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smokesalty
May '22

Okay, this is also directed at past me, who would only ever think about how amazing my comic was gonna be but NEVER WRITING IT. The one time I did, I realised I did not know how to structure a story- I only came up with cool ideas for a couple events.

Was that comic gonna be great when I spent no time actually writing it? Nah. Sitting around and thinking about ideas did nothing for me. It was only when I decided I was gonna actually start and finish a comic script that I learned and improved my skills.

I guess that's why when I see people who 'aspire' to be authors but never put word to page I'm like COME ON- writing is fun, don't wait around! Yes, it's hard but I personally feel it is super rewarding. And no, ideas don't make you a great writer, it's using those ideas and executing them in a story that will determine that. It's just a whole lotta practice (like most things in life)

Trust me, you can't guarantee your story is the greatest thing ever when you haven't even written it (looking at past me.)

If you're afraid to start your magnum opus- start on something smaller that you have less emotional attachment to. That way, you'll be making decisions that aren't fuelled by your personal attachment to the characters and specific plot points that might not fit. That's how my current comic started out, and now it's my passion project. I love it with all my heart.

JUST WRITE DAMMIT. (thanks for reading)

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goatbat
May '22

yeah big mood

i will say structuring was a big thing for me too, i never really understood the "inciting incident -> conflict -> resolution" thing taught in school- it wasn't until i read some screenwriting books that i understood what structuring even meant, and even then, outlining was a pain.

i'd reccommend people try to use loglines or basic story formats first, if they're struggling to put ideas down on paper re: their story concepts! helps a lot to kind of combat that if you can simplify your idea down to it's absolute basic essentials.

TheLemmaLlama
May '22

Me neither! Though I still didn't understand it no matter how much extracurricular content I consumed on the matter. It was only when I actually tried writing a thing and got stuck and was like

"... what next?", and then
"whatever you feel like. you're writing this because you feel like doing something, right?"
"well yeah, but the thing I really feel like doing is a long way off and I need stuff to happen before I get to that point"
"... okay, hypothetically speaking, what if you just stuck the Important Scene right after what you just wrote"
"what nooo, that's ridiculous, that won't work at all"
"why? in what ways would it be bad, and what things would fix the badness if added?"

I think for me at least, a lot of these 'formats', 'systems' or 'methods' (not limited to writing) are just things that can't be successfully explained to me and I kind of have to deduce them independently to understand them XD In the end, they're just patterns people have observed in writing (or life, or whatever), which mean nothing in isolation without data to match them to

darthmongoose
May '22

Something that I think developing writers need to learn is that writing is iterative.

If you've ever done computer coding, you'll know that the first time you write the code, it probably won't run exactly how you wanted it to, and a big part of coding is going back and refining bits; changing the order, the structure, looking for missing brackets and semicolons, changing numbers, that kind of thing.

Writing is pretty much the same. You shouldn't expect the first draft to be the perfect version that goes live or to print, because that's not actually normal. Professional writers aren't good because everything they type out is perfect on the first draft; they're good because they go back in and carefully refine the second or third draft to be tighter and really cohesive so that the final result seems to flow effortlessly with great pacing and all come together nicely at the end.

So the only way to really get good at writing is to write something, but do so with the assumption that the first draft probably won't be the final version. Things will get scrapped or changed, sometimes things you actually really like will turn out not to be working, but that's okay because you might be able to use that character or scene in some other story or somewhere else in your plot.
Then, after a little break for sleep or a cup of tea, or after you've written ahead, you can come back, maybe with help from somebody who you trust to respect your writing and who genuinely wants to help you write the best version of your story, like an editor, or a more experienced writer, and you can go through and look for things that could be made better. Is there a scene that drags? Is there something that happens that seems to come out of nowhere because you didn't set up what the audience needed to know for the payoff to make sense? Did a character say something using vocabulary they'd never use? Did you just realise that if you change a detail or two, you can make a whole scene tie into the main themes or a piece of running symbolism way better? You go through and you look for things like that and you make little changes.

