What is your ratio of explanation vs experience?

[jwabeasley]

I'm working on a fight sequence in Chapter 7 of Etherwood. It's going just fine, but one thing that struck me is that, when compared to stories of a different genre, like battle shonen, I'm not doing much explanation of what the characters are doing in the fight. They just act and react with what they can do, rather than the typical scene you might recognize:

Mentor: "Ah, I see, the baka-baka technique. What an interesting choice for this scenario!"
Spectator: "The baka-baka technique? What's that?"
Mentor: "It's when you focus your inner baka energy in the most plot-relevant direction, and then throw a left hook and a charleston shuffle!"

But it's not just battle moves, sometimes stories take pains to explain every character's motivation for every decision, sometimes multiple times over.

I don't do a whole lot of explanation in Etherwood. This is practical, because if I was going to explain everything that I have going on, it would rival the Picatrix or the Dion Fortune's Cosmic Doctrine in complexity and length. That would be a boring comic! Instead, I've opted to be more experiential, showing how Veronica experiences the world as best as I can. Maybe at some point I'll explain what's going on in plain terms in some ancillary materials, but I'd rather people experience and enjoy the world than I would have them intellectually know what's going on under the hood.

That's normal for the retro fantasy genre stories I'm most influenced by, I think, if not modern ones. I'm probably 90%+ experiential or more. Of my influences, I think I'm less explanatory than the novels and slightly more than the films.

But what about your stories? How much experience vs explanation do you include in your story, and how does that rate compared to your influences and your genre generally?

Do you think comics should be more experiential than novels?

[KevinReijnders]

Honestly I think it's a good thing you don't have the whole "ah the baka-baka technique", stuff like that always felt like hamfisted exposition to me. There's a time and place for tell instead of show, but a fight sequence aint it haha.

But yeah I'm with you in general. I try to not exposit to the audience as much as I can. And when I do, I try to weave the needed information naturally into the dialogue or in the visual story telling, so it doesn't feel as exposition.

I will say that at some point, preferably somewhere right before the finale, you should lift a bit of the shroud and reveal some of the hidden lore you've got going on. At the very least the parts that are relevant to the story, so the audience is on the same page as you. I myself have been drip feeding hints and lore bits here and there throughout Trespasser (whether the audience has picked up on them is a different story) but I did feel the need to line it all up in the upcoming 4th Chapter.

It's a tricky balance to walk. Too much explanation, and you're just writing a novel, too little and you risk having the audience miss out on plotpoints or themes you wanted to have come across. Coming from animation, I definitely had to learn it wasn't a faux-pass to write down your characters inner monologue for example. Something that generally doesn't fit the style of an audio-visual format, but is often expected in a comic format and definitely needed in a novel.

[justincarbunkle]

My series doesn’t feature that much action. It’s (for the most part) a comedy. I feel especially for writing comedy, you want the dialogue to be as tight as possible. Leave some breathing room for personality and story, but only if you feel they’re interesting enough for the reader to have. For dialogue, I rewrite lines 5-10 times just to make them 1-2 words shorter, otherwise the joke won’t be as funny, the flow will break, the reader will get bored and never read my comic again, yadda yadda. It all depends on the writers style and what they want to convey with their story.

I hate wasting people’s time. I find value in leaving things unsaid. Give the reader the most entertaining parts of the story, and just enough for them to fill in the rest.

Maaybe if I had the power to create 24 pages every week, or had a 30 episode a year anime, I’d spend time on inner monologues, or side quest type material. I don’t mind that kind of writing to an extent in anime, but they do still have to invest me in their characters + world + animation first for me to care to sit through those wordier sections.

TLDR: Generally, as little explanation as possible. If it's interesting me, I’ll let dialogue play out longer. If I’m not interested, if the dialogue isn’t entertaining or necessary, I cut it.

[kyupol]

All my comics are action packed but I dont think I did too much technical explanation of fight moves. Aside from maybe explaining concepts like the importance of distance in throwing punches or kicks (which I have drawn from some personal experience. Did MMA at some point)

I think I focused more on storyline details like character motivation, background sociopolitical themes, etc.

[moontokkym]

I go by the advice I heard (and criminally don't remember who gave it): "a fight scene is like a dialogue scene but it's way more obvious who has the upper hand".

Basically my philosophy is that the two people fighting should have clear motives for fighting (or the motives become clear later), and as they're fighting they can talk to each other and that should also reflect their motives and mental state.

I'm pretty influenced by the fight scenes in Tokyo Ghoul as well, which is a Seinen rather than a Shounen, and that manga really dives deep into the inner monologue of the characters and their struggles during the fight scenes (and really any violence being done to them or that they inflict on others), so that really plays into the advice I heard as well.

I think the explanation makes sense in Shounen like beyblade where there's a lot of technical stuff in the lore which you have to understand to understand the stakes of the fight, and it's written for a much younger audience that needs it to be more obvious. I get that sometimes the side-character explanation is a necessary evil for the general impact of the story for the audience (and it can actually be useful in that it can show more of the relationship between the side characters and the character fighting depending on how they explain it).

[wolflu66]

I also don't like having too much explanatory dialogue for actions or plot points. Like in Jujutsu Kaisen, where characters explain things extensively while fighting—that constantly breaks my reading immersion.

