Keeping Readers Interested

azureXtwilight 2017-08-22 15:08:56 UTC #1

So, in response of this thread:

So, what do you call a boring, dragging story? How do you steer away from that? Let us creators know!

DiegoPalacios 2017-08-22 15:33:46 UTC #2

¿when a story is becoming boring?: it depends of many things:
1-¿Do you care or are interested about the characters? if the answer is no, then is boring.
2-¿Is the conflict interesting in any way? if the answer is no, then is boring

¿when a story is dragging?: simple
¿is the story going anywhere?, if the story keeps going on with nothing happening then is dragging.

Everytime you post a page of a comic, episode of a novel or an episode of anything think:

¿Does this help to advance my story?
¿Is entertaining or interesting?

Its frustrating when a page of a comic is meaningless, for example: a person walking in a hallway.

Sometimes building suspense is a good thing, but if the build up does not lead to anything it is disappointing.

VikiKuli 2017-08-22 16:19:22 UTC #3

A lot of the time, it's evident that a story is dragging when you are moving between major scenes.
These parts are generally less thought out by the creator and so can be over extended at points. For example, there are several pages in my comic where the character is just walking. Looking in hindsight, I'm like yeah, those are junk pages and I honestly could have skipped over from the characters arrival in the city to his entrance into his apartment.

I'm honstely a big culprit of slow moving plots and dragging of the storyline, and I've been doing my best to get better at it. I think the only solution I have come to in catching it is detailed storyboarding of each page, not literal drawing but figuring out the purpose of each panel. Another thing that helps me is to sketch/draft/scribble several pages in a row so that I can see the flow of movement all-in-one just as a reader would see it. I can then figure out which pages I can fully remove and how I can adjust other pages to help fill in the gaps.
Hope this helped!

KoreanTacos 2017-08-22 17:22:55 UTC #4

Before any of this if you're new and just starting to make comics, welcome to Tapas, and focus on looking for readers not subs. Readers are more important than subs.

Theres some things that make me sub. The obvious one is if the series is actually entertaining, I get a sense that the characters and the actual creator is having fun with it. I usually go for something unique (my sub list is full of weird entries so there's no consistency) I don't want to read something that is generic or something I can read and know that someone else did it much better.

What usually makes me unsubscribe is quite a few things. An easy one is dragging story that is obvious that the creator is bored and trying to drag for time to come up with something, it can usually show in not only in the length of the dragging, but by the quality of their work and writing. I also HATE creators who clearly have no respect for their viewers or other creators and are only out for popularity. I'll unsub someone who constantly trashes on other series they think are below them, and are complaining about "why aren't people reading my work" or "My style is clearly superior than 'blegh'" keep those thoughts to yourself! (I was doing this for a short time and even I started to hate myself after awhile). I don't want to support someone who has no desire to at least be devoted to their work, I'm not saying you must stay on this project 100%, I'm talking about people who say "$*(# It I don't want to do this anymore, I'm just going to stop and all my subs will have to deal with no real conclusion. They don't deserve to have closure." Yes making comics is a pain in the ass, but your subs are part of what helps you, but bailing on them and giving a half-assed story that they took the time to dedicate their time to invest in is kind of a middle finger to your fans (not subs FANS). If you're tired of what you make, just end it properly, even if the ending is not that great.
I guess the short version is, it's mostly because the creator is unlikeable through their practices.

I hope this comes off as informative and not bashing.

KoreanTacos 2017-08-22 17:26:19 UTC #5

Slow moving plot isn't bad if you're able to do it in an interesting way. If the reader can tell the artist is having fun doing these 'dragging' scenes then the reader will feel that this is a necessary aesthetic to the story. Me personally there's a difference between a dragging scene in which there are multiple views of a character just walking in different angles verses a single constant image of a character just walking down the street with nothing happening around them.

Rhombik 2017-08-22 18:38:24 UTC #6

There are quite a few things that make me switch off but one that I don't think I've seen mentioned before is when artists include in jokes way too soon.

For example; a lot of people may know what this means.

That's because the Simpsons is a long-running, established series. You could drop this joke, unexplained, into a later series, out of context, and people might have a good idea.

Sometimes, new comic writers drop stuff like this all over the place. I think it's a dangerous game. I might overlook it once but a second time I'll think the writer is being over-indulgent and undisciplined.

I'm not saying you can't put in a few Easter Eggs or that everybody should pander to their readers but you've got to make sure your comic is still accessible.

sarrowsmith10 2017-08-22 20:08:41 UTC #7

For me, things that make a story drag include-
*Lots of talking heads. People just talking and talking and not doing anything. At least make them walking somewhere, eating something, anything than just a whole page of closeups of people talking. Boring!

*Long explanations of mythos. As soon as I see a block of text, I'm out. It drags the story and I just want to get to some action.

*Anything that drags, is something that just keeps you from getting to the point. Like characters doing a bunch of things together, but never really exploring the conflict. I want to have a good idea of at least the direction the story is going, rather than asking myself, "is there some sort of point to this?"

Good example of having an overall direction, with adventures in between:
Lord of the Rings- Taking the ring to Mordor
Legend of Zelda- Save Zelda
Prince of Tennis- become the best tennis player
Naruto- save Sasuke

Not a good direction/point to make:
Waiting for Godot- stand on the street and mumble?
Arrow- Oliver queen being angsty?
Superman v Batman- Martha?

So I think as long as your story has a clear direction and you are keeping pace, it will usually hold my attention at the very least.

