How much time have you spent planning your series?

[VApowers]

I spent a little over a year thinking about the story and characters for my series. At first I imagined a multi-book novel series. But I like writing it in this format.

I slowly started posting on tapas until I started to feel comfortable with the format of writing on this platform. Now I will post chapters at least once a week.

Avalon Springs 28387 | Tapas

[Fuzed]

Oh sorry, I must've expressed myself incorrectly. My editor does the same thing, but in word. When I open it in Google docs, I see all the changes made and may accept or decline them as I see fit. Also, whenever she sees a pattern of me doing something wrong she explains it in a comment. I really can't thank her enough for all the help she provided. I would be nowhere the writer I am without her. (Not that I'm any good now, but at least I'm better than I was...)

If you ever decide to sub to my Patreon, I will have all the original unedited chapters there. It's a lot of fun seeing how incompetent I was as a writer.

[Fuzed]

This whole story kind of reminds me of Marvel or DC. Remember me when there will be a first movie made based on your characters, stories and the whole universe

[Freemints30]

Very interesting question thou I currently don't have a novel yet. I'm writing an illustrated novel in an adventure game format where the majority of its broad direction had been planned out and right now Act 2 of 4 have been specifically planned out chapter by chapter and I'm right now just editing Act 1 so I'll be needing some beta readers soon. I had planned it out since 2018. So I like having things planned.

My comic took my since 2016 with 2 versions drawn before hand and 1 year and a half to script out entirely for the 3rd current version. I have my entire script done so right now I'm just giving drawings to it. I like to take my time and plan waaaay ahead. I learnt from my previous mistakes

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

Also, whenever she sees a pattern of me doing something wrong she explains it in a comment.

mine does that too.

yeah, I wouldn't be where I am now, without my editors. They're worth gold.

hahaha, that's fun
Yeah... i don't even have an account on there or anything. Never really been on the site. I just hear a lot about it

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Hahah. Yeah, one of the biggest reasons I have a multiverse is because of Marvel. The idea of having alternate versions of the characters where only one thing changes in their past, causing a total re-evolution of a character is intriguing. Infinite universes=infinite possibility.

[Fuzed]

That's an interesting story you've got there. I'm not really into horror myself, so I most likely won't read it any time soon. But I'm sure there will be many people looking for something exactly like your story. The blurb looks really professional. Keep up the good work!

[Fuzed]

How detailed are you plannings? I can't make myself plan individual episodes. I always plan out the plot and then just write episodes/chapters the way I want.

Are you working on this whole project alone or do you have any other people invested in it?

[Fuzed]

That's indeed very tempting. But I feel that my peanut brain wouldn't be able to handle a multi-verse. I mean, in my series I'm happy that I remember the relatively small cast that I've got going now. And I will definitely be expanding it in Volumes 2, 3 and possibly even in Volume 1. Luckily, I write everything down if I forget...

[Freemints30]

By myself and my self only, I draw and write my comic myself and I would like to keep that way. For my novel, thou I would love to have a friend good at semi-realistic painterly styles to draw due to it being more fitting compared to my current one, I work on it myself and I'm currently trying to get the style I want myself. It's a hobby I enjoy.

My plans are very very detailed with two outlines. The first for events that are supposed to happen through out the entire story and a second is more or less a summary of every chapter, making sure to include at least one of the key events from the first out line. Then I begin actual writing the the project.

[joannekwan]

My first novel, Secunda, that's seen the public was actually developed quite quickly.
I first got the idea for the characters in April 2018 and I spent some time mulling over what kind of story I wanted to tell with them. I didn't start to write much story planning like character motivations and plot beats (that I'd actually use in the published draft) until 5 months later and then it wasn't until January of 2019 that I actually had a plan figured out and started writing.

[Fuzed]

Wow. What do you do if you ever happen to think of an idea that changes all the plans? Do you just ignore it or change all the plans?

[Fuzed]

So you've first got the characters then the story? That's interesting. For my story it all started with an idea Assassination is legal after that, I tried thinking of ways that could work and ways that could be interesting. Only after that did I start creating characters and more detailed plot points.

[joannekwan]

Yeah for me half the time I think of characters first and the other time an interesting premise first. Haha, each comes with its own set of challenges, but the ones in which the premise comes first usually come together quicker.

[Freemints30]

Well for my novel I am currently editing it and I have changed one personality of character completely, the only thing that is fluctuating right now is events way later down the line. Really the novel's 1t draft was written as a regular novel before I decided to completely changed format. Since I had a long planning period a lot of changes I liked were added before being made into the official version. Like my changed in the theme of my monster deigns for my comic was done before I got to them so yeah. Like a monsters had no theme before I gave them a theme while I was still drawing the first chapter.

However other than small tweaks in dialogue and removal of pages, my comic doesn't really have any big changes of ideas now. The biggest tend to get thrown into future projects I have written down in google drive. From entire characters to monster designs. They all now exist in a completely separate future project, in a completely different universe.

[Inspector_Spinda]

I always get characters before story. My strength is character, but I'm really bad at plots. Everyone is different but for me personally if I spend more than a few months coming up with a story a story doesn't exist for those characters. At least not one worth telling. My first set of OCs came in 2013 and I spent about 3 years with a very vague story for him before dropping the comic. Ever since then I've come back to the idea periodically but I can't think of anything of any level of quality. With my current comic I came up with the idea in late 2017 and started the comic in early 2019. The story is still evolving as I draw it but most of the ideas came in that one year.

[darkone4587]

I typically plan at least a light outline of events way before I even start writing and then and then go to work on characters.
This typically takes a while because I often do it in the background of other things going on.Typically I'll spend months if not a year or years before I get to writing any particular project.

If anyone's curious I have two novels here on the site I'm working on.

Dual Soul | Tapas

Blade Quest | Tapas

[Fuzed]

That makes sense. Once you've got the basic premise going it starts to get a lot easier from there. With just characters you've got no idea where the story should go.

[Fuzed]

I see. For me personally I get new ideas all the time as I write. Some good, others not so much.

The good ones I try to implement into the story and that's why I couldn't have a rigid plan. I always think of new stuff to add.

[Fuzed]

I feel like for comics, most of the time you start with characters and then progress onto a story. I can't draw a smiley face, let alone a character so I'm a novelist. And for me, the story is more important than characters at the start.

But I now realize that for someone who can draw, characters might be more alluring.