I feel like sometimes people don't value writing as a skill as much as artistic skill

[smokesalty]

This observation is mainly from threads talking about the 'writer vs artist' debate, and while I agree that art is much more time consuming I feel like some people don't understand that writing is also a hard skill to learn!

(That also counts for writers on here expecting artists to work for them for free without working on their own skills or having work to show COUGH)

I've heard people say 'oh writing a story is easy, drawing is hard' and I'm just sat here like UGH NO. While yes, writing and finishing a story is easier than illustrating an entire comic, writing a GOOD story is hard. You still need to work on your skills to improve, and it's something that should not be neglected when you're working on a project. Your writing also needs to be engaging to keep people reading your comic!

There's so much to consider especially when presenting your work to an audience. You have stuff like plotting, dialogue, pacing, character arcs, set up and pay off as well as feeding your audience information in an interesting and engaging way. IT IS NOT EASY.

No-one comes out the womb knowing to draw or write. You gotta work for both. End of rant

[Kelheor]

I totally agree. I think it generally comes from the fact that we all can write (anything), we all are doing it every day, a few times a day. Not that many people even doodle something. So when it comes to writing a story, everyone goes "bah, of course I can write stuff, how hard could it be, I am writing this post on a forum right now! "
Yeeeeeeeeah, no. Not only you should actually make a story, not just through together a bunch of dialogue, you should actually make it readable, better yet - captivating.
So I am actually surprised how many people consider writing easy. If you consider a bunch of dialogue with "he said" in every sentence and descriptions that look like moves down the street put in asterisks a good writing skill... Well, I don't even know what to say, and this goes for both writers and readers. Because yeah, writing is hard and it takes just as much time and work to hone this skill as drawing.

[darthmongoose]

There's definitely a lack of training among comics creators in how to write, which isn't great when with the rise of webcomics, comics artists are more and more having to also be writers. Being good at drawing and having OCs people think are cute beans doesn't magically make you also good at writing! You gotta go and learn that stuff!

An awful lot of the time when I'm looking at promising creators with pretty good art (often close to or at professional level), who seem stuck on low subs, if the problem isn't their comic's branding, it's that they're not telling an interesting story. They have likeable characters, but their whole comic is just kind of.... their characters.... hanging out....

I had to go and learn it the hard way. My comics had always been a bit lacklustre due to their lack of a strong plot direction, and spending time with writer friends and reading books and resources they recommended was hugely helpful to my development.

[Lensing]

I differ between story writers, script writer, storyboarders, letterers, pencilers, inkers, colorists
All reguire different skills and require a different time when you produce something. Is a storyboarder
valued less than a story writer? Is a letterer valued less than an inker? Something to think about.

Beside that I think that every artist needs to be a storyteller. Some tell a story without even knowing
about it and they think they are not a writer

[dreample2000]

Yes, some people seem to have the idea that visual media is better than written media because it is more labor intensive but just because writing isn't visibly laborious doesn't mean it is easy. Admittedly as an artist, wordsmithing is just as hard as drawing, based from my experience writing fanfictions. Even though I was just typing, my head hurts just trying to come up with the words that convey what I imagine. Just because you know grammar, syntax and vocabulary does not mean you can write in the artistic sense in the same way that just because you know how to make lines and color does not mean you can make art. There are works that are just music to the ears when read and convey emotion and images in your head simply by seeing lines and strokes.

[smokesalty]

Yes, exactly!! People seem to think writing something well is as easy as putting word to page, but it takes a lot of practice in order to create something that engages an audience and makes them care about the story. It is a whole lot of thinking and making considerations. May take less time than art, but it sure as hell is not easy!

[TheLemmaLlama]

I've said this before and I hope no-one remembers so I don't sound like a broken record, but imo this is the real reason you should start making the comic you've been obsessing about even if your art 'isn't good enough'. Because honestly, chances are ... your writing isn't good enough either :'D Start your comic, learn both :]

wordsmithing is just as hard as drawing, based from my experience writing fanfictions.

I totally agree, based on my experience trying to write a fanfic and never finishing it to this day XD In fact, I'd say wordsmithing is harder than drawing in many ways. Art might be labor intensive and have a steep learning curve, but once you're past that initial learning curve (the biggest one), it's pretty much straightforward. If you draw a thing and it looks wrong, it's usually just a technical thing and it's pretty clear how to fix it.

But if a piece of prose sounds wrong, you can't just tweak a word/letter here and there, you have to restructure the whole thing somehow and even then you can't tell if you've gotten any closer to something that sounds right! I get the feeling prose writing is one of those things that never gets any more straightforward no matter how experienced you get :'D

[darthmongoose]

The worst advice for me that everyone gives is "Just write!"

