Is my pacing too slow?

[Zhengo]

Hello peeps, I've been working on my comic lately and there's one thing that has been bugging me for a while. Even though my comic is supposed to have a lot of action I've only had about two-ish fight scenes since the start. A lot of stuff in between is mainly a lot of character interactions that's supposed to flesh out characters and also build upon the world, but I'm afraid I might be making things too slow and boring for readers.

I've noticed that in my webtoons releases that there's been a recent downturn in likes and I'm not sure if that's normal or it's because people are getting bored.

Of course, I guess if the character interactions are actually interesting then it won't feel as if the pace is too slow, and I'm trying to do that, but I'm not sure if I'm actually doing it right or I just suck at writing interactions and readers are just bored D:

Luma | Tapas

[lwflouisa]

I could check it out to see what I think, note though that any statement about pace is going to be a subjective one, and it depends on the genre.

Ah it's a web comic, that might change analyses a little bit.

[baasinsimple]

Well in a blunt and simply put, mostly subjective (and possibly rude?) manner, your pace is extremely slow for my preferences or just for me to read consistently. You have been drawing this for six months and aren't far enough in for what a professional Webcomic artist, Mangaka or Comic artist would consider even the first full issue of a serial, although this is common for webcomics I still don't recommend that small of an update . This could be remedied by drawing just one page weekly, seeing as you wouldn't need to increase your workload but people would be getting things earlier. I wouldn't recommend even uploading Bi-Weekly with the amount that you have per episode. I do the same thing for my fan comic, but I don't care if I get any attention, I think of it more like a preliminary or training for my comic I want to get attention, so I just post it on forums to get people's thoughts in on it.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is, a pretty sizable amount of people don't want to wait 14 days to get what is just three pages of work and so that can make you lose some followers. As the saying goes, people want more bang for their buck. The time we artist spend on our comics are very disproportionate to the reader's time spent on it, around 100;1 now that I think about it.

So, basically, yes it's too slow for a lot of people to pick up. That's probably one of your weak spots as a comic artist, if I'm going to be completely honest with you. But if that's something that's considered a weak point of yours than your fine.

Edit: You'll do fine, as in, your an pretty decent comic artist and what your doing in the comic itself isn't bad as much as the lack of content that goes up would possibly burn readers --like me- that don't like waiting longer amounts of times for small chunks of content.

[fleohr]

• The size of the text is too small on mobile
• Too much text in a single box/bubble speech

Hmm for a prologue I think the pacing was too fast, you started introducing luma, demigods and then the spirit appears at the poor man house, one of the semigods appears as well to defeat the monster, and after that I kinda got lost...

The prologue is what the readers should know about the story beforehand, to give them a better understanding of what's happening. The "Crash" balloon distracted me from reading the box next to it, try add more gutter space

And if you think the pacing is too slow, you can try to make something that would let your readers entertained

[DokiDokiTsuna]

HEY HOLD THE PHONE

I think your comic is great (heck, I just subbed)! I read about half of it, and there's nothing wrong with the pacing at all, in my opinion.
You should never feel ashamed of taking time to set up characters and build your world. A story without a foundation is just a string of meaningless events, after all.
I'm sure there ARE people who are bored with the lack of action, but that alone is not a reason to change the way YOU want to tell the story. Fans' opinions are just that, opinions. And opinions can be misguided.

Besides, a downturn in likes doesn't necessarily mean people think the story is no longer "likeable". Personally, I don't like a page unless I particularly enjoyed it; if it made me laugh or smile. It doesn't mean I think that page is better than the others; it just means I particularly enjoyed it. And that's mostly thanks to all the pages before it that gave it context.

If YOU are disappointed in the lack of action, though, that's another story. I have the same problem all the time. ^^' I'd recommend looking at your story and seeing what you can cut out, condense, or reorganize to move it along faster.
Like, maybe a certain "funny" part isn't quite as funny as you thought it would be, and you should just get rid of it. XD Or you could break up a long background story into shorter, more mysterious info tidbits that are sprinkled throughout the plot, so that information comes up exactly when it is needed and not before.

It really depends on what you're writing and how, but if you're determined, you'll find a way to work it out.

[baasinsimple]

Well specifically I never said the comic was bad. I said that if that was to be considered a weak point (a subjective one at that, which I stated earlier) then they would be fine. Maybe I should be a bit more specific.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

a) I didn't mean to reply to you, so...oops. ^^;

b) So you're saying, as long as they see the pacing as something that they need to work on, then they're fine? I guess I can see what you mean, but I still disagree. I know I haven't read the whole comic yet, but I didn't see anything that was so extraneous that it should have been omitted in favor of plot advancement.

c) What your post was criticizing wasn't actually 'pacing', it was the update schedule. And I thought you were kind of mean about it, even if you didn't intend to be. I might even go so far as to call it "hobbyist-shaming".
Six months is actually NOT a lot of time for an amateur comic artist (i.e. someone who is NOT PAID or otherwise compensated for the time they put into their work). Sure, a pro could put out over 200 pages in that time, but they don't have to worry about work or school or familial obligations that are outside of their control (a lot of us are still teens, you know...).
And having a slower update schedule does not mean people won't "pick you up". It's a comic. It doesn't matter whether you do 15 pages a week or just one; people will finish reading your upload within 5 minutes and go on about their day. Most of us do not expect tons and tons of content, and if we love the artist, we'll be fine with the wait.