I think, unless it's a tournament-style battle scene where you can naturally use spectator dialogue for exposition, excessive explanations wouldn't be my first choice for other types of combat scenes.

Though sometimes I also unconsciously start explaining things too XD.

[Oriflamme]

I think having side characters narrate and explain the fight is in some way a by-product of the standard shounen format. As mentioned earlier, there is often a lot of technical stuff in these kinds of battles with a lot of exposition, but I would think that as the creator stressed out by weekly release, drawing characters just explaining what is happening would give a nice breather from all the action panels.

Editors might also not mind them too much because they would allow new readers that just started in the middle to not get lost in the story. Let’s not forget that expecting people to start a large story from the beginning is a relatively new thing since the internet has made it easier to catch up.

[migxmeg]

I diverge a bit from my writer on this but for a comic where the expected reading experience is serial and likely on a phone I prefer to see explanations and exposition that would be over the top for a different format like a comic book which you read cover to cover at a slower speed than scroll. Readers aren't necessarily remembering in detail what happened a few episodes (weeks or months in real time) before and aren't usually studying or even stopping for the art. I obsess over expressions and body language so it hurts a bit but I think clarity and ease of reading and keeping up with the story is the most important consideration. For comics where there are lots of characters and they have unique and complex battle abilities it's better to be super clear and even repetitive if it helps those weekly or monthly readers keep up without having to flip back (really hard to do without doing a complete reread which no one wants to do) and figure out what's going on.

[migxmeg]

Didn't consider that about starting in the middle of magazine manga or comic, great point.

[jwabeasley]

I will say that at some point, preferably somewhere right before the finale, you should lift a bit of the shroud and reveal some of the hidden lore you've got going on.

Oh, all the relevant information will be out by then, if I ever make it there!

It's a tricky balance to walk. Too much explanation, and you're just writing a novel, too little and you risk having the audience miss out on plotpoints or themes you wanted to have come across. Coming from animation, I definitely had to learn it wasn't a faux-pass to write down your characters inner monologue for example.

That's something I'm really contemplating right now. I'd always had the expectation that the ideal comic form was one with no dialog, but right now I'm leaning into ways to tell more story per panel, especially with future project plans. I was shocked when I picked up a collection of 40's and 50's era horror comics and they had 3-4 lines of narration per panel - but they got the whole story done in 6 pages!

Leave some breathing room for personality and story, but only if you feel they’re interesting enough for the reader to have. For dialogue, I rewrite lines 5-10 times just to make them 1-2 words shorter, otherwise the joke won’t be as funny, the flow will break, the reader will get bored and never read my comic again, yadda yadda.

10 times seems excessive, but I am 100% with you on considering every possible version of a comic before you go to draw it, double for humor strips. Sometimes, just a single brush stroke on an expression is the difference between a joke falling flat or landing.

Maaybe if I had the power to create 24 pages every week, or had a 30 episode a year anime, I’d spend time on inner monologues, or side quest type material. I don’t mind that kind of writing to an extent in anime, but they do still have to invest me in their characters + world + animation first for me to care to sit through those wordier sections.

Those long repetitive sections and filler episodes seem to have decreased a lot since anime went to 13 episode series as a default. I think the change has been positive for most series, but sometimes they just need that breathing room. But as a solo creator, I have a hard time justifying main plot detours in my regular production. On the other hand, I have great ideas for joke episodes, and joke pages get more traction than plot pages, which is why I've been doing Etherwood Extra chapters... with comics I can produce outside of my art desk and outside my regular hours.

The tradeoff is delaying the plot for the weekly readers, though. I just can't do everything at an accelerated pace. No 15-page weekly chapters from this part time artist!

[jwabeasley]

I think I focused more on storyline details like character motivation, background sociopolitical themes, etc.

For the shonen style comic you run, I'll admit that you do less explanation than some series!

I go by the advice I heard (and criminally don't remember who gave it): "a fight scene is like a dialogue scene but it's way more obvious who has the upper hand".

That's a great way of putting it! I think of every move in a fight as an expression of the character and their emotional state.

Though sometimes I also unconsciously start explaining things too XD.

That's what JJK's manga is like? Wow, and people say modern readers don't like wordy comics!

Editors might also not mind them too much because they would allow new readers that just started in the middle to not get lost in the story. Let’s not forget that expecting people to start a large story from the beginning is a relatively new thing since the internet has made it easier to catch up.

That's a good point! I usually think about new readers seeing a page and wondering what the heck is going on, but I hadn't really thought about it in chapter form in a while, since I don't have a subscription to Shonen Jump or anything like that anymore.

[jwabeasley]

I diverge a bit from my writer on this but for a comic where the expected reading experience is serial and likely on a phone I prefer to see explanations and exposition that would be over the top for a different format like a comic book which you read cover to cover at a slower speed than scroll. Readers aren't necessarily remembering in detail what happened a few episodes (weeks or months in real time) before and aren't usually studying or even stopping for the art. I obsess over expressions and body language so it hurts a bit but I think clarity and ease of reading and keeping up with the story is the most important consideration. For comics where there are lots of characters and they have unique and complex battle abilities it's better to be super clear and even repetitive if it helps those weekly or monthly readers keep up without having to flip back (really hard to do without doing a complete reread which no one wants to do) and figure out what's going on.

That's a good point, I don't read comics that way but I know of lots of people that do. Maybe that's why I struggle with disposable scroll comics?