As if writing is a natural reflex everyone has, so you can just do the equivalent of pushing a fledgeling bird out of the nest so it'll start flying. It's literally only useful if the person isn't writing at all and just getting paralysed staring at the empty page, or they're seeking feedback without having enough content to feed back on. If the person is writing, but what they're writing isn't good, then just telling them to write more without any further guidance doesn't really help. It might even harm them if they just keep repeating the same mistakes and turning them into habits.

My writing was poor compared to my art in my early comics, and not for want of writing. I produced tons of fanfic, original fiction and comics, and I even did a literature degree because that had been my best subject in school, so it wasn't for want of reading either. The problem was, I just didn't understand how to structure a tight narrative with a clear direction or how to write to entertain an audience rather than just play out scenes for my own amusement. It's not something people tend to just know via instinct (and people who seem to, they often actually don't understand it on a basic level, they just copy plot beats from something else and change some surface details).

As much as more advanced writers like to dismiss it, reading "Save the Cat!" is seriously a great place to start, and more people should read that book. Yes, it only teaches you to structure a story like a generic hollywood film, but as a starting point for learning the basics of writing the kind of popular fiction that thrives on Tapas, that's not a terrible thing. I learned so much about that book about identifying what makes somebody a suitable protagonist in a story, deciding where the story should start, not making scenes that waste the audience's time, stuff like that! Watching how often the writers who say it's a bad book write dull, monotonous stories that seem more wrapped up in how clever their conceit is than telling any kind of enjoyable or suspenseful story and then complain about how nobody wants to read it..... yeah I think I'll take being a hack with my well-loved copy of Save the Cat, thanks.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Hot take, but I would say * most * people don't value writing as a skill as much as artistic skill.

When it comes to visual media, spectacle is everything. Whether it's pointless shock-value drama or expensive CGI, if you can grab people's eyes and just manage to hold their attention for long enough, I'd say 7 times out of 10 you'll have gained a viewer. No matter how awful the underlying story is. I'm sure many of you can think of examples in pop culture that exemplify this. ^^;

And honestly, even when it comes to prose, this rule still holds up, only the spectacle is in words instead of images.
Right now, I've got a stack of manga in the corner of my room adapted from the most horrendous (but fairly popular) YA novel series I have ever read-- a couple years after I bought them, I was volunteering in a library, and I decided to go ahead and check out the books to see what all the hype was about...only to find that the source material was just...a colossal joke. :T

The writing was decent on the surface...like, it was constructed well enough to successfully immerse me in the story, the same way pretty art will pull you in. But once you stop to think about what you're reading for even a moment, you quickly realize that the actual events don't make sense.
The story revolves around a steady stream of endless drama, mixing actual life-and-death situations with deception and manipulation to try to keep things fresh. Half the time when the MCs (conveniently) manage to escape the villain-of-the-week's terrible plot, they're told "it was just a test, it was just a trick; we wanted to see if you could do what we created you to do".

At first, this is compelling-- it seems as if the characters really are rats running through a worldwide maze. But after a couple books' worth of this nonsense, it becomes apparent that this is just a sad, lazy cop-out to cover up the fact that the author doesn't know what to do with the story, beyond putting the kids through yet another 'wacky situation'. There's no learning or real character growth for the antagonists or protagonists, despite how serious and edgy the series pretends to be. Just more drama, more love triangles, and more situations.

The one character that actually did get a successful character development AND redemption arc had it LITERALLY reset so they could be a badguy again for the last two books, and I was SO ANGRY I GRHGRHGHJADSIJFOA;SKLNFASLKN;D;NLK--

...Anyway, the point is that this series really wasn't written well. Like, it REALLY wasn't written well. The manga was discontinued right around where the story started to get really stupid, and sometimes I wonder if that was on purpose...

I only doubt it because I don't think most readers would notice how bad it is. ^^: Like I said, the writing looks good. It's professional-sounding, it has a good balance of humor vs. seriousness; it doesn't feel like amateur work. And despite being complete idiots, the characters are entertaining. They do and say interesting things.

And for most people, I genuinely think that's all a story needs. Even in a better story that's planned out well, that's all they can see; the issue is a lack of insight. The average person doesn't really know or care about what separates a quality story from one that's just flashy and fun (in isolated instances...). Which is why most non-authors think writing is easy, and most beginning authors don't know how to get better (being repeatedly told "just write more" or "just read more" doesn't help, as many have pointed out).

