How to kill a plot!

[Demy]

How to kill a plot? From what I think (key word is think. I may be wrong on this) it could be due to a number of reasons. Feel free to say I'm wrong and point out how cause it could be helpful for me when I (eventually) get to making my own comic.

Excuse me if none of these make much sense. I might end up rambling.

1. Bad execution

This is probably the biggest one. No matter how good your idea or planning it out is, terrible execution can completely destroy all of that. Like it could start out well and then it becomes clear that the author is just making things up. Keep in mind, making things up probably isn't a bad way to go about writing your comic (and can even work wonders. I'm pretty sure One Piece, even though I liked its earlier parts, does this very often for example) but sometimes it can be done poorly. Two examples that come out of my head are Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 (specifically the last few episodes) and, from what I remember, Kingdom Hearts in general.

The obvious counter to this is to learn how story structure works and make sure the plot makes....sense I guess and has a sensible progression.

1. Bad Improvising/Ideas coming out of nowhere

You also have to make the "ideas that come out of nowhere/improvisation" work to the plots favor. You also have to consider the medium the story is being told on.

Pulling ideas out of seemingly nowhere works for One Piece because they are in a setting where many fantastical things can happen. It works for the Mother video game series because the video game medium allows those optional elements to shine in their own way (if they are put to the side), the bizarre interpretation of the modern settings allow this to not be jarring, and because its Mother. And so on...

A bad example I can use is Homestuck (not that I think its terrible). The improvising elements, the characters doing random things (if that makes sense), slows the plot down to a snail's pace. Which leads to...

1. Pacing

Spacing out the events in your story is important. I'm not really sure how to explain this one, someone else is probably better qualified. But I do know that its important to manipulate how you use your pacing.

A slow pace, is probably best used early on but making it slow later on can work (though I think its difficult.) and making the entire plot slow can work as well. Its mainly used to explore the characters, their motivations, backstories, personalities, likes, viewpoints, etc. Anyway, I think this could be best used to explore the characters in the story.

Best (positive) examples: Hunter x Hunter (Chimera Ant arc), Persona 5, Kubera (from what I've read)

However, a slow pace can leave a story feeling...aimless I suppose. And taking a bit too long to get to the next plot point with no purpose (keep in mind that the positive use of it can have people saying this as well. It doesn't mean its bad). In other words, the plot can become a slog to get through and (as you put it) stagnates.

Best (negative) examples: Homestuck's approach to pacing (though sometimes it can work)

Exceptions to the rule: Mother 3. Depending on if you explore or not.

A fast pace can lead to a fast moving and energetic plot. Best used if you want to put more focus on the plot. Bad fast paces lead to some plots becoming, as you put it, "complete nonsense". I don't have much more to say than that I suppose. And i don't have many examples. Someone else should probably cover pacing...

That's all I can think of for stuff that can kill a plot.

[NickRowler]

I sort of feel like manga (and animes based off of mangas) have a problem with ending plot lines.

Manga is designed to constantly come out every week or month so a series doesn't end unless it gets canceled (which leads to rushed endings) or authors get bored (which leads them throwing whatever together)

[zetina]

I want to re-read Tsubasa just to see if my older brain can digest the plot any better than my teen brain could. Although, oddly enough, I think I actually remember the why's and what's. This is so true though. I think I was just looking forward to see Syaoran develop more and show off his stuff and to angst over his romance with Sakura. It's like, yeah, pretty much that - the story sets out promising one thing but then betrays the audience and does something totally different. I'm sure it can work though... if it subverts a trope or something and ends up saying something about the whole thing.

It actually feels more like it's... "We set up a really long-running premise but we don't actually wanna make up plots around every feather so let's just go towards an ending". This reminds me of Sword Art Online. Its set-up is also ideal for a series of many episodes and even seasons with how they had to complete 100 floors with increasingly tougher dungeons and bosses... but then Kawahara ran out of pages and was like "oh well lol boss battle on floor 75!!". In his place, when getting to actually publish the light novel series, I'd have rewritten to expand the whole thing to run across several books.. which he is doing anyway? He's still writing stories about then. Oh well SAO is just a whole lot of interesting ideas that would be better off with a better writer.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Killing plot? Yeah, idk if I can think of anything other than "betraying your story's tone". It's kinda like "jumping the shark"?

