What's a good way to put page limits on yourself?

[akitsukino]

If there's one big problem I have when it comes to writing, its that I can get very long winded at times. Unsurprisingly, this spreads into my comic making and when I go to thumbnail I turn what could be a 30 page story into a 60 page one without even thinking about it. I've had a lot of good ideas for short stories and I think making these into one shot comics, but as I said I don't want to make them too long. My only remedy right now is looking at manga pages. Since most manga chapters have be set at around 30-40 pages for monthly releases they're usually pretty good at fitting a lot on a few pages. Aside from this, I'm not really sure of any other ways to stop myself from turning small stories into near novels. If anyone has any tips on how to keep a story confined to certain amount pages I'd really like to hear them. Let me know below.

[digitalvalium1]

Best short story writer I've ever read, Fae Myenne Ng. My god, can that woman write. Reading one of her shorts is like getting hit in the chest. It just leaves you breathless. Not because there's so much, no. It's because she knows which details to show, and which to let the reader fill in until the picture (no, not picture, more like the reality) is real, and the experience is shared.

Worst novelist ever. Her debut novel sucked. Why? Pacing.

What makes her a great short story writer is what makes her a bad novelist. You simply cannot get bored when reading her short stories. Her novels have the same active, forceful pacing and it's uncomfortable.

Look at your pacing, define what's needed, what's not. Watch your beta readers' cold reactions. Be brutally honest with yourself, and make yourself cut it to ribbons and just leave the skeleton.

A good short story is like a hug. A great one is like being awoken from a dead sleep. When you look up you're wondering where the hell you are and what the hell happened.

[shazzbaa]

Jesse Hamm has a REALLY cool approach for this, for strict page counts, in this thread! (scroll up to the top)

Highlights:

For me, while I don't stick to strict page-counts, I do try not to go wild... Basically, the first draft of my script is a list of scenes, which turns into a list of Things That Need To Happen On This Page. It keeps things from meandering too much -- instead of going "in this scene Char A will confess her love to Char B!" and then just thumbnailing it out to be as many pages as I would naturally stretch that out to, I know "On page 17 Char A starts talking to Char B and broaches the subject, on page 18 she confesses and is rejected" before I ever sit down to write the conversation. And then I write an honest conversation that will more-or-less fit in the space I have.

[akitsukino]

Ooooohhh... Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed (also this guy posts some really good tweets)!

[Shanny8]

While I try to make my story longer than the usual 24 page standard comic, I try to keep it at 40 pages or under. I want people to be able to read it, get a fulfillment of sorts out of it and anticipate the next one. I dont want readers to feel that the story was too short, or that it dragged longer than it needed to.

[neonmeres]

I've been trying to write short stories but I have encountered some of the problems you also have so I'll tell you what I've learn so far.

Don't try to introduce too many characters stick to a small cast between two or three characters who really drive the story.

Avoid lenghy backstory or exposition. If you have a complex, fantastical world you have created explore a small part of it and don't give a full description of the world.

Try to make every panel count or put a limit to them if you have to like 30 to 40 panels max for your story.

Try to resume what you want to tell in your story into one sentence and don't lose sight of it. This is going to be the main focus of your short comic. Every event or detail which doesn't serve this sentence should be cut off.

Follow a simple story structure which could be like this:
Beginning/ Your character is in a situation with a problem.
Middle/He tries to solve it but has to overcome some obstacles( ennemies, forces of natures, himself).
End/The character manage or doesn't manage to solve the problem. There could be a terrible consequence for your character if he doesn't solve his problem.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[tayo_rafferty]

Someone may have already said this but writing a short story and writing a long-form narrative is a not the same. In other words, they are too different skills. You have to build them up separately.

Now if you simply trying to control your page count and story length then we are in a similar 'boat' because I struggle to keep my stories short. This is not necessarily something you should avoid, it can be a very useful instinct however what I have been doing recently to control this instinct is carefully breaking down every moment in my story.

