Please, spare some advice?

[linlezsan]

Hi, this is my first time posting here and I'm really nervous hasjudja english isn't my first language so sorry for any mistakes in advance!

I have read comics and novels for a long time, and on tapas since a few years ago. I've been writing for around 10 years now? (well, if you can call what I do writing lol) and I've been drawing since I was 8 years old too.

The thing is, I have actually never finished something lol well, just one fanfic with a thousand words, but that barely counts lol (it was really bad haha)

My dream is to make comics, share stories with people that they can enjoy, just like I do reading comics, and watching series and movies.

But...

I have problems developing my stories, I don't know if I'm just not creative enough, but I always get stuck, not on writing per se, but on planning. I always have the beginning of the story, or the premise or concept, but then I don't know how to continue. I try to make different types of outlines, save the cat, three act structure, the Dan Harmon story circle and others, and character sheets and so on, but I just...don't have ideas? I can fill some points, but I leave blank the majority of them because I don't know what can happen lol. I try to imagine what the characters would do, something like roleplaying, but I don't really develop the characters that much either (because of lack of ideas too) so I don't really feel a connection to them, and I don't really know what they would do. Sometimes I can think of endings, but then I don't know how to fill the gap between the beginnind and the end XD

I have tried to be a pantser too but is just the same result lol.

I have a lot of ideas on hold because I don't know what to do with them lol.

I have tried making short stories, but I just have the same problem, I have some scenes and then I don't know how to fill the gaps and reach the ending lol.

So, what advice could you give me so I don't have this problem anymore? Or am I just not cut out for this?

I often think of giving up, because of how frustrating it is. I have been trying for a long time, but I can't do it u.u But I really want to make comics T-T it's really my only goal on life lol.

[Wocalich]

Have you tried taking courses? Most of them have wonderful exercises. If you don't have the money, I'm sure you can find exercises on the internet for free as well.

Edit: Or maybe workshops would be more beneficial in this case.

[linlezsan]

I will try to find exercises, since I don't have the money u.u How should I search for them? just "writing exercises" or is there a better way to find them?

Thanks for the advice!

[Wocalich]

I'm not sure, to be honest, but searching "writing exercises" should be a good start.

And no problem!

[Inspector_Spinda]

just write. force yourself to do one short story, even if it is awful. then you'll be able to better analysis exactly what you need to improve on, or you can show it to someone else and they can tell you. it really is a matter of just needing to practice and do what you're bad at more!

[linlezsan]

Ok, I will try to do that. Thank you for the advice!

[ninjashira]

A great free writing resource is Brandon Sanderson's lectures from his BYU class on writing science fiction and fantasy. It's a course that some people pay a thousand dollars to attend, and he put it all up for free on YouTube. Just search for "Brandon Sanderson lecture" and it'll pop right up. There's about nine or ten videos, each one is an hour long, and he goes through everything it takes to build a world and plan out a plot and develop characters and how he constructs his outlines. His website also has examples of his outlines so you can see exactly how he does it, and examples of his manuscripts through the various stages of editing. The man absolutely knows what he's talking about.

[linlezsan]

Ohhh!! :0 Thank you, I will watch those lectures!

[Lahin]

How about trying out very short stories? By 'very' I mean 'VERY' short. Like 3-4 pages. See if you can get a story out as you want. Then try it a couple of times. This helped me a lot. I basically think of a big story to be a culmination of these short ones or rather the story of one of the short ones I have in my mind, but taking a longer route to get fleshed out.
If you want, take a random 2-3 lines of text. Then try and fold it in multiple ways creating different versions of the stories.
Granted these ones are bound to feel incomplete, but they help and I can guarantee that. Plus, being able to write a good short story is a great skill to attain too.

[linlezsan]

Ohh, I will try this out! Thank you!

[feuersichel]

These are very great tips here!

What you also can do, is team up with a writer. That way you can focus on the art.

[darthmongoose]

I've been in this exact situation myself!
I had previously always just kind of... come up with a bunch of OCs I loved, then pantsed it and painted myself into a corner with awful pacing and no real plot and given up. Then I took a break from comics and spent time learning story structure, I read Save the Cat, all that stuff and was like "OKAY, I'm ready to make great comics now!" but then all my ideas felt flat and contrived and I didn't care about the characters, it all just seemed really bland and I couldn't get excited about making the stories at all, even when the high concept was really cool.
I ended up rebooting an older comic with characters I knew I loved because at the time I couldn't come up with a better idea for how to fix the problem.

Having made my rebooted comic for a year, I think I understand now what the issue was and can maybe advise on how to overcome it.
The main thing I've found is that is that a really good character in a story doesn't feel like "my OC" in the sense of a character I'd want to roleplay and think they're my precious baby and I love them, but nor are they purely a cog in the story of the machine like "this is best friend character, their motivation is help the protagonist, their likeable feature is: likes cats." Rather I think of my characters as tools to make the reader feel a certain way and I construct scenes based partially on filling out the beat sheet, but approach it from the angle of "how can I create an interesting atmosphere here? What kind of setup and payoff can I pull off? How intense can I push this scene?
As an example, Urien is a character who is in the rebooted comic (Errant) but wasn't in the old one (Fan Dan Go), and he's one of the most effective characters, being this incredibly narcissistic and opportunistic antagonist who is also fairly smart and very charismatic. I used to be bad at making villains because I always wanted to feel emotionally invested in the characters and to like them and want them to succeed, as if they were my RP characters, but writing Urien taught me that making a character who evokes such intense feelings in the audience and allows me to create so much dramatic conflict was just as emotionally satisfying for me in a different way. Watching the outrage in the comments section every time he does something awful is glorious.

