Tell me, Can you easily come up with a good story whether you're writing novels or drawing comics?

[Silver7]

Is it easy for you to come up with a good story from scratch?

Also what is your creative process like?

[kyupol]

No it's not easy. I have no creativity and originality.

"But your work is awesome I love it!!!"
- um... I don't think at all. The downloads just arrive. I'm nothing but a receiver. Not a source. If I was paid to write a script for something, you might be disappointed and feel ripped off lol

[abigaillmartin]

It really isn’t. Elsie takes a VERY long time to write.

I mostly steal period drama cliches and period romance stuff.

Researching the historical stuff too. Nothing is created in a vacuum so you can’t be “original”
Only put your own spin on stuff in my experience.

I am very creative but my writing skills have left to be desired.

Usually I go the comedic or the adventure story route or like don’t take it seriously when writing because what’s the point if I don’t enjoy what I’m writing?

[faisalhussein394]

I'm making two comics right now, one fantasy, and the other is sci-fi. Believe it or not, I have a full set of story set in my head and I can't wait to reveal it all to the readers. I never started a draft, I make the stories up as I go so long as the established ground rules, aren't broken and lore not retconned.

[moontokkym]

It's easy to come up with stories for me, but good? Making them good takes time and effort.

[Lensing]

I can´t come up with a good story easily. I can come up with good resolutions.
Good is a very relative term. I wrote one story I´m happy with this year and
which is good for me. The one good story is maybe the worst crap for someone else.

[BoomerZ]

The main theme or story takes a bit of time for me, but the individual episodes on the way to tell the story come pretty easy. The hardest part of the over all story to have something you can actually spend a year telling week in and week out. But the between episodes are pretty quick. I usually script a weeks episode in 2 days.

[vapidink]

Well, what's good is subjective, so I don't know about the quality of a story, but I can come up with a new idea easily enough if I have to. I've come up with the concept of my latest two novels very quickly because they were contest entries. Even though the main idea came to me easily, it still takes time to write the novels. I'm still working on both and there are points where I get stuck, but I can still write a minimum of two chapters a week. During contests I can write a chapter a day if needed, but I'd rather take my time.

[Humbug]

I co-write, and while I have a few scenarios I'd like to see play out, how it all comes together and the main story not come easily.

We soundboard each other constantly and when my writer gets stuck on a certain part of the story I start throwing random ideas at him to see if it helps because I sometimes have no idea how it should go myself.

[jwabeasley]

I am chock-bursting with good story ideas. Give me a prompt and I can hack out an awesome original outline in a week or less. Just ask my wife, who endures my many crazy story ideas with good humor and patience.

I'm always limited by my ability to actually produce the stories, though.

For process, I get a story idea as a flash of inspiration usually. Frequently it is sparked in reaction to some new weird idea I read, a story I almost liked, or any of the many weird things that happen in my immediate vicinity. These inspirations usually go something like, "What if X happened, but with Y character and in Z setting?" Or "How would people respond to X event?" or "what if [weird religious claim] was literally true?" something like that. Not all of these are good, some are only good for a laugh. The best ones are usually dealing with a personal issue that I don't have a satisfying answer to. An example might be:

"What if a Paladin was in a world where every organization was thoroughly corrupted, how could he carry on?"

Then I create a character who can contend with the idea in an interesting way and a world that can reflect the idea in a way that will pose challenges to them. Then I go back and refine, revise, readjust both protagonist and setting until they match each other just right. I create antagonists and secondary characters who can act as interesting foils for the lead, challenging them and taking the lead out of their comfort zone. At that point, I've probably thought of a dozen or so interesting scenes for them to be in, and then it's just a matter of putting the scenes into a sensible order and connecting them up.

Then I'm ready to write a first draft outline. After that, there's a lot of refining that happens as I grope towards the story's true self. My self-editing process is relentless. At long last, I have an actually decent outline and a strong idea of every element that needs to appear, and it's mostly a matter of writing it down straight ahead - that's usually storyboarding for me. Finally, my editor makes suggestions and tells me if something isn't working right, and we do another draft or two.

After that it's just production.

[Leyelle]

Easily? Sometimes, when I'm feeling creative and energetic. Other times not at all.

[AizuKin123]

I wouldn’t say stories “just come to me fully formed,” but I do have a process that lets me consistently create emotionally grounded and original stories.

I start with a question, an emotional contradiction, or a moment of human tension—like a girl burdened by duty clashing with her sister who believes in a magical fate.

Then I build the world, rules, and plot around that emotion. Whether I’m writing a novel or planning a comic, I aim for stories that feel personal, even in fantasy or sci-fi settings.

So yes, coming up with a good story feels natural to me—because I approach storytelling through people, not just events.

But there’s a catch—some times, I can imagine and build three characters with full backstories in just a day or two. Then for the next one or two months, it’s completely silent.

During those quiet phases, I might slowly imagine certain scenes or sequences, but nothing big comes together right away.

[ArtGremlin]

It’s TOO easy for me It’s starting to feel like I come up with a fire idea every other month BUT I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR ALL OF THEM!!!
I feel like my creative process is really just sitting and thinking while mystic forces whisper their brilliant words to me. Only when it comes to dialogue though. For non-dialogue writing I have to rely on my own two brain cells

[Lensing]

I feel that and it´s getting worse the more you do
I write songs, stories, poems, draw comics, produce music etc.
and the more I do, the more ideas pop up, the hard part for me
is to focus on one thing and then just finish and publish it because
the pipeline with new ideas is full every morning or whenever I go
on a walk or drive around