[shazzbaa]

This is an extremely general answer, but I feel like the work seems to "go bad" if you promise one thing and deliver something else. That's not to say you can't have elements that are a surprise, but I think there's a focus on surprising the audience and on not being "predictable" that can make some newer storytellers forget that it's okay, and often good, to provide the sort of story that the audience is expecting to see.

I think getting caught up in audience expectations and desires and reacting to that -- whether that's "omg everyone wants this so I'm gonna try to make it happen" or "they expect/want this so IM DOING SOMETHING ELSE" -- can sometimes be fun, but focusing on it too much can also result in losing track of what your story was originally promising.

[Demy]

I'm pretty sure the workload (and some company issues) that comes with being a mangaka also adds to this issue. Hence why Togashi takes so many hiatuses due to health issues (and, from what I've heard, Yu Yu Hakusho having a poor ending) and Bleach having a pretty rushed ending.

Hence, why I, personally, would probably try to go for at a Bi-Weekly format. This way, at least I think, I would be able to put out chapters while being able to do small breaks. If I wanted, I could probably put out some extra chapters the week after.

Like, come on I doubt a comic's popularity is going to tank after a week. Especially if you keep a consistent biweekly schedule.

[Nitelini]

....Anyway, what were we talking about? Killing plot? Yeah, idk if I can think of anything other than "betraying your story's tone". It's kinda like "jumping the shark"?

I was thinking exactly about this, That's mainly what kills a plot, at least for me, and not necesarily the story tone, it would be the most general way, but getting more specific; "betraying the meaning and the concept of the main characters could easily kill a plot", of course, there could be an exception if this sudden change is propperly executed to develope the plot line further, One example of poorly execution in this manner of plot change Is Samurai's Jack season 5 (Not explaining further to avoid spoilers)

This Doesn't mean you have to stuck with flat characters, cause it would also harm the plot and limit your creativity for the clarity's sake. If you want you could see it this way; “A Plot goes around three elements. The Context, The events and the characters, if you twist on of them in such a manner isn't the same anymore, you're killing the plot”, unless you tag the lines between changes. but why? what's the purpose? Here's where it comes one subject I think everyone in this post has touched.

Plan the structure of the story; You might wonder, How can you twist an event? isn't it supposed to be a one time thing? yes and no. See, context and characters are constant elementes on the plot, and events are the result of the interaction between both of the early mentioned. But all the events as a whole are what is supposed to tell the story, then it turns into another element. So in this way you could twist events, in wich manner?; presenting a plot twist that its overcome will lead the reader away from the purpose of the story.

Now to avoid this you would need to know where you want your story to end, and then you could roll it that way, also planning the plot points you want to be there in this tale would be an excellent way to simplify the task, you would just need to tag point A to point B and then to point C, that would be the basics, of course, being so attached to a template will make the story feel rigid, so, I think the best way is to plan some points, very general and abstract, so you could place whaterever it pleases you in the story, and would use this luck of a template to check if you're getting away from what you've planned.

And being random isn't bad either, that thing has a name and it's non-sequitur, but i think it's purpose is mainly to entertain, perfect to make jokes, but not to allow a story to grow, unless you use it actually to foreshadow, in it's manner would be very subttle like a stain in the wall, it's ugly, it's little, you know it's there, but after some time, you'll get use to it and even forget it, until it comes back and turns to be a fucking worm hole that will sucks and throw you in an outer space with titanic battle ships and alien ronin cowboys.

so well, that's pretty much all I had to say about the topic for now 8D, Good luck guys, a hug Tapas comunity!

[indagold]

I think one thing an author should know what to do is when to end the work, know your limitations and know how far you can go before you went too far. Like someone whose new to comics might just keep working on one piece of work until they finish it because they want to write a great epic. Instead it just ends up going from having great potential to a mess because you realized you dun goofed halfway through but still need to finish the damn thing.

