Sep 2019
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Oct 2019
Apr 2020
lintvar85
Oct '19
1

I love to have everything logical, deterministic and in a "cause-effect"-pattern. So I did it! Before I put down a word I plan everything thoroughly so I can focus on one thing at a time. When planning I use notebook and the Top-Down-Strategy which means I take the whole and constantly chunk it down until I don't need to go into further detail anymore. Whenever I want to include something but can't justify it yet, I ask a chain of why-questions until it makes sense.. I really love order so I nurture a style that emphasizes it. Once I have everything planned out I can focus on writing and polishing lyrical beauty and expressing emotions. I have everything set up so I don't have to come up with band-aids on the fly

CarltonIsaac
Oct '19

Do you write fiction to sell your work, or do you write fiction for pleasure? Or can one do both?

Inspector_Spinda
Oct '19
CarltonIsaac

I'm not a planner at all. I have no ending, but a lot of stories and a main plot planned I want to explore. Don't know what the resolution of the main plot will be. That's why for the time being im doing mini stories in the universe

Okaishy
Oct '19

I have a beginning and an end, and I struggle for months until I find a way through writing how I'm even going to get to that end!:cry_01:

I swear, sometimes characters have a mind of their own though...

LunarSushiCat
Oct '19

I prefer to plan it out,the last time i didn't it took years to see the convoluted mess it became without it .
I learned my lesson of newer ignoring the world building ,that affects the story greatly.

droidmonkey1
Oct '19
CarltonIsaac

You should had another option like other. I myself do a combination or sometimes change the way according to the type of the story.

CarltonIsaac
Oct '19
LunarSushiCat

The best bet is to bend their plans to your plans. :smiley:

You are their god, tame them, bend them to your will. :smiley:

I concur. Every story needs a solidly grounded setting.:smile:

hannahlaine
Oct '19

So I start with an idea and then come up with how I want it to end.
I come up with scenes that I want to happen and write them down on note cards so I can rearrange them as needed.
My characters evolve as I write, so I have to go back and fix the beginning several times.

12 days later
Shanny8
Oct '19

More of option #2, but I do have an ending. I usually have the general plot of the chapter, but then I'll sit down and expand on the plot, developing it. This type of writing allows me to go in certain directions that I feel how the characters should react to an event, another character, or a situation; it also allows me do think about the next chapter as I'm working on the current chapter(making the comic) and improve some key point scenes that I want to do.

abcde
Oct '19

I have a set ending and important turn of events, and the core personality of my characters. I hate plot holes and deus ex machinas. At least with solidified story elements I can avoid them.

Dialogue and interactions, though, I let em run free. It usually yields to great character growth!

3 months later
tyler659
Feb '20

For me I don't write them, I just imagine them and daydream about them like my webcomic is an animated series in my head. How I feel the story should play out, I draw and write the text in the actual work itself while it's coming to me full force lol. So sometimes in my webcomic series it's 1st come and served ideas and tropes I love to death and want to show others through my work and some stuff I think about, if it's a little to much then I'll change things up a bit. So yeah my work isn't really planned all the way out, I just need the basic blueprint of my focus and expand on it to have a story that evolves. I personally want a story that evolves on it's own so planning isn't necessary to me. I feel this route is really for visual people, sometimes planning helps but for me I get frustrated I'm not an organized person and not getting to the meat which is the drawing and adding the text can really get me stressed lol. So I draw and add text while getting ideas of what should happen all at the same time, some are 1st come served ideas and some ideas I feel shouldn't play out a certain way cause of reasons. Again as a visual daydream person I like to animate my series in my head and let that do the work and pick the stuff I like or love and that's it.

sarahmassey998
Feb '20

I start with a plan and then my characters run away from me and the plan goes out the window. I have no control!

Zak
Feb '20

I climb up on my table and I squat on my keyboard. Whatever comes out is the story. Its a very messy process.

No but seriously, I get an idea, I write down some notes towards it so I dont forget about it, I then work out how the scenario plays out, find out which characters make sense to use, if not I make new ones for that purpose and then go on from there. It just flows out, Yknow?

CarltonIsaac
Feb '20
sarahmassey998

How do your own characters run away from you?
And why would you think that you cannot have control over your own imagined creations?
You've created the plan and the characters, why should that not work for you?

This is not a critique on your comment, just curious about your technique and if there's a way to work out why this happens for you. :slight_smile:

sarahmassey998
Feb '20

My characters are very dear to me sometimes its easy to believe that they are actual people. So I start off writing with an outline and one of them decides that no, that's not how they would react or that's not how they would go about doing that task. Other times I think of something new to inject like a reference to a historical event and temporarily changes the direction of the plot. I'm not too good at sticking to outlines and its probably not the best system but it works for me in a way. Its very stream of consciousness and it most likely confuses the heck out of my readers.

Conrad_Os
Feb '20

I'm usually winging every episode when I sit down to make them, with exception of the current events that I accidentally planned something for like 6-7 episodes, but after that, back to improvising

rajillustration
Feb '20

It won't let me vote for some reason but I am definitely in the bucket of "Plan Everything"

It does depend on the story, but for the stories I like to write (and read), I enjoy making very complicated plots. Like very, truly complicated stories with foreshadowing and symbolism and just a whole bunch of goodies that require an entire completely polished script start to finish.

And like, there's no rush to get it to the comic phase, so I just take my time when I'm in the prep process, I think the time is important for me in debating if I like this story enough to draw for years and years.

Like IMO I really enjoy the process of research and writing and rewriting. Drawing is such a physically taxing (and painful when the carpel tunnel hits) process, that I don't want to have any panels that don't need to be there, or any chapters that don't need to be drawn. I'm a huge fan of editing your art in your comic to the bare minimum of what you need to be appealing (maybe too much) and the only way you can know what isn't necessary is to know the whole story.

But some stories don't require complicated plots. Especially if they are zero plot wonders that are just environmental and aesthetic. Those don't require really that much planning.