What do you think is your greatest writing weakness?

[KSlinger]

I struggle to keep things simple and often substitute dialogue for a panel which means everything takes much longer to get through. For example fight scenes do so much 'show don't tell' that they're ridiculously long. Chapter one of West will be around 100 pages in itself because I'm not very good at trimming back the flow.

[VikiKuli]

Transitions between scenes. I like absolutely always rush them, gotta get better at it. But I'm glad so see some other people on the same boat with me! We got this!

[Valalaraptor]

I feel like I'm going too slow in the set-up of my story, but it's all so things make sense later, so I don't have to do a bunch of boring, forced exposition. I'm just worried people are gonna lose interest before I get to the real meaty part of the story. I also worry that I hint too much at things and don't explain enough, that I'm weaving back and forth over the line of intriguing amounts of mystery and not enough info, so it's confusing. I forget that my audience doesn't know the whole story and I do, so I have to really focus on how I explain or reveal things, making sure It's thoroughly enough explained, without ruining any surprises for later on.

[mikeampao]

I have that big weakness too especially my drawings. but either way i am enjoy writing even it's frustrating to work my grammar better. I really hope i can do better in future. ^_^

[KrispyKremeBits]

Definitely my dialogue and pacing, my lines are either chessy or out of place and my pacing is usually too slow I feel. But I feel like if I speed it up I'll skip important stuff so...

[phen]

I'm immediately zoomed into this weakness because I feel like when it comes to writing, I take things cosmically slow. I put a micro-lens to the situation, to the characters, to the bloody number of times somebody blinks while I create tension and symbolism in a moment. I have such a hard time letting scenes actually play out because I obsess over the details of a dramatic situation.

Everything in a room, every pose of the figure, the lighting, all must be emphasised over 20 pages so that ONE LITTLE EXCHANGE can be completely, psychologically, biologically sound. It's a venomous weakness and I think it came from an unreciprocated love with math and science.

[tomatobird]

Hm i think trying to keep things from being repetitive?? when i was editing my thumbnails i realized that a lot of scenes...were really redundant, and so i had to cut them out :'0 Also idk keeping characterization consistent ahahaa

[Aspie_Gamer]

I write too much. Fortunately, I am able to condense my words when I get to the dialogue part of a new page I'm working on for my comic.

[spooktacularprize]

Oh absolutely, I have so many notes and I'm constantly adding more.

I write notes in my phone when I'm out so I don't forget things;

I'm wondering if being overly obsessive about it could be a fault too.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Could be. Sometimes I wonder if I should dial it back, too.

[TrustyShamrock]

i think i got 2 big ones.
1: im really bad at making really hate-able characters. like on purpose hate-able characters. i probably got loads that i meant to be likeable but the reader is just sittin there like ok but when she gunna get hit by a truck please. i cant make the ones that people love hating like professor umbridge from harry potter
2: i want my characters to have different types of humor but i can never pull it off right and it just seems awkward when i try

[StevenDacasin]

For me it's not showing personality in my characters. I feel Simon Nero is so plot based that it seems it's gonna be either awkward or hard to introduce some of a character's personality(i.e. weaknesses, fears, etc).

[BlackMantaStudios]

None because I'm a literary Superman!

. . . Okay, just kidding. My problems are more related to my tendency to indulge in using difficult words and flowery language, which takes out the impact from tense action scenes. On the other hand I can sometimes overdo it and write everything in a very technical manner.

[Damatris]

I have this exact problem. :'D

It was super apparent in the beginning because I was really rusty with writing on top of everything else. But the method you mentioned has helped me too a lot with pacing. I still encounter thumbnailed pages that I can easily merge into one page. Which makes me very grateful to past me for having almost a year's worth of thumbnails to fiddle with.

[Zanreo]

Dialogue, sometimes... especially making characters have "their own voice" and making this consistent.
Sometimes, pacing in longer stories?
Though for most of my comics it's more "joke writing" than "story" sicne they're one-page gags... and in that case they sometimes get longer than needed.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I think I can help you with #1 at least a little because I have a character who'll be fun to hate in my own comic.

A lot of it has to do with exaggeration, I think, in both design and action. Professor Umbridge is a great example of that. For starters, she's described as being very toad-like and that's a funny description. She also has a very exaggerated viewpoint of running things. She takes every fun-sucking, unreasonable rule and dials it to eleven. Every time she shows up, you know she's going to do something unreasonably awful.

I also think that it helps to have to have two conflicting personality traits, it makes the character a lot more fun. Back to the example of Umbridge once again, she does have two conflicting personality traits. On the surface, she seems like she'd be a sweet lady. She has a polite manner of speaking, she loves all things pink, she likes sugary things, and she has a bunch of cat stuff all over her walls. However, once you get to know her, you know just how nasty and controlling she is. And the thing that tops it off is that she never drops that "I'm so sweet" motif.

To sum up, what makes a "love-to-hate" character is that you have someone who does awful things but there is a thick layer of humor to them. That's what separates these kinds of characters from one-dimensional bad-guys that people get bored with. I hope that was a little helpful, anyway.

[TrustyShamrock]

woahhh that is actually really good advice holy crud! especially that 2 traits thing! i definitely wanna try makin a character like that now. thanks a ton for the help! C:
i was thinkin about it and maybe a big part of it too is lettin the character get away with a lot of junk. like umbridge pulled off a whole ton of crud and no one could stop her. and even tho itd be so easy to just smack her they couldnt cuz she was in charge. but she was soo annoying and stupid but evil so havin her in charge actually hurt

@StevenDacasin
ooh theres actually lots of ways to practice with stuff like this! a lot of things i do is i take those weird buzzfeed types of quizes as my characters to see how they would answer questions and stuff. theres also some threads here like this one that are made to help figure out your characters better

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

You're very welcome! And you're absolutely right, it does help when they're large and in charge because all people have some rebelliousness inside them to a degree. The moment someone starts bossing them around, especially when they're as condescending as Umbridge, the instinct to smack them down pops in.

I also like to incorporate the two opposing traits to a less extreme degree for other characters. I find it's an easy way to give a character layers. You sum up their basic personality in a single word, pick a few complimentary words to go with, and then pick an opposite word and figure out how to fit that into the developing personality. The rest writes itself. It's that whole reversal of expectations that makes a character the most interesting in my opinion.

[TACOBERTO]

Keeping your writing style consistent. Implementing any and all tips on story-boarding/writing characters/ plot, and keeping it consistent over a long period of time without dropping in quality.

[TrustyShamrock]

yeah for sure! i always started with 1 main trait and played with the character for a while to see what other traits pop up. but that takes forever and your way seems way funner and faster C:
also special thanks to JK rowling for makin umbridge such a good example