[iza_wen]

Demy, Good thing Arakawa didn't work for shounen jump when she published Fullmetal Alchemist, or we might have ended up with another bad ending like the first anime. Because some of the mangaka that are successful over there ruin their plot at the end trying to keep the manga alive longer. Don't know who is at fault, but it happened.
Others creators just don't know how to balance characters and powers and end up with tons of characters that were important being forgotten at the end, and in some stories everyone gets so powerful that we don't have a standard anymore. The guy throws one technique at the beginning that is awesome and at the end the only way to make their powers seem good and important is by making them world destroyers or something.
I mean, I stopped reading Prince of Tennis because it wasn't about tennis anymore, it was about kids with super powers capable of killing the opponent with a tennis ball, and no one found it weird. I bet they are actually genetically modified human weapons.

[kimber_anne]

For real! I gave up on reading TRC because of all that weird plot twist stuff. It made it really hard to follow!

And it's so sad because I feel that the initial plot had so much potential.

[Strontium]

This is an extremely general answer, but I feel like the work seems to "go bad" if you promise one thing and deliver something else.

God, this gives me flashbacks to Allegiant, the third book in the Divergent series. The second book ended with the idea that all the Divergents were going to lead an army of the factions out into the greater world to save it... and Allegiant is about badly explained genetic engineering at O'hare Airport and everyone is just sleeping in cots and putting their hands through fountain water. Like, I LOVE O'Hare but the third book SUCKED! I was so disappointed!

And while we're talking about Allegiant, killing off the MC is usually a plot ruiner for me. I just don't like that "twist." It's cheap and it also seems to betray the idea of a MC which is, they're the main character and the story is about THEM.

Now moving on. One last thing that ruins plots for me is an overuse of ret-conning. This is similar to Shazzbaa's point - promising one thing and delivering another - with the added bonus of seeming like the author didn't know what they were doing in the first place. It's hard for me to imagine writing a story when I don't know how it ends! Or WHEN it ends! So retcons come in and can "extend" the story by altering facts we previously learned but it feels cheap. Just tell the story you started with!

I don't see a ton of this in webcomics, since it would take a lot of webcomic chapters to get to this point. These are mostly complaints about novels, what I wrote here.

[heraclus]

Sometimes you plan everything and still everything goes wrong , that's what happens in every prison break episode and then you have to improvise your way out.So building a plot is like creating math problems that are solvable.I hope you get it , cause i don't , i have no clue what i just said XD.

[Hodge]

I totally get it! Liar game was also like that. I've kinda been thinking of this cause I have a shounen with powers and all and every fight requires so much thinking and it's kinda like I'm making a video game or a puzzle that I then have to solve. It's hard to explain but it's scary cause maybe I'm not smart enough or it'll mess up the plot later. I think hxh did a good job partly because there wasn't any random power ups and the slow pacing was very manageable.

But yah, I got you~

[Rhombik]

Quite a lot really.

1. Jumping the shark. For me, this is basically when somebody has clearly run out of ideas or doesn't know what to do next so they just put their characters in zanier and zanier situations.

2. No plan. As a few people have already mentioned, when the person didn't have an ending in mind and kept going with the hope that it would all come together. Sometimes it does all come together but it's risky.

3. Pacing. If at any time it's taking too long to get to the next point. Everything should move the plot forward somehow.

4. Deux ex machina. When the solution seemingly comes out of nowhere. The seeds should have been sown throughout the story. Hopefully, at the end, the reader will think that it couldn't have ended any other way.

5. Exposition. Show don't tell. Don't explain the ending.

6. Going out of character. This is my pet peeve. Sometimes it doesn't make sense for a character to do something but it does further the plot. If you don't understand why a character would do something, it can ruin the character for you. Then it's harder to care about the story.

[anim8or2000]

Plots are beautiful things. They aren't necessary in comics, but I think we all love a good plot once in a while.

really? I would have thought as we are all about telling stories using sequential art that plot would kind of important. otherwise what you have is a page with some drawing on them with no meaning. You might as well put up a sketchbook. instead.

at the moment my comic is a page a week based on events of the week, but each page has a plot; a beginning middle and end or with a gag a framing, telling and punchline eventually there will be a longer story that I have been writing for 4 months I have plotted out the whole story and are about a third of it scripted out as pages with dialog

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I kind of meant a long-running plot, sorry.