TL;DR: If you're looking for a place to rake someone over the coals for only getting two chapters done in 6 months, Tapas is not it. Please don't be so harsh; you could be discouraging impressionable young artists.

[baasinsimple]

Yeah your maybe right, it was upload shedule, which could have helped developed the Uploader's anxiety about the pacing to a extent, it sure happened with me. I'm not hobby shaming or raking someone over the coals, I'm a hobbyist myself (though I did come across as a bit harsh) I'm thinking in more of a practical light. They did say their worrying whether their comic was a bit slow, and I still gave them an apt comparison, a somewhat decent reason why they'd think that, and my personal gripes with their upload schedule and why someone would think it was a bit much. I wasn't trying to throw someone to the sharks as much as I was stating why it wouldn't be my cup of tea, and why someone else might have a problem with it.

[Zhengo]

@baasinsimple Ah yeah the update schedule is something that I'd like to change so that I can get more pages out in a shorter amount of time, though currently I'm not a fast enough drawer nor do I really have a lot of time to do so. I really hope one day I can be fast enough that I can put more pages out, since for me the ideal is easier continuity between pages for readers.

@fleohr Ah there are a few problems with the prologue since it was originally meant to be a test and also meant to just give exposition on the very basics of the world. I've actually increased the text sizes in future chapters, though I don't know if they're enough...

@DokiDokiTsuna Hey thanks for the sub! I have no problem with the lack of action currently, since there'll be more in the future. Part of the reason I ask this question was also because I'm afraid that I'm writing my character interactions too boringly, and which would make the pacing slow but not in the good way. Which is kind of a problem because this story is also meant to be a character study along with the action, and if the character dynamics aren't interesting then that's a bit of a problem. Truth be told I don't have the most confidence in my writing ^^''

[starryfish05]

I think the character interactions are really cool! I love how each character has a very distinct personality and characteristics and their own mannerisms and such! It makes them seem very believable, in my opinion.

I don't think the pacing is slow at all! It gives you the perfect amount of time to get to know a character and remember who they are (unlike most comics which shove like 5 characters in your face in one helping).

Definitely dropping you a sub! ^^

[Zhengo]

Ah thank you!! ^^ I was worried about it because I didn't have much experience with writing. (also thanks for subbing!!)

[starryfish05]

Honestly, I feel the same haha

[Rhonder]

Ahh, finally had a chance to sit down and read through what you have uploaded so far, so I can give some feedback

I'll start by saying that your comic's super cool, and I gave it a sub! I really dig the artstyle and character designs a lot.

To the question at hand, no I definitely don't think the pacing is too slow at all. Considering how far in we are (2 chapters) it seems to be moving at a plenty brisk pace, without feeling too fast. I agree with some of the other comments pointing out that it probably feels really slow to you because comics take a long time to draw, so it takes a lot of real-world time to get anywhere in the story. But if you sit down and just read straight through it like I just did I think it's about perfect tbh.

It would honestly probably be more jarring if like 10 fights and several plot arcs had already happened within the first two chapters xD There's definitely a balance to be made between making the update-to-update reading experience feel good (trying to make sure each update feels meaningful) vs. making the overall product feel good. I personally prefer the latter approach, but both ways are fine I think.

That's something I'm worried about with the short comic I'm about to launch... I can only draw 1-2 pages per week, but I draw pages with few, large panels so... I don't think my weekly updates will be very long sadly.

[Zhengo]

Thank you for the feedback! ^^ That's a relief that the pacing is good, and yeah I agree it does feel slow because I'm a slow drawer xD. Trying to keep that balance for update-to-update vs the overall product is hard, I kinda try to reach a compromise where I try to end every 3rd page in a way where it doesn't feel super abrupt.

Good luck on your comic btw!

[OttoGruenwald]

It's always good to update as rapidly as possible, but you're always going to run up against a limit. I try to think about how the pacing would be when its all read together in one sitting.

[Zhengo]

Yeah, I try to do a compromise where it would work if it's all read together but also every "episode" doesn't end at an awkward place like right in a middle of someone speaking or something like that. I really wish that I could be faster at drawing so that I could just release more pages at once, feels like it would improve the reading experience ><

[Rhonder]

I really wish that I could be faster at drawing so that I could just release more pages at once, feels like it would improve the reading experience ><

That's an excellent goal to work towards tho dw if you're not there just yet, but someday you'll probably be able to push out pages faster~