Hey everybody,:D
my questions how do you practice writng, are there certain exercises you can do? Are there any good books and the topic? Any good tips?Or anything else that you could do to improve your writing skils?
Thanks for anwsernig 
Oct '15Oct '15
I don't really think i'm all that great in writing but I do think reading helps in general! like reading a lot! and just kinda going at it and write down random things like maybe even lines for your comic or story or even if you have like a dairy it's mostly just getting in the habit in my opinion. especially trying to write words you don't normally use and write them down in a sentence.
Some general tips, courtesy of my very own experience:
1.) Read a lot.
Preferably, read a lot of comics, especially of the type you'd like to write. Reading gag-a-day comics is great fun, and very educational when it comes to learning comedic timing - but if you want to write an adventure comic, you're going to want to read adventure comics to learn pacing and characterisation and framing of shots, etc..
Also, don't just read comics. Read everything. Read novels, read non-fiction books, read articles, read poetry. You never know where you might learn something, or where you might find inspiration. Maybe reading a book about the history of the crusades won't immediately give you ideas - but one day, you might find yourself considering doing a comic about a crusader and then voilá! You'll already know the basics!
2.) Practise makes perfect.
So you want to write a comic. Great! Now go write some comics. Like, now.
You can read all you want, and learn all the theory you want - but you have to get in the water to actually learn how to swim, you know?
Don't start of with a big, sprawling epic. Start off with small stuff! Do one-shot comics, or even just single scenes. Start small and build your way up to something bigger. I might be working on a huge comic now, but I've done a bunch of smaller, shorter comics first - everything from 5-10 page stuff that are exercises in specific stuff (like fight-scenes, or explorations of settings) to longer one-shots of 30-50 pages, telling the full arc of a short story.
And it's really helped. When you know how to handle the building blocks of a story - scenes, dialogue, character-development, establishing shots, action sequences, where and how to place speechbubbles, etc., - it's much, much easier to put together a big story.
3.) Set yourself deadlines.
You don't have to stress out and finish stuff in record-time - but setting yourself some kind of goal in terms of how long it should take to finish something means you will have to actually work on it. If you don't have some sort of self-imposed deadline, it's very easy to keep putting it off until later. And then you never finish.
... aaand that's been my experience learning how to write. Don't worry about getting it right the first time - failing is one of the best ways to learn.
Adding to what Anna said, I'd also suggest picking up a couple of creative writing books. I'm always surprised when I read someone say in the forums that they wish they'd considered things like character motivation, or raising the stakes, or story arcs before starting their comic. There really are some fundamental things that need to be understood and considered when writing a story that people actually want to read.
I'd suggest The Writer's Journey and a series called Elements of Fiction Writing. They have a bunch of small, easy to digest books covering things like Action, Conflict & Suspense, and Beginnings, Middles and Endings etc.
Other than that, I can only suggest that your write, and write and write, and try not to get discouraged when your first (or twentieth) attempts aren't as good as you want them to be. I wrote for 5 years and over 150,000 words before I felt good enough about my writing to finalise a script for my comic. I'm not suggesting you need to do the same, but rather, just to remember that writing's like any other skill, and it needs time and constant practise to be properly developed.
Read lots and lots of stories! Here are some of our exercises:
1. My sister and I like going on "story fieldtrips" where we watch a new movie/read a new book/ play a new (story-driven) game, anything with a story in it. Then dissect the heck out of it. See how it works: why do I like it? Why don't I like it?
2. A fun exercise is after reading a bad story we discuss how to fix the story in as few steps as possible.
3. Another awesome exercise is to make a list of prompts and do quick pitches on them (I got a prompt that was as crazy as mid-life crisis kung-fu satire, animal detective story, sci-fi military tear jerker). The idea of this exercise it to churn out a bunch of stories and not get attached to them.
4. Generally, don't go for your big epic on your first try. Do quick one-shots first, so in case you're not comfortable with the idea, you can bail on it or wrap up the story quickly without any ties to it. It's better to make lots of small stories for practice.
Cheers and happy writing <3
I take the stories I like or stories that have similar aspects to my own and dissect them. Why do they work? What would make them not work? What are the crucial elements that make it what it is? Why do I feel this way about X? Would I feel differently about it if I excluded Y?
Practice. Write. Do it again. At least your first 50,000 words will be crap. At least. Probably the first 250K.
As one of the three people on the submissions committee at NO-Earth, I read scripts and pitches every day. Every day. Most of it is abysmally bad. However, since we are a small company attempting to be creator focused, we wind up sending back critiques and giving people a chance to resubmit. Sometimes for multiple times. But all of this has given me some fresh insight into the state of comic 'writers'.
The first thing to do is get rid of any ego you have concerning your writing. Don't kill it, you'll need it later in your career, but just convince it that you need some time apart. Then start getting critiques. And not from your friends and family, but from people who are going to give you honest answers. And listen to them.
Most people have no idea why they don't like something, they just know something is off, and it's keeping them from enjoying the work. Most people can't tell you that one eye is off center on the painting you are looking at, they just know it's throwing them. Same with writing. Work, using your knowledge of the construction blocks of stories (those pesky elements of fiction) and find your weak points, and work on them. Get the critiques, throw the crap you just wrote away, and start on something new.
This is not quick. It is not easy. The single biggest problem with most webcomics is not the art, it is the writing. Learn pacing. Learn scene changes. Learn page transitions. Learn dialogue. Learn to think visually, to see the scene in your head so you can describe it. Learn how comics work.
Read every Scott McCloud book you can get your hands on. Read Peter David's Writing for Comics. Alan Moore has a book out, as does Brian Michael Bendis. Read scripts over at the Comic Script archive.
And take classes and workshops.
If this seems like a lot, honestly learning the craft of comic writing will take you just as long and be just as hard as learning to be an American style comic book artist.
Eagle
(But seeing your scripts come to life makes it all worth it)
I think doing storyboards alongside scripts, no matter how crappily drawn, can help you get a better sense of how much text will fit on a page, so that you don't overload an artist buddy if you ever get to the point where you're collaborating.
Just do a lot of it and try to find motifs that you wanna keep repeating.
