done before posting - it was the only way i could guarantee a schedule with my worklife/busyness. i am glad i waited though, rather than having an audience wait 4.5 years to finish a 200 page story...

[YONBUI]

well I have a ''Training Comic'' Warlock and for that i haven't written anything i do it week by week but for a serious comic which i haven't posted yet I am still writing it out it's about 20% done

[insomniascrawl]

When I write in general, I plot out the main direction I want the story to go, the main plot points and character points and fill it out from there as I go.

[AnnaLandin]

I have an outline of the entire story, start to finish, but it's really vague so it leaves me a bunch of space to tweak and change my mind and rework stuff. Like, really vague. Here's what the first 33 pages are written down as:

Masahiro and Akane meet in the woods
Masahiro tries to leave Akane, this fails.

... and that's it.

I do have a bunch of other plotnotes and ideas scribbled down elsewhere, but they're out of sequence and full of unresolved questions and notes to myself and plenty of moments where they literally say "OH NO WAIT I JUST THOUGHT OF A BETTER THING!!!!" in all caps.

.... when turning all of that into the actual comic, I take sections of my outline big enough to constitute a chapter's worth of plot, and then I break it down into a more detailed description of what happens, and then I turn that into thumbnails. I do that chapter by chapter, usually, so I work at it an entire chapter at a time. Since I have the big outline of the whole story, I know which directions to take my chapter in, and I know enough about what's going to happen later that I can foreshadow stuff, and working on it a whole chapter at a time means I rarely have to open a new file, stare at the blank page and go "okay now what?" because I already know.

A lot of stuff has gotten changed along the way. Some characters are getting more space in the story, some sequences in the outline are shortened, while others are expanded, I've moved events around, etc., - but the overall direction of the story has stayed the same.

[R.n.P]

I am lots of episodes ahead of my webcomic but I'm kinda d guy dat plans what happens next but as I'm drawing I go with the flow