Then after you've made the changes and been through many, many drafts, a lot of people won't realise how much work you put in behind the scenes because you'll make it look so effortless, like you just sat down and wrote it all out one day and it all fell into place. :rofl:

goatbat
May '22
TheLemmaLlama

nah yeah, there was a lot of that for me too! i use a similar method in prose writing, like making up two scenes i like and then finding a way to 'bridge' them together.

applying structural techniques and outlining stuff was a very long & weird process to me as well- it's admittedly something that still confuses me sometimes. it's tricky!

smokesalty
May '22
darthmongoose

Exactly!!

I can't think of a single scene where I haven't gone back and edited because most of the time you don't realise what you need to add until you've written more of the story. It took me halfway through the story to end up adding a character which drastically improved my script :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

I don't think anyone is out here writing first draft masterpieces. Being able to go back and be critical of your work to improve it is also super important. It's also nice to have someone else check through it, I know for me one of my friends helped me decide to cut an entire scene out because it wasn't adding anything.

It sucks to delete scenes sometimes but it can be for the better. It's just a ton of decision making to craft the best story you can.

anthonyjamesconnors
May '22

Thank you I needed to hear this! I’ve got lots of ideas for novels but haven’t started them. I have just finished my first story so my main focus is giving that time promoting etc.

arxianfall
May '22

Here's something I never understood. Why are people always making a big fuss about writing? Are other fields doing the same about plastering walls, putting down flooring or spreading spreadsheets?

Or is it the fact that you actually need to formulate and focus an idea before writing it down that is where people get stuck?

It's just a job that you enjoy more than flipping burgers and dealing with customers in a clothing shop.

Of course you "get good" at an activity the more you repeat it. But I still strongly believe good writing happens when you combine living your life, listening to other's stories and in the phase where you crystalize your idea.

I propose another thing to improve your writing. Stop sitting on your grand idea until you overcook it. You'll never have the full picture until you try to plan and execute it.

GumshoeComix
May '22

yea me and my bf used to just make ideas over and over, and i guess in 2018 i realized how much time had gone by of us just thinking of our stories (vs the last disaster of a comic we made) and not actually doing them. Which is partly how my current story happened.
It started with concept art of an older story from 2011 and a LOT of re-writes.
I wrote it secretly on my own at first and then I showed my bf some outlines and thumbnails for pages and he started to like it and now he's editor and even helps me think of scenes if i get stuck.

A lot of people, whether it be self conscious writers or artists that haven't dabbled into writing never get past the ideas stage and just think about it and draw their characters over and over. which gets you caught in a loop of going nowhere.

Kuma
May '22

I've been working for a long period of time and this is an absolute truth. The more you write the more you realize you don't know half of what you should know. Each time I start I new project I learn new stuff and more importantly I get experience about how to use the tools in my toolkit and to implement what I learned.

Having ideas is great, but that's half the equation. Applying said ideas is where the craft of being a writer comes from. You can have the greatest idea ever by if you don't know how to execute it, it will fall short.

When I teach videogame writing one of my "rules" for my students is:

"You can have a terrible idea, but with good execution it will work. If you have a great idea, but you suck at implementing it, maybe will work or maybe not."

TheLemmaLlama
May '22
arxianfall

On the other hand, I don't think it's bad to sleep on an idea for a while and let it 'marinate'. Yes, you will have to execute it eventually in order for it to get anywhere, but a lot of my early abandoned ideas were ones that I rushed into and weren't in development for that long, while my current surviving ideas date back years and draw from elements I first started developing in high school. I don't think it's possible to overcook an idea. Just make sure it's actually cooking, and you're not just sitting on them to avoid working on them :stuck_out_tongue:

smokesalty
May '22

you gotta put your idea in a freezer and defrost it when you're ready to write it sometimes :triumph::triumph:

arxianfall
May '22
TheLemmaLlama

Why I don't like to do that, is because of timing. I had story ideas that were relevant in that time period. And stories that others put out before me, making mine look like cheap clones even if they were conceived in a vacuum. Then there' the added problem of updating an old story to be relevant with modern things like technology or new uses.

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closed Jun 23, '22

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