IdiotWithPencil 2017-08-22 20:31:17 UTC #8

what make me feel that a story is draggin, is in the foreshadowing, they build up something to the point of boredome, I don't care what X is doing to Y cause I wanna know what A is doing with the launch codes!!!, I just stop reading until you get to the interesting point and then jump/ignore all pages that have nothing todo with the important bits

VikiKuli 2017-08-23 00:18:33 UTC #9

true true, I guess I was just referencing a specific case in my comic. But I see your point!

catluckey 2017-08-23 01:24:08 UTC #10

Oh, oh, you guys had amazing examples! I'm notorious for being lazy or just too exhausted to read huge blocks of texts or a bunch of nothing happening. Even pros tend to do this rambling, passing coded jokes about something I don't give a care while I'm rifling through pages and pages of "nothing." I'll tune out...fall asleep...or get anxious.

@VikiKuli, I'm not aiming at you. I haven't gotten to your story and I wouldn't fuss about it like that anyway. But I've got a huge story here at Tapas and I'm hoping it doesn't fall in that abysmal category.

Talking heads and doing nothing.
Though I love art and seeing buildings, streets, locations...one after another...on and on...then seeing a person sleeping for hours...then getting up not knowing what to cook. Sits for a whole chapter...WHAT! hehehe...I get out of that story.
You think the story and characters are one thing, then it turns out to be something totally different, the opposite, and very disturbing with no resolution, solution or conclusion.
The art is horrific...I don't mean stylistic or amateur...but things are distorted, can't tell where a line ends or begins...hurts your eyes (yes, you didn't read incorrectly) or I just can't connect because of it all.
HUGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT! Text and more explanations, past, present, and future stuff.
I don't know, maybe I'm being too picky, but I just can't seem to escape it.
Thanks for this. It's really an eye-opener. I'm just hoping my story doesn't fall into that in general, BUT everyone's taste is different.

keii4ii 2017-08-23 02:01:27 UTC #11

This baffles me. Why go through drawing pages of all that for a webcomic, of all things? Most of us are not being paid to make it... Many of us have a full time job and have very little time to work on the comic. I don't understand why someone would want to devote weeks of their time into pages that don't move the plot forward/ don't contribute to character development.

That said, if somebody tried to portray character development through mundane moments, and the result doesn't communicate that well... I've been there and can relate to it painfully well. :'D That's different from completely meaningless meandering, though, at least as far as intent goes.

catluckey 2017-08-23 05:55:37 UTC #12

I can't understand it either...and I've seen your comic...or the one you're working on now and it's amazing!

I guess doing those kinds of scenes may be a bit of therapy for someone. So I just have to leave the story. Oh, and then when the plot gets going, it's too much to take in! Like ultra bloody or confusing. Oh well. We all learn from all this.

Rhombik 2017-08-23 14:50:02 UTC #13

Great point! I've been trying to work on this myself. It's a little time consuming but I think the little extra touch, like the person is slouching or leaning against a wall, makes it pop. Also, I never just copy paste even if the panels are almost identical. I feel like readers can see it a mile away.

shazzbaa 2017-08-23 19:28:41 UTC #14

The way I look at it is that I really want to learn something new and relevant each update. Sometimes that doesn't end up happening, because things take time to set up, but if it doesn't happen multiple weeks in a row then it's going to feel draggy.

So like, if characters are fighting in one update, and then in the next, the bad guy gets stabbed through the heart and just laughs it off because somehow he's immune to stabbing, I've learned something! But if the characters are just fighting and going back and forth with who has the advantage over a few updates, there's no new information other than "they're still fighting," -- even though it seems like there's "something going on," there's nothing new, and it can get boring.
If we're learning about the types of magic or the lore of the world, then do we have a reason to care? Not a reason why it'll become important, but something about this that immediately applies to us and characters we care about? A character in a classroom learning "as you all know, all magic involves magic words and a display of light" is going to seem boring and irrelevant to us, and we'll get bored fast. But when the main character is trying to be sneaky, we're going to care when her mage explains "I can't cast magic then, because magic involves magic words and a display of light."
Even talky scenes can be okay as long as we're learning something new that seems to matter. It's remarkably easy to have a three page conversation where only one main point is expressed -- like, "Character A doesn't like Character B and Character B is distraught about that" is one update's worth of information. If that conversation stretches over multiple updates, it's going to feel very slow.

catluckey 2017-08-25 06:47:25 UTC #15

You know what, @keii4ii, I totally agree with you on that, especially someone devoting weeks of their time into pages that don't move the plot forward.

I've seen your comic and it's amazing. It makes you curious what is going to happen next. Don't stop creating that fantastic story of the big guy and little...hehehehe...boy.

NKip 2017-08-25 07:07:44 UTC #16

In my opinion, to keep readers interested you need to have your story it's plot in sight. Ever read a comic that just felt like "random events" were happening, ending up confusing you about what's really going on? It's because the story has a lack of consistency and because there is no plot in sight; that'll make the story dragging.
When having an actual plot planned out, you naturally write towards that plot, you'll know what works well and what not for your story, so you most likely won't end up with "random events". With random events I mean for example action for the sake of action, drama for the sake of drama, while those action/drama scenes won't lead towards anything, they're just "there" and show no development.

For me, the lack of a moral argument and plot is what makes me stop reading because yeah, it makes a story too dragging and boring. Even if the characters or artwork is nice, it's still the story that does it (I mean, don't you go see a movie because the story sounds interesting? Comics aren't that different..!)