So in summary, my advice is to try thinking less about "how does this character make me feel?" and more about "what situations that give me intense feelings can this character cause through their personality traits and actions?" Think of a bunch of scenes that could ONLY happen with that character or between two specific characters in your cast. What arguments can they get into? What funny misunderstandings could they have? How could they team up in an epic action scene? Is there romantic chemistry between them at all and what awkward situations could that cause? Focus on stuff happening. Write out a bunch of scenes that are just cool on their own like "protagonist fights a giant monster while having an argument with their ex", "there's an intense chase scene, but it's on children's pushbikes", "It turns out the best friend character is a robot and they didn't even know,", stuff that could only happen in your story idea and that give you strong feelings about emotion, action, humour or spectacle. You'll probably instinctively feel which ones are the best ones and where you want to put them in the beat sheet after writing them down.

[ble]

I'm not a writer at all and i also never finished anything, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but....if the ending is the difficult part for you, then why don't you start with the ending?

[cherrystark]

Yes to what everyone else has said. I would also like to add. Practice. Practice. Practice. I'm a pantser but I've had to do a ton of practicing before I can sit down and write without leaving huge gaps in the plot. Also remember that you need to work at your own pace. Just because one author can finish a chapter in a couple of days, you don't have to fit their time table.

[linlezsan]

Really interesting! I will try to have this focus from now on! Thank you ^^

[linlezsan]

I don't really know how to think of endings without the beginning??? Mmhh... I will try tho! Thank you!

[linlezsan]

Ohh!! Thank you for the list, I will definitely watch them!

[rajillustration]

It really is trail and error until you find out what works for you--I spent...so many years starting comics and never really ending comics. So something that helped me out in figuring how to do that process for myself was to do a couple of short comics that weren't...my own stories. So I did a comic that was just some stanzas lifted from the Odyssey. I did another that used the text from the game Star Control 2. I did a comic based on Captian Novolin for kicks--like sometimes we backtalk fanfic--but it's a really good way to sort of piggy back and learn from what does and doesn't work from things that you enjoy (or in the case of Captain Novolin, wanted to do a parody of) And your not going to monetize off of them, so it's fine.

As for how to write a story in general, I honestly just recommend reading lots of books, both classic and modern, and as you read them, really taking note of why you liked them. Everyone writes and reads for a slightly different reason. I tend to write extensive lore, but my stories are really character driven. Other people are more driven by plot structure, building to big Christopher Nolan twists and world-building. Other people are writing satirically, other people are writing with intense meaning, other's are writing people making out. Everyone has different priorities.

For me it's like...it's kind of weird, but I have to draw my plot. Like with a pencil. I'm an artist, so I have to draw it. So I start by drawing my characters--which again are my favorite parts--and then I can visualize how they would speak and interact with eachother. I can draw where they live, I can fit world building into their settings, and their clothes. So my brainstorming looks completely different than someone else filling up tomes of digital libraries on googledocs, and it's probably because I'm a kinetic learner and a very visual person. So I'll kind of brainstorm like this, daydreaming different unwritten possibilities and conversations, until I have something that feels like a plot. Then, once I have a plot in my head, that's the point I write anything down.

So it's like...my process is kind of like pantsing, but I do have a pretty good idea of what I want before I sit down and write. But when I do an outline of what I think the story will be, it's usually wrong. I usually completely ignore my outline (and I also change my endings a lot.) My research is extensive, but I only do it for things I know will be in the draft, and I can only research after I do...at least some writing first. So I go back and forth between daydreaming (which is so important for me), drawing, writing, and researching until it's done.

But like the best advice I ever got for finishing a story, was to sit down and write a wordcount goal. So sit down and write 1200 words every day you can. That's not too difficult (and you can make it less or more). Never go back and rewrite things you've already written until your first draft is done. And just keep writing until you have some sort of ending. Then you can go back and rewrite what you need to tie the beginning with the ending. Again, everyone's super different, but that was advice I really needed, because I wasn't professionally trained to write, and so I was held back thinking I didn't know enough. What I needed was permission to make mistakes and just write till it's done.

[linlezsan]

I have read a lot, but I haven't thought of why I like them, so I will definitely do that from now on. Just on a whim, I think what I like the most are the characters, they are really important for me in a story. Like with fanfics, I can easily read simple cheesy plots just because I like the characters lol, even If I don't usually read that kind of stuff on original works.

Thank you for your advice! I will definitely keep it in mind!

[linlezsan]

Shdjhdjd sorry not replying before. Mmh... I was thinking about this, team up with someone, but the thing is, I really enjoy creating stories, even if I never finished them lol. I enjoy that part more than drawing actually. I have mixed feelings with drawing, I don't know if it's just selfsteem issues or what, but I don't really like my art lol. Other people say my drawings are good, but I don't really see it xD
I still want to make a comic instead of a novel because I enjoy the format more, and I don't really think your drawings have to be majestic to do a comic, I read a lot of comics that have "bad" art, so I don't really care if my drawings are sh'tty xD welp, I'm getting out of the loop haha. Thing is, I want to make my own stories