How to deal with changing ideas?

[imiogri]

So I'm one of those people who's writing my comic as I go, and it comes with some problems such as having to go back to change things in post because I came up with something better. That's been fine so far, but all of a sudden one night I realized how to improve my story tenfold by simply changing how it begins. The exact same story, just told from a different point in time. Now I obviously won't do this, because I've already spent a year doing it another way, but I'm still curious about what the forums could have to say about this?

What if you came up with a way your story can be told that makes it way more interesting and does for better writing? Would you start all over again? Do you think the audience would mind suddenly flipping it all around? (Or am I just particularly a bad at planning because I am...)

[Rodimus13]

I'd save it for a second story....

For example if my hubby could suddenly make cash off of this comic and quit his job? (Few more loans to pay off than maybe....) we actually have a second concurrent story we'd do that happens same time but different factory that really does tie into this one! It'll have to wait sadly.Like a OVA.

[skicoak]

I'm all for changing things for the better...but not retroactively.

In theory, one could spend their entire life revising and redoing the same page over and over as they got better as a storyteller with each attempt and figured out ways to make it EVEN better next time.

[TAMAnnoying]

I wouldn't say you're bad at planning. we all have realizations later on where we realize we could have done something better and sometimes it involves doing something different with the beginning. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

Technically I have actually done this X3 My current comic project actually had a different beginning I made about 7 years ago. I've dropped it and started over almost completely with a new beginning. Granted taking a 7-year hiatus to go to college and practice better writing skills to start over is very different from just starting over now when you're in the middle of telling the story. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and move forward and continue learning about the projects you're working on currently and used what you've learned for your next project.

I will say never feel bad about not having everything planned out. I've been told by many creators that even though they have scripts months or years in advance of where they currently are in their story, they will STILL make small edits to the script and decided that they need to change things- push scenes back- push them forward, rework things. You'll always be thinking "I could have done this differently." but sometimes the way you did it is just as good as the way you could have done it.

[elyss]

I agree with @Rodimus13 It's exactly because of this possibility that I plan out and write my whole story before publishing it. I edit along the way of course, but I set a rule to write out my whole story and not edit in post.

[Maps]

I haven’t even thought of this! I do it a lot with my novel but I haven’t even thought about how I’d change it with my comic ! Like having to redraw panels or chapters...
But man, I feel your pain. With my novel I took a huge different direction from my original story, but I went back to read my original and liked it more but it was definitely too late. I’m going to keep it as is but try to incorporate some of the parts I liked from the original into the direction I’ve taken now.

[claiborneart]

Fun fact: I actually rewrote the ending and character backstory/motivations for my first comic after I had already published 15-20 pages of it.
I also did not go back and redraw any of the old pages to fit this new plot better.

That's a pretty extreme example, but in my defense no one really noticed/complained, so I think making changes and edits on the fly is something you really only can do with online published work like webcomics.

On the other hand, it's a pretty common pitfall for webcomic creators to keep redrawing and rewriting the beginning arcs of the their story, and spend years on a single comic that they'll likely keep reworking and improving, but never finish.
In your personal case (depending on page length of the opening, if it's hundreds of hours of work this sounds less fun) , it could be fun to after you finish your current arc and/or entire comic to draw that improved beginning scene as a 'director's cut opening scene'; now whether you'd replace your current beginning with it, or just mention it to current readers, that's 100% your call.

[duckuga]

I've had that...and I just always thought maybe I'll save it for a redraw of my comic? Because hopefully by the time I redraw my art skills will be way better too! I guess it just depends on how serious you are about your comic and making it the 'final' product?

[elyss]

One of my favorite comic youtube channels calls it 'save it for the blu-ray) when you finish a comic and go back to redraw it to look better. It's a saying derived from how anime is often published on TV with less than stellar animation, but can get entire scene redraws in the blu-ray edition because they have more time.

[duckuga]

Ohhh wow I never knew that! I guess it makes sense though, because having to make something especially like professional animations with limited time can be draining and it can be difficult to draw each frame with good quality. What's the youtube channel you're referencing to though? They sound pretty interesting lol

[elyss]

Excaly! I didn't know either before watching their videos. It's Mckay and Gray. They're currently doing a 100 days of comics challenge so it's a great time to tune in.

[joannekwan]

I would just save the ideas for a 'director's cut' once the entire story is finished and then offer the 'director's cut' as a separate edition if fans of your original story want to check it out. And you can always direct first-time-readers to the 'director's cut' as the main vision you want presented.

Personally I find it difficult to go back and change things if the sum of the work would take more than a few days. Usually by the time I finish a story I'm thoroughly done with it and ready to move onto the next project.

[MasterLederhosen]

I've had my fair share of redoing things and it never worked out as well as I had hoped. It'd often just lead to me abandoning my projects. You can come up with a much better idea and go back to redo the first 10 pages or so of your comic, but who's to say that in time you won't come up with an even better idea? It's an endless loop driven by perfectionism, which I consider to be an artist's worst enemy when it comes to making a comic series.

I say it's better to just keep moving forward and making sure you're improving, and let your comic evolve naturally while working around what you have already, connecting the dots wherever you can.

[LT1986]

I get new ideas about parts of my web comic that I've already uploaded online. I won't go back and redo the pages, but I'll keep the new ideas in mind. I have many things to say about this topic, but I'll only make one point. Here it is.

If you get new ideas about changing the beginning of you web comic or novel don't. Keep the new ideas in mind to tell if the web comic or novel becomes a cartoon/anime. The Dragon Ball Super manga and Dragon Ball Super anime follow the same timeline, but have events that occur in their story that don't occur in the other story.

[punkarsenic]

What if you came up with a way your story can be told that makes it way more interesting and does for better writing?

bangs head against wall

this is my life. essentially u gotta throw caution to the wind when it comes to making improvements on parts you havent made yet, and just dont make changes to parts youve already made - theyre done, theyre gone, jus gotta live with ur mistakes.

i soothe this pain by dreaming abt my theoretical reboot

as for future-facing improvements, the direction of my story has flipped at least twice, n its left some threads untied and entire plots abandoned, which again... you just gotta make peace with and keep kicking.

[therealbereth]

I've struggled with this, too, because for the longest time I thought that I needed to publish the BEST version of my novel or none at all. Now I just cook up a decent mix between planning and pantsing and edit as I go along; knowing that I will edit the whole thing later for myself and a possible eBook-release anyway sure helps a lot to thwart that worry completely.

Comics are a medium that takes a lot more time to tell the same story, of course, so I don't know if the "director's cut" that joanne is suggesting would suit your needs. But changing too much of what has already been posted retroactively could only confuse your readership. I think comic readers know that you're growing over time anyway, so try not to stress yourself too much over it;;

I would definitely go for an edited version later as a whole new series if I realized that I could do better. An artist I follow on here does the same right now, in fact! And I can't wait for their reboot. So I think your readers will flock to that, too, if you choose to do one later.

[Atarun]

If it is really the same story, just told from a different viewpoint, why not save it for another "season"? Ai Yazawa's NANA did this to great effect. First you're told the story from the viewpoint of Hachi, then you get to relive some of the same events, but from the viewpoint of Nana. It's awesome. Maybe it could work well in your comic as well?