I rewrote the whole scene based on criticism of the characterization, and the lack of a general theme in the sequence, or an explanation of the chosen one.
Did I respond to the tips and stuff properly? I feel like I did do that by rewriting the whole scene to fit exactly what advice I got, but it always turns out I didn't,
Well I doubt that. Josh, you ask questions that are so specific that folks who dont deep read your stuff cant answer. You ask questions that I think you know the answers to but are too afraid to make changes without some confirming.
Issue is, in your head you are able to compute these ideas. We are not in your head. When you ask certain questions about characters, scenarios, etc. we dont know what they are. Its your head these ideas have. You ask questions we genuinely cant answer. And you dont take a hint that we are getting frustrated, you continue asking these questions that we genuinely can not answer.
My dude, you need to sit down and just write. Don't ask for advice. Don't ask for flow or characters or scenarios. Write what is in your head cause we cant be the ones to guide you to success. You need to do it.
I guess I'll draft out the rest of the comic narrative, since you said to, and won't come back without the entire thing. But what writer out there just makes a good book just by knowing their own writing is good and being correct? I'm horrible at communicating my own ideas coherently, I can't even write a world map that makes the audience aware of what is in the world and where that stuff is.
I can't say I remember a time I asked for "Flow or characters or scenarios" at any point in the past 6 months.
That's the thing, you are going back and editing before you're even partially through a chapter. You will never get part of your novel done if you constantly go back and redo things.
My recommendation is just write everything, get it all out. Then come back and revise. Once you have everything skin and bones, then you can decipher positives, negatives, ifs and ands.
If you keep going to this cycle of asking for help and advice every single chapter, then you will be stuck in a loop. Genuinely cant explain it any better than that.
Do you think it's better to edit in seasons, or the whole thing at once? Because the story is divided into seasons, I've written seasons one and two, which is like 24-26 chapters maybe, and what I mean by writing the whole thing is getting to season 3. Season one is them getting to the dark zone, season 2 is them in the dark zone, and season 3 is the proper end of the series and each one is a separate conflict that's part of a larger one. It's sort of structured like the star wars trilogy.
Committing to it just reinforces to me how kind of embarrassing I am, I've had this series since middle school and still never got to that final end point in my plans where things actually end. I definitely need to finally get that part down.
To be abundantly clear since I don't want this to be missed, I am 100 percent going to do what you said and I've started right now, with drafting the final season of my story.
No, the main thing that makes it better is the quality of writing. There's subtext.
In the scene, each character has a goal:
- Mufasa is giving his kid a life lesson and preparing him for his future role, trying to imbue maturity into the future king
- Simba wants to learn about all the cool things he'll get to do when he's older.
Take away the music and visuals, there's character in the dialogue.
When Mufasa says "doing what you want isn't the only thing you get to do when you're king" meaning "it's actually mostly the burden of responsibility" Simba gets really excited because he hears "that's so cool I get to do more stuff I want". Then, instead of getting angry or irritated by his son's immaturity, Mufasa calmly explains some of his responsabilities.
This means that the audience:
1) gets a quick, easy to understand explanation of the world (there's a kingdom, there's a bit outside the kingdom that is dangerous and forbidden with INTRIGUE, the lions rule the kingdom, and Simba is the next king)
2) Gets a feel of Mufasa as a gentle, level-headed responsable king, his priorities are the kingdom's wellbeing and longevity. This will contrast with Scar's characterisation.
3) Gets a feel of young Simba's immaturity, naïveté and selfishness, setting him up to contrast with his adult self so we see his growth.
None of them at any time say "I'm patient" "I'm immature", "I'm the king and one day I will die and then you will be king". They say it in a language that is unique to them, as lions using the sun as their guide, or just in their actions and what they're focusing on.
Your character is supposed to be invested. He doesn't know it's propaganda yet and exposition is never "supposed to be boring". Make it say something about the character with what parts they're focussing on and their reactions. AND THEN at the start cut anything that isn't needed in the next 2 chapters. That means quick and simple explanations of basic concepts that you can then build on and deepen in later scenes when necessary.
I have a question:
Josh, what's the next step? Say everyone here agrees, 'Yes, this is a fine draft to work with.' What are you doing with it next? What's your plan to make this comic happen?
Shouldn't you be putting all your focus into that comic then? That way you can utilize the energy you have for art to focus on learning and improving? Which you can then bring into your next story.
I want to be ready to start making this comic and have a full script prepared to write by the time that comic is done, and do far it’s something I could finish in a year or two based on how I planned it. It’s mainly a vector for drawing practice, with me kind of making up the dialogue as I go along based on a vague outline of things that will happen.
Well look Josh. Sometimes you aren’t ready. You just have to roll with it and get on with it. Suck it.
I know but I don’t really want to take a massive break from writing either to focus on this comic since it’s not much in terms of writing.
And when I tried to have just chapter one of this comic ready and not the entire thing, I was told to stop doing that because it’s a bad idea.
Six of them. Seven panels each. I'm currently on hiatus until I have six more pages done, that were finished on my own time and not on a time limit of one day per panel in order to stay ahead of scheduling, since my art has been sucking not because I sucked at it but because I didn't put in the full effort from rushing it out.