Things you wish non-artists/writers knew about art/writing

[DokiDokiTsuna]

...The list is probably a mile long. ^^; I look forward to reading the replies~

But here's mine: I wish people understood that a last-minute idea, or even just a later idea that's added to a story concept, isn't automatically worse or less valid or an 'afterthought'.

Even people who are writers themselves seem to subscribe to this idea when judging other people's work, and I think it's really...silly and unrealistic. =/
The notion that the only good ideas are the ones that are planned from the very beginning just doesn't make sense in several contexts...like a context where 'pantsers' exist. Or where multiple drafts exist. o_0 If you stop to think about this "criticism" for just a few seconds, it immediately falls apart.

Firstly: all writers make changes to their stories as they develop. Your first idea isn't always your best one, and the vast majority of ideas need a little work to become the best versions of themselves. It makes COMPLETE AND TOTAL SENSE that a writer would make changes to a concept to get it closer to what they want for their story; there is nothing inherently wrong with this. And if not for the fandom obsession with getting to see 'behind the scenes' on every little thing, I bet 90% of the time you wouldn't even notice.

Secondly: I will admit that a last-minute decision that feels last-minute is a valid thing to criticize.
Like, if you were to say "this magic item is poorly worked into the plot and feels like a Deus Ex Machina; and the fact that the author claims they came up with it 2 days before sending it to their editor seems to explain a lot" <-- I can accept that.
But-- and this may be an unpopular opinion-- the fact that the idea was last-minute isn't automatically the reason why it sucked in execution.

What I mean is, clearly it was a last-minute idea, AND the author figured it would be fine if the idea had no setup. Or, it was a last-minute idea, AND the author underestimated how long it would take for them to write it in properly, rushed through the process, and made the end product worse.

My point is, the timing of the idea clearly wasn't the only thing affecting its quality. I'm a pretty daredevilish pantser, and even I know when it's too late to work in a new idea before a deadline.
Part of becoming a mature writer is learning how to resist temptation and just leave things on the cutting room floor, no matter WHEN you come up with them (i.e. basic editing). Not being able to do that will cause more problems than last-minute ideas ever will...

Thirdly...believe it or not, some of us have skills. =P Maybe you can't fathom working a new idea into a story 2 chapters after the fact, or 10 chapters, or 50 chapters, but you gotta realize that not everyone is working under that limitation.
Some of us are super organized, some of us have great memories, some of us just know our stories and characters well enough to anticipate how a new concept will affect them, and edit accordingly. Some of us have none of those qualities, but are willing to put in the time and effort to make things work regardless. ^^;

In general, just because adopting a certain strategy would cause you to screw up your story/art doesn't mean that it should be forbidden for everyone. Save your judgement for the results, not the process.

[RocketAxxonu]

Agree!! While there can be something really cool in a big epic storyline that was planned out from the beginning and is a method that can allow an author to do some interesting things, it's a complete misconception to think this is the only way to tell an entertaining/emotionally engaging/powerful story. Like you said it's more about the end result than the initial approach, some of the best ideas can come later in the game, and while fully integrating them in so they feel natural to the story is important, they aren't less valid just because they weren't in the plan from the beginning. I think the mystique of the writer who knows everything that's going to happen down to the last detail has gotten a bit overhyped, lol.

The thing I wish non-writers/artists would learn to appreciate is just how insanely hard art and writing are. Super polished professional written works and pieces of art that we see every day in the public sphere are basically the equivalent of Olympian skill-level performances, and are the result of huge levels of experience, coaching, study, natural talent, etc. Most amateur works are almost never going to be able to achieve that same level of polish, and I would like people to be able to learn to look beyond the veneer to how much thought and effort and skill went into something before jumping to criticize. (In fairness, my experience has been that most people are pretty understanding and polite when talking directly to writers/artists, and obviously do love and enjoy amateur works. But I think listening to the way people harshly critique so much of the professional media that comes out these days has caused me to internalize a perception of extreme levels of nitpickiness people have when it comes to media, and/or seems to point to a general lack of awareness of how difficult it is to produce professional writing/media even if it can't always measure up to the most popular/top tier stuff out there.)