This is also why 'flashy and fun'...sells. Bad stories can still easily become popular as long as they look good; it makes total sense that writing is valued less when it literally has less value, in a way. Bad art will be immediately apparent; meanwhile it could take audiences a year or more to wake up to bad writing, and by then even if you get canceled you'll have already made your money. It's not hard to see which one is the smart investment.

I'm not really sure what can be done about this besides promoting literary/film critique, and trying to help fellow writers learn how to hone their craft. ^^; I think if we can just keep raising the bar when it comes to storytelling, and explaining how it works and doesn't work to anyone who'll listen, people may someday come to value it more.

[SpectreFirst]

I think it generally comes from the fact that we all can write (anything), we all are doing it every day, a few times a day.

And this is the prime example why this is happening – people do not distinct between writing as the process of physically writing things down and writing as a story-making process which involves a lot of steps ranging from world, characters, logic and plot-building to collecting references, making concept designs and drafting your story in order to align your logic with graphics, refine pacing and so on. After all, when people say “drawing” they always refer to physically drawing things so apparently “writing” should obviously mean the same – a physical process of typing and not the process of story-making! Yeah.

So I am actually surprised how many people consider writing easy.

Yes, writing is easy because apparently it’s not about carefully constructing logic, finding references and drafting scenes, it’s just about sitting down and writing down the first thing that comes to mind! And to be perfectly honest, it looks like this is exactly how 90% of comics, especially the ones created by artists, are made.

Bad stories can still easily become popular as long as they look good

It’s not just that, the primary function of any product of entertainment is to satisfy its target audience by pulling the right strings and this is exactly why things like Twilight and 50 Shades became so popular and in the end it didn’t really matter how objectively bad they are as a literature because they were specifically tailored for specific audience and did their job perfectly well.

[Kuma]

I have been working as a professional writer for videogames for close to a decade.

The "Writing is easy, I bet I can do it" declaration from different studios I worked with never stops, at least until you get into a halfway serious studio.

Any kind of art is hard, if you want to work professionally you need to train, you need to improve and you need to evolve. Writing is an art and it has to be respected as such, since many elements that you think are easy to replicate in reality are complex.

Pacing and structure are two of the largest hurdles I've seen on indie projects, who either rush to reach "the good part" of their story or meander around because they don't have one.

The mentality that writing is easy has knee-capped many great artists into obscurity. While many writers have an ego and that tends to knee-cap them, thinking their purple prose should be kept inside a bank vault for the value they perceive on it.

[bulgariansumo]

Some people mentioned that people value artistic skill because it's seen as more labor-intensive. I think that's only true of fellow artists. Anyone who has charged for commissions can tell you that the average person vastly undervalues the work that goes into creating visual art. Heck, you even had that whole "Webcomics are literature's fun side hustle" debacle.

I think visual art is valued more because it's, well, visual. It's probably the easiest form of media to attract attention if done well. Think about it. More time investment goes into other forms of media, and there's risk involved in that. Some songs start off good, but take a weird turn halfway through. Some books start off really dry and boring before getting to the good parts. But when you see an illustration, you know instantly whether you like it or not. Few people like wasting time, so it makes sense that people would be drawn the most to visual art.

I'd be willing to bet that there's some people who stick around longer for a webcomic they don't like anymore because they like the art style. On the flip side, no matter how good the writing is, a webcomic with a less refined art style is going to be overlooked by most people. And if you look at the stats on Tapas, there is a noticeable disparity in the numbers webcomics can achieve vs. novels.

I don't really know how to wrap this up but yeah, I agree with OP.

[sable40k]

I agree. It's unfortunate that there's a writer vs artist debate at all, though I understand why it happens. It should be a team effort!

That said, for solo creators, I can see how it being quite overwhelming to work on improving your writing and art, as well as everything else involved in making a comic. If only there were more hours in the day...

[TedGravesArt]

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said by folks in here already, but as a solo creator, I've noticed that most of the comments early on in my comic talk about the art, whereas most of the comments later on in the comic talk about the story. Good art will get butts in seats, but it's the writer's job to keep them there. At first the number of people talking about the art may seem lopsided, but I think it balances out over time.

[powerplantanimations]

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH WRITING IS SO DIFFICULT!!!!!

YOU GUYS WANNA KNOW HOW I GOT TO WHERE I AM!!?!

PEOPLE INSULTING YOUR WORK, FRIENDS CONSTANTLY POINTING OUT WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN'T WORK, FINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO CRITICIZE YOUR WORK, REALIZING THAT "Hey... I'm not really funny at all!", WORKING ON YOUR HUMOR, LEARNING HOW PEOPLE FUNCTION AND TALK (WHICH WAS SUUUUUUUPER EASY FOR A HOMEBODY LIKE ME! CAN YOU TELL HOW EASY IT WAS?!?)