I guess you can count a single joke in a gag strip as a plot. I don't know how that can be killed, though, unless the creator puts no punchline in or something.

Back on topic, please.

[heraclus]

Maybe the character is forced to or doesn't have another option , i think that's a good way to justify an action that the character will never do if he wasn't forced too.

[Rhombik]

It's a good way around the problem sometimes but I was more thinking of situations where the character is acting of their own accord but it doesn't make sense. Like, for example, when a character falls in love with somebody and you don't believe it because the writer hasn't set it up well enough.

[shazzbaa]

there could be an exception if this sudden change is propperly executed to develope the plot line further

This is such a silly example, but I always think of Hatoful Boyfriend for this, because it's in(?)famous for an unexpected tone shift, but it's also loved for it, so it seems like it did something right. And I think the main thing is that as you play through the silly, jokey part of the game, there's always hints at something darker -- there's something sinister about the doctor, there's rumours of students disappearing -- and by the time you find the huge startling tone shift, you've been actively trying to learn, what's really going on?
Basically, as the story begins, it begins to promise something else later on -- so that by the time you get there, yeah, it's surprising how completely the tone shifts, but it feels like a reveal of something that had already been promised to you, rather than an out-of-nowhere ""twist"" that breaks its promises.

Exposition. Show don't tell. Don't explain the ending.

(this is a minor semantic quibble but -- exposition isn't bad!! Exposition just means delivering information and it's a necessary part of any story. Over-explaining and walls-of-text info-dumping and introducing a lot of sudden information that wasn't naturally set up earlier are all examples of POORLY DONE exposition, and those are the things you want to avoid! but please don't avoid exposition.... trying to avoid any explanations -- meaning no one really understands the stakes to begin with and can't engage with the story -- can make just as big a mess as overexplaining)

Maybe the character is forced to or doesn't have another option

This isn't really "going out of character," though; that's the thing. If you have a character who would never want to lie to his family, but some villain has told him that his family will die unless he keeps their operation quiet -- it's not "out of character" for that guy to want to protect his family. In fact, that conflict, in seeing which option wins out of two things the character doesn't want, tells you a LOT about the character.

Being "out of character" is a different thing -- when you have a story where a character acts one way, and then does something that doesn't match because it moves the story forward, without any character development -- that's usually not great. For example, the cautious character who would never get into a fight could be forced into it against his will, or could have reasons that motivate him to do something he would normally avoid, and that's fine. But if that character suddenly picks a fight because the story needs them to get kicked out of the tavern, it's really easy to just write that archetypal scene rather than thinking about what That Specific Character Would Do. That can make the whole story feel more shallow, because suddenly the character doesn't feel like a specific person, but a string of archetypes.

[Hel]

Oh my god I've been watching the Netflix drama series Cable Girls and within just a few episodes it completely dropped the plot and the characterization and is now jumping from plot twist to plot twist. It's not even dramatic anymore because it's just so absurd. Everyone's behavior became out of character so quickly and completely that they don't even have characters anymore and I don't even know what the main character is doing most of the time, not that she's had any development at all to begin with.

It makes me so angry because they had such a good concept and great actors and a good budget and I even think the writing would be really good if they would just WRITE A STORY instead of hopping from twist to twist. It's so frustrating.

Worse still, a lot of their mistakes completely mirror mistakes made in the series Call the Midwife, which I kind of suspected from the beginning because the main characters are identical replicas of the main characters from that series. Specifically with the main character, the problem that Call the Midwife took three-ish seasons to develop (i.e they gave less and less attention to the main character in favor of other characters and never developed her properly so she became personality-less) it took maybe 2 episodes for Cable Girls to repeat.

Aahhh. I want to shake those writers and be like "You've removed the drama from your drama series with all these absurd plot twists!! Go back and write a consistent plot!!"

[Rhombik]

Sorry that point wasn't so clear. I meant specifically explaining what's happened. Sometimes you've got to tell your readers a little bit of info. I don't think it's good to explain what's just happened. Like if there was a scene in Macbeth where Macbeth was saying, "So first I met some witches, then I killed the King and now I'm going to kill my good friend Banquo because he opposes me..." it would slow things right down.