[MeltingCORE]

I would say the biggest thing I wish non-creators would learn is most of us won't draw an epic picture for free!

[KSlinger]

I wish they understood the sheer amount of work that goes into a novel or webcomic. The abundance of free material all over the Internet makes it easy to forget that creators pour their heart and souls into things they make. It isn't easy laying your thoughts and feelings out for the world to pick apart. Most creators get no response at all, let alone compensation. That's just the nature of the beast. But through herculean effort, in spite of doubt and insecurity, they keep going. It's amazing really.

[dhroobmanna]

Perspective of different panels and using different camera shots is sometimes quite difficult such that I physically am not able to draw the different angles.

[EncryptedWriting]

For writer and artists... it isn't easy. It really isn't. You can't just pop out chapters/episodes like a snap of a fingers albeit that would be amazing.

Writers, some, take ages to writer chapters, I'm talking days to weeks. And artists? Just about double that. People think it is very easy, but, in reality, it is incredibly difficult to maintain high expectations while not making it a full time job and keeping it in good time updates.

[irresponsiblepics]

The zone.
Nobody I know understands what it is to be in the zone.

[IndigoShirtProd]

It's very time consuming. Like it's a huge time sink of a hobby/career path.
Not even just creating the work, but the creative process itself. It can take 6 hours to draw an amazing piece of artwork, which does seem relatively long, but it can hundreds of hours to learn and polish the skills to make that artwork in the firt place. Same thing for writing as well, there's plenty of trial and error, research, and reading that goes into being a good writer. All of that can take, again, hundreds of hours.

People think it's really easy to "make it" in the art world. My employer and a coworker of mine at a previous job found out that I'm an artist and they were super supportive, which was nice. But when it was brought up, they talked as though they were surprised I hadn't made something more of my skills, like surprised I wasn't working and getting paid off my art or that I wasn't famous yet. I had to explain how it's not so easy to be recognized or paid for the work you do, no matter how good it is.

[PrinceLatte]

Just having an idea of a story doesn't mean it's completely a good idea. The idea is a start how you structure character have them interact and situational change things is what make people love a story. From manga, to comics, to animation, videos games. There is a lot that goes into building a world that fresh and new. Slice of life may be easier to make but a Shonen will be harder creating a battle universe.

Working with someone else to create art is harder than being able to do it yourself, here is why, i can know what I want and draw it myself and change things. Working with someone else paid or unpaid will use a lot of explain and them getting a fel of what your doing as well. Which is no surprised I haven't found anyone to work with me.

[AlydaB]

Something that really grates on me is how family, family friends, and offline acquaintances feel entitled to my work whether I've said I'm open to art commissions or not, and don't understand that I have specialties, prefer a certain kind of work, and have other projects I'm working on and need to prioritize.

For example, I haven't been open to any kind of commissions in years, but people I know often come to me with requests for everything from photo manipulation to art lessons for their kids to acrylic paintings of their pets to digital graphic designs and logos for their companies to watercolor children's book illustrations to (most recently) a detailed architectural design. And they have the impression I'll be grateful for the opportunity and business, like they're doing me a favor. Just... no. Stop.

Graphic design, photo editing, teaching kids, traditional painting, architecture, animals, are all well outside my realm of expertise. Non-artists see all these disparate things that fall somewhere under the umbrella of "art", and I'm an "artist" so I must have the skills to tackle whatever's under that umbrella.. right?

Otherwise, I've encountered the annoying misconception that my digital art is computer-generated (especially when I say I use photoshop, for some reason). I draw every panel of my comic and color it in by hand. It requires time and skill that took years upon years to gain (took me seven years just to learn photoshop, and I'm still discovering new tools and techniques as I continue to learn).

I have to clarify that, yes, doing my art digitally gives me a lot of tools to streamline my art-making process, but I have the skill to create the same line art and even colors with traditional media. It'd just take a lot longer, and as with any traditional art medium, it'd have the look of whatever medium I used. You can't replicate a digital gradient with watercolor, but neither can you replicate graphite textures with watercolor. My art-making software isn't a crutch that magically grants me skills I don't "really" have or generates my art for me.