And oh my God, don't get me started on how EVERY. SINGLE. THING. HAS TO BE THERE FOR A REASON. How to make everything cohesive. How themes must not be just for aesthetic, but it has to SAY something. OH MY GOD! HOW YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO GIVE LESSONS TO PEOPLE SO YOUR COMIC CAN STAND OUT. Now you're telling me, I have to have experience with LIFE?!? Next thing you know you want me to do 10 backflips!

And then when you think you right, you discover, your biased! You have views that can make a person on the other side angry. And now you're like "HOW DO I MAKE MYSELF NOT BIASED?!?". Don't forget hubris!

And then you actually have to study how comics move and all that. You read through like SEVEN HUNDRED OLD COMIC BOOKS. And then you analyze movies to try and figure out how things fit together and what the writer's trying to say. And then you have...

To find....

AN ARTIST.

You spend six-years online, looking for someone to draw your webcomic, until finally you find out that maybe people want STICK FIGURES.

And then I have to streamline, and then I have to worry about plotholes... flushing scripts down the toilet.

Artists... hug your writers. Tell them how much you appreciate them.

@darthmongoose For me, I will say forcing yourself to write papers until it's a habit is important. Sure people will need guidance, but "just writing" is really important. Maybe just writing for a little while before being like "Okay... now I'm want to get serious". I think I did that for 10 scripts and then I just began writing seriously and began looking around for proper help.

For me, I will say YouTubers and music helped out more than books (Half in the Bag, B-Mask, and Matthewmatosis are great jumping off points. I don't recommend Lindsey Ellis, the Sardonicast, Everything Wrong With, Hbomberguy, Schfillias, Chris Stuckmann, etc., etc.). I remember my friend who was an english major using how-to books and she was shocked that I was using concepts she hasn't learned yet. (For me I just stick with South Park's "But, then, But, then" outline). ALTHOUGH I WON'T LIE! It was difficult for me to find the right people to learn from and to top it off... I have a hard time learning stuff in English.

Like I remember I was taking English and I was like "OH THAT'S WHAT THIS THING IS CALLED!". Also you'll look stupid when talking to other writers with just english stuff in general. I remember feeling really dumb when a person was giving writing advice and when I tried jumping in to give writing advice it just sounded like I was way out of my depth because HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT AN ADJECTIVE MEANS?!? (The other person came across as more articulate while I just sounded like some dude with a pencil jammed in my nose).

Which is why I like talking to more casual writers instead of hardcore writers. I just felt so out of place.

[AmazementComics]

Yeah, most people I would argue don't value writing as much as art.

If you put a piece of artwork next to an excerpt of a book, Generally, people will gravitate more to the artwork. That's because people have become accustomed to what's visually pleasing rather than what is intellectually pleasing. Also, consider this: An author demands so much time from a reader, whilst the viewer of a drawing or painting can offer as much time as they feel the piece is worth. The same with popular music. Songs now require very little time from the listener.

Even when a reader finds a book they like and invest considerable emotional energy into experiencing the work, they will still be very critical of the author because they are going to have very personal opinions on just about everything.

However, for me, there is no greater feeling than seeing a subscriber of mine commit themselves to following a story that may (not all the time) be lacking in the art department, but have strong writing.

[BOMB]

I'd even go so far as to argue writing a story can be harder to do than drawing one. In visual media you can literally show the viewer everything you want, so there are no misinterpretations. It takes less steps to show or explain things because the viewer can literally see it. That's not to say drawing doesn't take skill, you have to put in effort to design things in a visually appealing way, but for example

Memes. They are basically mini comics. They get the benefits of using text and visuals like comics.

Take almost any meme in existence and try to convey it without its visual elements and it becomes near impossible to capture the essence of the original. Now take that same meme and cut out the text elements. Even without words, a lot of memes are still funny enough to laugh or chuckle at. Memes without visual elements come off as out of context observations at best.

On top of that, in ​writing, you have to do writen gymnastics to:

1. Show the reader where they are, when they are, where they are standing.
2. Show who is talking or doing something.
3. Move the story along without being/showing formulaic.
4. Create tension without becoming overly dramatic.
5. Add flavor without stopping the story.

And you have to do those things basically from line to line on top of watching your grammar, punctuation, tens, and a plethora of other things.

In a comic you have backgrounds, so people can see where they are.

You have thought and speech bubbles so people can see who's speaking.

People can see clothes and faces.

