Tips For Short Stories/Comics - Webtoon Contest 2020

[basil_kunn]

Webtoon has just announced a new contest!! This one is for short stories, in two categories - Heart and Brain.

Does anyone have any tips for people who plan on entering this contest? Or for people who just want to create a short story in general?

I'll start: this is pretty basic advice but try to keep everything simple. You want your comic to be about just one main idea. Your story with lots of characters, with complex world building and plot, deserves to be a long story. Please don't try to cram it all into just 5 chapters! Instead, come up with a new story that is more suited!!

Also, remember that the most important thing if you're a beginner is to have fun and learn!!

(and I just want to mention that I'm very inexperienced when it comes to comics, which is why I'm asking for everyone to share their advice, instead of giving my own very flawed advice).

[Iris-Grimoire]

The biggest thing to work short is to take kill your darlings to your maximum. That cool character that adds nothing? Remove it. That amazing speech that has no place? Remove it. That cool scene that's very well made, you love, adds character, but it doesn't immediately progress the plot? Make it shorter or cut it out. You'll have a time and place to add them elsewhere, a short story needs to be just the essentials.

This is not just the script, this is the comic itself. Now is not the time for sweeping 3-page intros to your amazing world, or long monologue sequences that are just there to show off a cool composition. Now it is time to throw the plot at the reader's general direction and get going. You can make a spinoff as long as you want once you're done.

[buttersphere]

I'm writing/designing a short comic for this right now, and I would probably give the same tips that have been given already. So instead maybe I'll try sharing my thought process that I'm working through. It might help someone figure out a way to process their short story too? We'll see haha

Since short comics tend to give you a limited amount of time to invest a reader into the story, I tend to focus on asking questions about one thing specifically.

What emotion do you want to leave readers with in your story?
Do you wanna spook people? Make them feel inspired? Have them deep in thought about what they read?

Are there stories out there that give you that emotion?
I'm not telling you to copy them, just understand them. Learn how they managed to invoke those feelings in you with the way they wrote their scenes or paced their panels.

What personally gives you these emotions?
Base it off your experiences and personal interests. Do you love stories about perseverance against the odds? Do you love exploring your fears? Ideas may even come to you quicker if it's based on things that interest you.

I hope these questions help some of you get started! Best of luck to everyone participating!

[darthmongoose]

My advice, as somebody who has placed in some national competitions with short comics:

• If you can find the comics that placed in previous years somewhere, go read them. While you shouldn't exactly try to copy them in stuff like subject matter, tone or style... weeellll.... you will start to get a sense for how the judges value different elements of a comic, what sort of genres, styles and tones they favour. There's no such thing as an unbiased judge, and in many competitions, judges are using criteria like "would our company publish this?" If the judges make stories or comics, give them a look too.

• Don't work in a genre or theme that doesn't chime with you. I once made a straight romance comic for a competition because I thought it'd go down well. It didn't place, and when I read it back, it suuuuuuuucks. My successes have always played to my strengths: Action mixed with character based comedy and banter in a creative/fantastical setting also I tend to be better at writing male/female friendship and female/female romance (because personal experience). Straight people being gooey on a beach feels really forced and artificial from me and doesn't suit my drawing style. Make something that reflects things you love within what you've learned about the judges' preferences.

• No more than three named characters. Any more and things get confusing.

• Don't assume the judges are high literary types who want something really really clever. In many cases, a very accessible comic with a sticky sentimental theme or a big cheesy twist like a hollywood movie will win a competition over somebody's really thoughtful and vague comic that's clever on a metatextual level.

[snackbagstudios]

My advice would be to plan out your ending and beginning first.

If you don't have a ending work on it, and then find out how to get to the end <3

ALSO have fun, explore new styles!

[OncelerHentaiToes69]

Does anyone know if you can post the webtoon while it is still on the making on webtoon??

[pencilinpain]

Or for people who just want to create a short story in general?

Find your ending.
Before anything else.
Make sure you have an ending.