How do you become a good visual story teller?
_Is a question I kept in my mind constantly as I worked on my comic and I came up with these few rules for myself that I apply to my comic. I thought I may benefit some of you by telling you this stuff here and hopefully you guys may benefit me by giving my comic some criticism? After reading this you can find it's every mistake and tear it to pieces idc as long as it helps me improve.
1- Reduce as much writing as you can without affecting the flow of the story.
Here I'm taking the rule 'show don't tell' a step further by reducing unnecessary dialogue or monologue that doesn't really affect anything. People don't like to read a lot.
While reading some comics I find my self skipping lots of unnecessary speech bubbles and it doesn't affect the story. In these comics these speech bubbles sometimes say things we already know, or things that weren't said but are obvious. To me it feels like they are there because the author thinks we didn't understand it the first time...
While you're working on your episode try to remove some words and read the chapter without it. See if that makes any difference. Remember that your audience is very smart and easily bored.
2- You don't need lots of monologue.
Personally I don't use monologue at all. I try to tell the audience what the character is thinking through behavior, facial expressions... etc. There is nothing wrong with it of course. Personally I feel like I'm cheating when I use it. I find expressing something to the reader is a lot more effective than just telling the reader about it. For example, if someone is nervous about possibly getting fired show us him moving his leg rapidly up and down or biting his nails with flashback image to when he messed up at work or him imagining himself getting fired instead talking about how her feels nervous. Or if you don't want to draw all that he could talk to himself loud.. people do that when they are stressed... idk
The reason I personally don't like monologue is because irl we don't see people's thoughts. I'm trying to have my story feel as real as possible and not just some comic on webtoon. Maybe that's not a sensible reason for me to hate monologue, but eh...
3- Sublimity, insinuation, and small hints.
I love tiny little details that aren't too noticeable. When someone in the comments points those out and they're like "AAAAAHHH that is so cool!" I like to do this because it tricks people into thinking that I'm smarter than what I really am. And it makes the readers feel smart too.
When you want to let the reader know something that's important later on but maybe not relevant now. Find a way to not tell everything right away. Just hint at it. Let their own imagination work. Let them have their own theories. If someone maybe get it right they will be extra overjoyed when the information is cleared up later. Sometimes the information is not really important at all. But it's a way of engaging the audience. Maybe no one notices this until they re-read your story. Then they get that 'ahaaaa' feeling. That's fun too. Of course this may need some planning ahead so...
4- Plan the story ahead and have it written down.
What I did is that I wrote every event in the story in bullet points in a word file on my computer from beginning to end. Then I storyboard it. Every bullet point is about two pages of storyboards so that's a crazy amount of saved time in planning for me with the bullet points done I don't need the complete story boards right now. I just have the first chapter story boarded so far. Writing the story in bullet points is great because: You don't need all details. You don't have to be a great creative writer. you have your whole story summarized and now you know what direction it is going to go. It's now easier to plan ahead. If there are points in the middle where I'm not sure of what should happen yet I add (???) and color them red.
5- avoid having someone explain something for an entire chapter.
That just feels like a school lesson. Find another way to let the reader know this other than having to listen to a guy talking. But most importantly, we don't need to know everything right away. If we don't need the information now don't bore us with it. There is plenty of time to learn about your characters back story or that war long ago later. All in it's good time.
6- Body language
Every character has unique personality. That should reflect in their body language, the vocabulary they use, facial expressions, any small things to their behavior should feel different from one another. It helps the character feel like an actual person.
7- Read Peasant Queen
Studies have shown that reading and criticizing my comic will improve your own comic by 96.8%
No not really but I would really like it if you do
In conclusion: This is just me and my preferences. You could have a completely different style and that's fine. I'm still in the process of improving and evolving myself so maybe these tips aren't so professional. But I still wanted to help.
I hope this was a little beneficial to someone and I apologize for any possible mistake there