Talk about a time you went back to "tweak" a story!

[dglisson]

Going through something like this right now, let's talk about it!

So I normally keep about a two week buffer, I panic if it's slightly less than that, and seeing as I update three times a week that's about six pages ahead of schedule, or more if I'm lucky (I currently am). That means that right now people are just starting to get into the climax of my second chapter, the end of a storyline, while at the same time I'm three pages already into my chapter three, which is a whole different adventure.

So I'm in the shower this morning (which is where I do most of my creative thinking, shut up you know you do it too) and I go, "Hmm, did I explore that entire concept as I should have? Was there room for more? Could I have shown the depth of the devastation caused by what's happening in a more concrete form...?"

And then I realize, if I just get two more pages placed strategically going back in time (well, back in time for me, but scenes yet to be seen by the audience... the equivalent of doing reshoots for a show that's already been through final edit right before the next episode's about to air)... but if I catch it before the affected buffer pages load... but that would mean sketching, penciling, and inking all today... and flatting, coloring all tomorrow to have them done before the next update... CAN it be done...???

I tried to talk myself out of it. You don't want to be George Lucas, I told myself. No going back and messing with the piece after it's done. But then I said, bollocks, the piece hasn't even reached the audience in final form yet! But you're so busy. Not too busy to tell a good story dammit!!!

Back and forth I go, and now I've got the first of the two new pages inked and half-flatted, and got more work ahead of me tomorrow, but it's a good pain.

Anyone got a similar story to share? Talk to me!

[SethJH]

Right now, I'm really strongly considering making some whole-sale changes to the story I've already got uploaded. Fortunately it's only the introductory chapter yet, but I have been uploading for nearly a year now (yes, I'm slow). I feel like there's parts in my story's current form that don't really grip the reader. It's just like "hey here's this character. Oh look they're upset now." In my haste to keep up with my schedule, I sort of lost track of how I wanted my script to go, and ended up with a lot of cinematic scenes that don't really tell much beyond character feels that don't make sense yet.

However- my readers say I should just keep what I have, maybe make some minor changes. It's a tough decision I've written myself into.

[agentfink]

I'm actually doing that right now!

After a long and heated debate with my husband/writer/co creator... we thought it best to change the beginning pages. I kicked and screamed, stomped (I'm just about finished with the first issue, so I really didn't want to go back and redo pages that were fine/passable)... but it is a much stronger intro now.

It won't affect any readers in later episodes... but I think it is a nice intro for new readers. The debate right now is, do I let my readers know of the change? If so, what do I say? "Hey, I redid the intro, let me know what you think?"

I say, if you're able to make a change do it! This is our first attempt at a long form comic (or anything really) and we are learning as we go. I think the changes we've done create a better experience for the reader.

[UrMom]

I'm actually in the middle of reworking all of the first chapter for my main project , I don't plan on actually replacing the pages until I'm finished (since my paneling is so different from how it used to be), but I was thinking of posting them on Tapastic. Yeah, it's something people are normally against, but the crap quality of the first chapter is actually ruining the comic for me... even if the whole project is pretty lackluster.

If you wanna go back and fix something, do it, you've got the power!

[AnnaLandin]

I also have a buffer - but instead of being two weeks long, it's usually around 2 chapters. When I posted the first page of chapter 5, I was finishing colours on the last page of chapter 6.

I take a week's break between chapters, to quality check the next chapter I'm going to post, and when I do, yes, I tweak things. I don't usually add pages, but I do rewrite dialogue and re-draw panels where and there if it's necessary - sometimes to make the story flow better, sometimes to make a pose or a scene transition more clear.

... I also went back and edited the first three chapters for print, tweaking hair and skincolour on the main characters, as those had been skewing too light, which meant going over 70+ pages to make sure I hadn't missed anything. ^_^;

Mostly, though, I try to avoid any big changes, because I know that could bog me down. I try to keep ahead of the whole "oh but what if I did this?"-thing by planning ahead and having that big buffer; that way, I can look at the story an entire chapter - or an entire story arc - at a time, and give myself time to tweak and sort out potential plot-holes before they happen.

[rainbowolfe]

If by "tweak" you mean "completely redid the first chapter", then yeah XD I totally went back to tweak a story. See, what happened was that the first chapter was really old compared to the newer chapters and a lot of the characters had a personality redo o3o So, I had no choice but to fix it in order to establish the characters correctly... and also fix the art. Cause it was a little sloppy.

[Stinahhh]

I've been meaning to "tweak" my first two chapters simply because the art is horrendous compared to the latter parts. I was just starting out on the graphics tablet and should practiced more haha. Story wise, I make sure I'm far into the plot and constantly revise it before creating the comic. Thankfully I had it planned far enough so while I'm on episode 16 of the story, my pages are actually just on 8.

[Cielle]

I ended up rewriting the next 3 chapters of my story, which meant ending the current chapter a lot earlier than I anticipated. I don't have a buffer anymore (bad, I know =_=;), but since it was all stuff that had yet to be released/created at all it didn't slow me down much. And now that the script is rewritten the story flows much better. I try not to go back to change already released pages unless it's small things (typos, stray lines, etc). But if I ever decide to print, I will probably go back and rework the first 30 pages or so.

[heterodont]

I haven't done any huge reworks/edits to my story because that would mean editing over 100 pages and I don't have the time for that >_>;; I know the things I did wrong and I'm working on fixing my errors on my next webcomic.

I have made a few minor edits to previous pages such as accidental spoilers that slipped my mind as I was typing speech bubbles or typos and/or grammar errors. I did add 4? total addendum pages to certain chapters - 3 of them in the 3rd chapter because I felt like the sequence I added them too was wayyy too short originally and the other page was to the 2nd chapter to shoe-horn in some foreshadowing (not really shoehorned in but)

[TrustyShamrock]

i had a comic that i really liked but i kept going back to tweak it and didnt get anywhere with it. so i started my comic now that i could practice with til i get good enough that i dont hafta tweak. but then i noticed that im actually going back and tweakin parts of it right now. so i guess theres no escape from the tweak beast