I begin with the overall synopsis, at this stage I don't worry about the length of the story. It's best just to 'let it all out' and spare no detail in the synopsis. Then I decide how much of the synopsis makes sense and which parts need to be told to the audience and at what time for maximum conflict an tension.

Then, specifically for comics, I separate the synopsis into chapters and then separate those chapters into 'Issues' like the classic comics you see in brick and mortar shops.

Finally I break the Issues down into page descriptions. Yes, I literally record what will happen on each page, what the purpose of the page is and what I am trying to communicate.

It's then that I transfer all of that into a comic script. If you need help with creating a comic script then go here.

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This is a method that I have adopted very recently and it's help me stay in control of my narratives no matter what length they are at and it allows me a lot of flexibility in shortening or lengthening my stories.

[cleo_san]

I personally just make clear for myself what has to happen in the next chapter, which information I should convey.

When I started with Remember, I put a limitation of 20 pages on me, but later I found out that I sometimes needed just a little bit more that that, so I got more flexible.

After all, it's not a monthly published thing which has to be finished in time so my editor doesn't run amok XD So I can make the chapters as long as I want <3

However, since I suck at finding good cover motives, I try to make as less chapters as possibly XD Less covers to draw is a good thing XDD

[revisionstudios]

Other than the pure writing side, I would brush up on paneling fundamentals. I find a lot of people aren't efficient with their panels and they either make things unnecessarily large or draw out transitions/transportation. The eye doesn't need to see every action a character takes to know what they're doing--this isn't animation! You need to use a lot of implied actions.

Remember that panel size = time. The larger it is, the more you want your audience to focus on it or "slow down" their reading. An average page should have 6-8 panels. If you're averaging lower, you could probably cut back on page count simply by putting more on a page.

If you can do that AND cut back on your actual script (a lot of good advice has already been given) your stuff should tighten up to a place you want it.

I also want to say though: don't go to the other extreme and rush or smother your story. If it needs to be told with 5-10 more pages than you planned, that's okay. Sometimes we just don't estimate right.

[DMBrigman]

I started out by deciding I wanted each chapter to be around 20 pages. Then, when scripting I broke things down into objectives. For example "The reader should get introduced the main characters, we establish how magic is viewed" Then, I started writing the story. I personally am overly wordy, and overexplain things, this was highlighted by having some people beta-read for me. Once I got their feedback about where they were bored I started being ruthless in my cuts.

Also as @revisionstudios mentioned paneling is very important. It was only until after I started drawing my first chapter that I realized I was taking way too many pages to make stuff happen, and I was boring myself as an artist having to draw all these talking head panels. Also, remember that the art can tell a lot of the story for you if you let it, very different than prose, and also more efficient.

I would suggest getting someone else to look over what you have done since they won't be as attached to scenes they can give you insight into stuff that isn't that interesting. I also make sure that every page has an objective and a purpose so there aren't filler pages, and if you can't think of a solid satisfying purpose for your own page, cut or condense. I was able to go from six chapters to five by doing this.

And, finally. Look at some anthologies, those often have two to ten page stories and it can give you a good sense of how others handle pacing and telling complete stories.

Don't let go is an eight page story that I though was really well done
Girl with the skeleton hand is a two part, eight page story that I thought was cute
Girl with the skeleton hand part 2

[Cacomico]

I agree with you, akitsukino. The number of pages is just a technical limit and everybody is giving you artistic reasons to consider refraining the size of your comic (which may be correct or not, but that's not the point). Having to change the way you display your story because of a technical limit means you are bending the artistic part because of that technical limit, and that's bad. Of course, I'm not going to change my story because there's a limit of 40 pages (I may do it for other reasons (readability, keeping the tension, keep the readers interested, whatever,...). In my case I just ended up doubling the pages, but that's annoying.

There's another thing to take into consideration: this is a free platform; maybe making these changes mean a lot of work, money or a performance dropdown and it's fair that the problem is not tackled if that's the case. In any case is a technical limitation to the artistic part.

My two cents.