They can see expressions and know how characters are feeling.

In writing, there are less tools available, so it's easier to build something wrong even or especially if it's built faster. Drawing may take more time but you have so many elements you can use to avoid the gymnastics of writing.

Writing is like building with a single material while drawing is having nearly every material. And I know that then brings up the argument that too much choice can be a problem in itself, but if you had an option to build a house out of nothing but bricks, vs building a house out bricks, insulation, carpet, glass, marble, and wood, which would you chose? Because sure, the brick house might be faster to build, but it'll probably take a lot more effort to make it comfortable and safe to live in.

I'm writing all of this while riding a train, so my thoughts are a little scattered, but I'm sure someone must get what I mean.

[rajillustration]

something I heard once that I like to remember when it comes to writing is a tip I got from a teacher that was "writing is like kissing, where everyone thinks they're amazing and Gods gift to man until they're told otherwise."

Like it's one of those skills that you will continue to improve at your whole life. Especially since with the internet every place you write demands you write a little different with pacing, with amount of words you can use, etc. There's just always something to learn.

That and I think writing comics in particular is really difficult because it's connected to the art so much. Connecting the art and the writing was really hard for me for a long while, and it's been a lot of learning as you go, but i'm only where I'm at because of all the work put into it. Do I put more time and energy into the art? Absolutely, but only because the writing is so much quicker to do.

Like if I were only writing, I could have written like so many comics during this time I've spent just drawing one (which is one of the reasons why artists who work on comics get paid more than the writer usually. The writer can just make more work to sell, and the artist can't. They only work on one comic at a time really, ti's a lot of work. So it's not really a matter of being viewed as more important: its a matter of being able to get paid.). That and I think writing is more accessible to learn, you just need...to write. It's a lot harder to come by art materials and art instruction. But...writing ain't easy.

[sable40k]

which is one of the reasons why artists who work on comics get paid more than the writer usually.

It's so interesting to think about who gets more kudos/money/etc. in the artist-writer relationship. I remember listening to some professional illustrators talk about how in their field, writers get big billing, but artists (despite being a big component of picture books) are a second thought.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Some people mentioned that people value artistic skill because it's seen as more labor-intensive ...

... I think visual art is valued more because it's, well, visual.

Honestly, I don't think either is the primary reason art is more valued. It's more of a matter at looking at something and asking yourself 'could I have made this'?

When most people looks at a competent illustration, it's immediate to them that 'no, I couldn't have drawn this, creating this work is beyond my abilities, therefore it's valuable. Whereas a lot of people, after reading a good story, think 'I could probably write something like this if I tried' cough not 13-year-old me saying to my stepmom I could probably write something like Pillars of the Earth cough :'D

As someone who can draw, I know how labor-intensive art is, but I think I actually value art less than the average person. Like, I can't see myself paying for a commission because it's like, I could just ... do it myself :'D These days I see a drawing and being able to mentally deconstruct it and figure out a process by which I can recreate it - I've lost that sense of awe I felt looking at drawings like that back when I didn't know how to draw; that sense of 'how is this even made, whoever made this must be a literal miracle worker' o_o

I also have a sneaking suspicion most people aren't actually unaware of how labor-intensive art is - them lowballing artists on commissions is just a matter of 'people are cheap, and want to pay the minimal amount they could possibly get away with'. If someone sees their favourite brand of sneakers on sale at 80% off, they're not going to insist on paying full price for it anyway just because it's 'worth that much'.

To be entirely honest, I find it a bit grating how the art community act like people underpaying them is a matter of them thinking 'artists don't deserve living wages'. Like ... no, it's not a matter of what you do or don't 'deserve', it's just ... demand and supply, basically. If those same people could get away with underpaying people from literally any other industry, they're sure as heck gonna do that as well. Not saying it's right, just ... it's not some sort of personal insult

For me, I will say forcing yourself to write papers until it's a habit is important. Sure people will need guidance, but "just writing" is really important.

Yeah, 'just write' is good for developing a habit and 'loosening your tongue', so to speak, and getting over that 'word constipation' where you have things you want to say but can't bring yourself to say them because the words that come to you aren't 'perfect'. But it's probably not that helpful for improving the actual quality of one's writing

Take almost any meme in existence and try to convey it without its visual elements and it becomes near impossible to capture the essence of the original. Now take that same meme and cut out the text elements. Even without words, a lot of memes are still funny enough to laugh or chuckle at. Memes without visual elements come off as out of context observations at best.

I agree with the overall message of your comment, but I gotta say ... I never really understood the appeal of wordless memes and I don't remember any of them making me laugh Also, copypastas are hilarious