These are my two biggest gripes off the top of my head, but I relate to what others here have said too. Wish this stuff was more common knowledge.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

That I was not just magically 'born with' these skills.

"Oh you're so talented, I could never do what you do!"

Oh my god I hate that phrase. They're right-- they CAN'T do what I do. But it's not because I woke up one day and could draw. God didn't just pat me on the head, tell me I was special and hand me the ability to draw. I've been drawing since I was three. I took every art class I could get my hands on, in and out of school. I've done summer art programs. I drew on the backs of my homework-- it became a problem. I studied fine art in college. I taught a comics for kids summer art camp thing for several years. I worked in an art store for six years. I have used so many different kinds of traditional media that when people ask me what I haven't tried, I actually have to think for a while. That doesn't mean I'm good at them all, but that I've got broad experience. I don't even want to know how much paper, how many pencils and pens, how many hours or how much money I've dumped into my art journey.

Dear person who just thinks I'm 'special and talented'.... you have no idea how hard I've worked for what I can do. The reason I can do a ten-minute doodle and make it look better than anything you could hope to make isn't because art is easy or I'm a talented snowflake.

It's because I spent 30+ years learning how to do that.

[AlydaB]

This one, for sure.

I loathe when people try to compliment me by putting themselves down, like: "You're so amazing, I could never do that! My art sucks! :D" or "I wish I could draw like you, but I just don't have any talent!"

I always try to tell these people that my art sucked too, so I had to work up to where I am over the course of many years. We aren't born being able to create beautiful masterpieces. I had to draw a million crappy faces before they started to look less crappy, and a bajillion more before they started to look good.

Not only does this mentality devalue our hard work and misattribute our skills to some vaguely innate thing that was simply handed to us, it does beginner artists a huge disservice by implying that skill is inherent and you can't improve without having an amazing natural talent to begin with. It's an all-around crappy compliment and I hate receiving it.

[MarMarTche]

Omg this. Rarely does anyone ever reach out to me for the stuff I actually want to draw. It's ALWAYS just general art umbrella stuff / design.

[TheLemmaLlama]

This one's for non-writers who are artists; writing might not take as long as art, but there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than just putting the words on the page! To write something actually good, you need to make sure it has direction and impact, and make sure things are coherent enough to follow but not spelled out so thoroughly as to overload the reader with mundane details. It needs to be tight. Behind that 100 words of prose/dialogue, there's probably 1000 words of drafts, rewrites and planning.

Also, this has been mentioned before but just having a great idea doesn't make you a writer ... yet. I see a lot of people worrying about starting their passion project because their art isn't good enough yet, but fewer people worry that their writing isn't good enough yet, presumably because they think "oh, I came up with this great idea, so my writing skills are find because writing is just coming up with a whole bunch of great ideas, right?" (I presume this because this is how I thought before I made my very first comic attempt, which I ended up giving up on; not because I couldn't keep up with the art, but because I didn't know where to go next with the writing!)

And yes, there are way more 'writers looking for artists' out there than vice versa, but I think that's because most of them aren't really writers (yet); they're just people with ideas. If you ask them to show you some actual stuff they wrote, they probably won't be able to deliver.

[PrinceLatte]

Thank you, I congratulate you you have great art. Just because you have a basic idea doesn't make you a writer putting those ideas together and the world that what makes such a great story.

Don't look down on those who have content written just because you have the visual aspect. There are tons of "writers" with ideas and it washes away people like me who are serious with well crafted and thought out content. Manga like Food wars, death note, One punch man, Dr. stone, and promised Neverland. All created by mangaka duos, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are others. Sometimes someone may need the other. Good art is not equal to good story, I can look at some art and go "oh this looks neat" and forget about it. Think about all the shows you watched growing up, you remember certain scenes because of the combination. One is not better than the other, it is a team effort.

[system]

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