Tips on how to stay motivated when drawing for a long running series?

[Chocolate]

Hey! What if I’m totally serious about making a career as a mangaka and decided to write my own running Shonen manga? Any tips on how to stay focus and inspired to keep working on a long series without burn out or end up hating your own work??

[BlairFujin]

1. Work on the story you're passionate about, not the one you will is most likely to get popular
2. Allow yourself breaks - if you get stuck, don't force yourself to work on it, sometimes you just have to take a step back and do something else
3. Make a buffer before you start uploading so that you don't stress yourself too much over keeping up with your schedule

[BoomerZ]

Understand what you are getting into. If might take a couple years to find an audience. Until then, very few people will care about your work. It will be lonely. And massively frustrating. It's up to you to push on. Every day work toward your goal. You should enjoy doing it and even look forward to doing the series.

For the story, write about something you want to write about. Know the story you want to tell. Don't think just having a good world and some cool characters are enough. The story is king. Know where your story is going before you even start. Don't "wing" it. That is a sure way to write yourself into a corner. Plan, outline, script before you start drawing. There are no shortcuts. And the more of the script you put to paper the more it's real.

As for breaks, take them at the end of an arc to recharge your battery. Have it as a set time. Tell your readers I will be back is 30 days or whatever and give them a date you will return. Not getting burned out is great, but if you are serious about an art career, you need to understand this is a job, not a hobby. You provide entertainment to people, the customer. Treat them like you value their time.

[powerplantanimations]

All of my stories are connected.

So like... technically I'm laying the groundwork for another story. I don't feel like my time is wasted.

... Also I write for tons of other people which keeps my mind off of That Stick Figure Isekai.

[darthmongoose]

Plan ahead, plan ahead, PLAN AHEAD.

Do not go in thinking you can make up a long-running comic as you go along. If you want to maintain reader interest with tight storyarcs and strong character development, if you want to maintain momentum by always knowing where you're headed, and if you want to have scenes and storybeats to look forward to in order to stay excited about your series, it is vital that you plan ahead.

Every time I've failed at making a long-running comic, it's because I didn't plan ahead and painted myself into a corner or ran out of momentum because I had no destination to head towards, no story objective to make sure I was lining up plot points to get to, and no ultimate point or message to my series.

You should similarly plan things like your approach to making pages so that you know making them regularly fits around your schedule. Do test pages or panels ahead, test that your character designs aren't to annoying to draw a lot, and that the style you decided on, the way you're going to do backgrounds etc. isn't going to cause issues with making lots of pages.

Don't get distracted by side stuff

Oh boy, it sure is fun making Cast Q&As and fun seasonal or AU art, or pinups! ...STOP! Don't make ANY of those things until you've completed a chapter. Don't interrupt the flow of a chapter midway with fun silly side content like illustrations or the like. Firstly, your audience won't care until there's enough story content of the characters for them to want to ask questions or see them in alternate outfits or scenarios, but secondly, it will break your flow, and since illos and omake are easier than pages, can easily become a low-hanging fruit that tempts you away from the grind. Put extras only between chapters. You have to make your pages.

[GodbreakerComic]

I feel like this doesnt get said enough, but if you need to take a break then take a break.

For me I don't schedule or plan them. "After I'm done this chapter ill take a break", nah. Listen to your mind and your body. If you feel burnt out, that means you're burnt out lol.

Don't fall into the trap of self-guilt either. "I really should be working on...", nah you really should do whats best for YOU. Nothing wrong with taking a step back and returning recharged and refocused. It's not laziness, so don't beat yourself up about it.

[mmhillis]

My opinion, is simply to have fun. If it’s not fun, then switch the story to a new one. I just joined Tapas this month.

[NickRowler]

Make something that you will like, not only to be successful.

Remember to always be your own #1 fan. If you don't feel any passion in your work or you hate what you are doing, you will get burned out and hate your work.

Looking at your work, another part is not giving up after 3 or 4 posts. Set a goal and stick to it. Set out to make something that is 50 pages and keep working at it until that goal is met. Don't just drop it and switch to a new series. Do preplanning, usually if an idea doesn't work, you will notice it in the preplanning stage.

[ButterflyEmpress]

The 1st one is so true!!! It's the reason why I dropped my 1st comic. I thought planning it a fraction of the way was enough. On top of that my world and plot was way too much for me to handle for a 1st project.

[TheLemmaLlama]

My main tip is this: don't assume that just because you're excited about something now, that you'll still be excited about it years later.

That's not to say you should give up and accept that you'll be a flake who keeps pivoting to something new, or that you shouldn't plan ahead so that you're free to do whatever when it comes time to do it. Definitely have a plan ... but keep it flexible.

My series bitwam was something I only started working on 2 years ago, but I've already edited 3 of my arcs at least once. If you're going to spend years working on a long-running series, you WILL change as a person and some of the ideas you planned to have at the start will probably stop resonating with you.

If I'd have stubbornly stuck with my original plans down to the letter, I will be very tempted to throw in the towel today and give up on the series, but because I was able to edit my outlines to better reflect my new values and perspectives, I'm still excited about my story and looking forward to finally reaching those moments one day.

A corollary of that is: if you wrote the entire script before you started drawing, expect that you'll want to trash and rewrite a whole bunch. That's one of the reasons to keep most of the far future stuff as outlines for now (though I wouldn't advise that you deliberately stop yourself from writing far future scenes if you're having a strong burst of energy and inspiration right now; make use of those precious bursts whenever you have the opportunity!). A lot of people find it helpful to write the entire script first for shorter series, but I wouldn't advise it for a long-runner

Also, you will probably want to reboot your series. This is incredibly common, people ask about this all the time. obv if you get caught in a reboot cycle, you won't make any forward progress with your series, though it could be still worth it if you hate your old stuff so much that you have literally zero motivation to continue with it :'D