"Meandering" Story Problem

SethJH 2016-04-11 17:43:41 UTC #1

In my comic, From Greatness to Dust, I made a few mistakes with planning that has caused me to let the story "meander" its way to something hopefully more interesting later on. Because of the stress trying to maintain my update schedule, and because of my nature to skip out on intensive script writing and just jump right into the work, I've ended up with a story that feels like it's going to get interesting but never actually does. I've just been producing episodes to meet the schedule, but not giving myself enough time to figure out how to tell my story. I've lost the steam I had in my first episodes, and the story just drags on over each page and feels like it's not really going anywhere. There's no real motivation in the plot, so it just looks like things that are happening in sequence.

Does anybody else have a similar experience in their own writing, and if so, how did you get back on track? Is doing a full re-write recommended? or is keeping what's already there and going ahead with a clearer vision from that point on a better option?

AnnaLandin 2016-04-11 18:04:06 UTC #2

I don't know about the full re-write, but I think you might benefit from a small hiatus to get time to think things through. When you're doing a longer, plot-heavy comic, planning ahead is always a good idea.

My scipt isn't very detailed either, and I do a LOT of revising while working on the pages, but I work from an outline, which means I always know in which direction I'm heading even when the details change. It definitely helps keep me on track! Whenever I sit down to plan out a new chapter (and I always do it an entire chapter at a time - though with chapters 7-9, I planned all three as a kind of mini-trilogy), I can look at the outline for the rest of the story and see what exactly I'm accomplishing with each chapter.

Is this chapter about driving the main plot forward, or is it focusing on furthering (or establishing) any of the subplots? Am I introducing new characters? Do I need to add a scene with a certain character to remind people that they're still around, even though they're not the main focus right now? Etc., etc.

I need to do this, because any time I attempt to write something longer without having a plan, I write myself into corners, or the pacing suffers, or I just forget what the point was in the first place, which is no good for anyone.

SethJH 2016-04-11 18:21:20 UTC #3

That's where I've ended up right now. I'm also discussing with friends, but they seem to lean towards re-write. Since technically I'm still in the "introductory" part of the comic, doing a re-write wouldn't lose any plot progress really, but it would mean there's a lot of wasted artwork (18 episodes worth) and I could end up alienating my current readers.

I do think a hiatus would be for the best, so that I can consider my options.

Stinahhh 2016-04-11 19:53:37 UTC #4

I was afraid of running into the same problem in the future with my comic as well. But I have a note app where I jot down all my ideas (general and vague or detailed) and in a separate one I'll organize them. It includes the present, past, future and how each character relates to another. The conflicts between each one and so on. I find that it really helps.

jonno 2016-04-12 03:48:24 UTC #5

as i was starting to work on my comic, i realised that my story also wasn't really headed anywhere, so i took the time to make a list of what i wanted each page to accomplish, using a simple phrase, and make a rough skeleton of a story arc, and whenever i needed to, i could properly script out what page i wanted to work on.

i dont know if that is something you want to do, but it makes your story really easy to change before it gets too detailed.

shazzbaa 2016-04-12 05:28:58 UTC #6

I vote for this!! Speaking from experience: pausing to really solidify where you're going can do WONDERS.

I'd say, as you take a break and look at where you want your story to go, see if you can work with what you have. Try to plan jumping off from there and moving forward with purpose! If, as you're planning and really looking at where you want to take the story, you see that the way it started is constantly hobbling you or keeping you from making the story go the direction you want, that's when redoing the beginning might be worth it, imo!

Hannes 2016-04-12 07:22:39 UTC #7

It helps very much to begin your story concept with the Climax / Ending. And then develop it backwards. You don't need to write detailed scripts. Just One-Sentence-Chapter summaries are enough. This can be done within hours. Although you may want to take your time thinking about an awesome climax you really want to develop your story around and spend months and years of drawing towards that goal.

A trick I used while developing the projects I currently work on was this: Imagine the cinematic trailer of your story, as if you're sitting in the movie theater. Write it down. Which awesome features, emotions, actions are shown? Which ominous sentences uttered? Write it all down. The average trailer is only about a minute long, so writing the script could be done in half an hour. Now you have the emotional core of your whole story and maybe an idea for an awesome climax scene that finishes it all off. With the climax, you have something to work towards, which will keep you on track and could motivate you for years to come.

Now all you have to do is keeping the reader interested until then ... and this is where the hard work begins

Kamikaze 2016-04-12 21:05:43 UTC #8

I'm not sure I'd reccomend a full rewrite, but perhaps at this point it'd be a good time to take a step back and refocus. I'd really suggest taking a brief hiatus and digging into your story further.

When you're working on a long form narrative comic, unlike gag driven comics, there's a lot more in depth plot development going on and if you're winging it, you're just going with your first idea and not giving yourself the time to edit and rework.

I definitely ran into that problem early on, but I was lucky enough to have the help of other talented writers around me. They pushed me to work out the story fully, not just by knowing the next page, but by knowing key points along the way. My training comes from a basis in screenwriting and the techniques used there talk about 'beating out your story.'

This basically means finding the big key points of your plot and boiling them down to the simplest sentences you possibly can. From there you branch out.

Here's a place where you can find out more about beat sheets and why they're SO awesome for helping plot out stories. They're a literal skeleton which you can build on top of. -> http://storyfix.com/beat-sheet-basics-101-plus

And another place where you can explore and even download a worksheet to help you figure out the basic stuff -> http://jamigold.com/2012/02/how-to-revise-for-structure-part-two/

I REALLY suggest you taking the time to reverse engineer a story before you work on your own. It'll give you a better idea of how it's used. When I did this I reverse engineered Lilo and Stitch and it was a SUPER helpful exercise.

TL;DR - Google Screenwriting Beat Sheet (no it's not music, or porn) and learn you a thing about writing plots.