May 2021
6 / 24
May 2021
May 2021
crowstories
May '21

Not gonna comment as a creator because trying to make a comic generally messed with my sense of time in big and unexpected ways. But yes, as a reader, there have been times I tore through 100+ episodes of what seemed like a well paced story, and in the 6 months since I finished the backlog it feels like we've been stuck in the same scene the ENTIRE TIME. This is not a problem with all comics that I read weekly, but there are a few examples where I'm like "OKAY WE GET IT THEY LIKE EACH OTHER, WHERE DID THE PLOT GO??" That might also just be my impatience as an ace/aro reader not being that interested in drawn out chapters in which a slow burn romance finally pays off, though...

DiegoPalacios
May '21

To avoid such issues, i designed most of my pages to be self contained enough to be enjoyed on their own while keeping the story going.

Generally, i go with 2 questions when updating a page:

1-It is relevant?: does it helps advance the story or develop the characters?

2-It is entertaining?: does it makes readers laugh, cry, get excited, scared, or any emotion? (something that is not boredom of course)

the ideal update answers yes to both questions, and the updates that answer no to both are completely unneccesary.

relevant info that is not entertaining is probably an info-dump: the key is to figure an interesting way to share such info.

entertaining updates that are not relevant may be fun filler, is better to do this in moderation otherwise the story will feel like is going nowhere.

doublemelon
May '21

Tell me about it. My story is currently happening in the past, HAS BEEN happening in the past, and when i read comments, i dont think some of the readers realize it yet..... lol.

Kura
May '21

It gets frustrating yes, though I usually do daily updates so I don't run into it as badly normally, when I have to slow down for weekly updates it frustrated me how slow the story moves.

I know it sucks but really try your best not to let the pacing of a scene get you, though consistent it IS a temp obstacle in the long run (when the scene is complete you will not have the pacing issue) and you are likely working on this webcomic alone, for free, and not being able to work on the comic full time because of school/work/commissions. Not to mention life and other complications you just have no control over.

GloamingCat
May '21
crowstories

OMG YES. A scene may last like 10 pages, which is pretty short, but for a weekly comic it takes... more than 2 months. On the same scene. That's why for some comics I read I just wait until a good chuck of episodes is up. But as a creator I can't do that without sacrificing my visibility ;-;

Yeah I do that too with my episodes, but that doesn't really solve the problem. I update every 3 weeks on Webtoon, it means that a scene that needs to be only 3 episodes (25-30 panels each) long can take 2 months for a reader to get through it. So even if each episode is interesting/relevant, the scene as a whole feels too long and repetitive, even though it wouldn't be if you read all 3 episodes in one go.

Not to mention that... if you try too hard to make every single page self-contained, then the binge reading is hurt. Wouldn't it feel off if you're reading a comic book and every page ends with some sort of pun/cliffhanger?

GloamingCat
May '21
doublemelon

Some my readers are pretty forgetful too and I can't even blame them because I'm the same :cry_01: I was actually thinking of leaving some reminders in the episodes, for example everytime some character mentions something that occured in an episode released 3+ months ago, I leave a small author note below the panel indicating the referred episode's number. Don't know if it's a good idea tho, but I can't think of something better to refresh the readers' memories without straight up asking them to re-read the whole story lol

Yeah that's a good way of thinking, but it's kinda sad that the current readers will end up with a compromised reading experience... while the only ones who are going to have the experience of reading the story as it is intended to be read are the ones who find work after it's finished. Sometimes I want to just create the full story offline and then release the whole thing at once, but we have the problem with visiblity again ;-; The algorithms are no friendly to stories that are made for binge reading ;-;

crowstories
May '21

If you did make the whole thing before publishing you could release it at a faster pace, rather than all at once. Three updates weekly would really help with continuity, while allowing you to gain traction with the algorithm/not overwhelm readers.

GloamingCat
May '21

That's a good alternative too. Honestly, if I was starting a comic now, I'd have done at least a whole volume before I start publishing it. But I already started it, and it would need a loooong hiatus (like, years long) to do that now. Wouldn't that be bad for the algorithms anyway to suddenly pause the comic?

wekanian
May '21

As others have said, 10-day schedule is another option. I usually alternate between weekly and that schedule. I feel your problem tho, weekly update is good for growing audience but drawing takes time and there’s not so many panels we can finish in a week.

DiegoPalacios
May '21
GloamingCat

Is a tricky balance to go, that's why i had to develop the pacing method mentioned above.

It considers binge readers too.

BreakingChalk
May '21

I started uploading full chapters monthly (then bimonthly) in 2020.

Then I opted for weekly updates of 3-6 pages.
It's still achievable, works without risking a buffer, and gives the reader enough for a week without breaking the flow as much.

Kaydreamer
May '21

As a creator, I really don't want to let 'episoditis' wreck the pacing of my story. I'll cut an episode where I need to in order to be able to create it withing the two-week window I give myself to make each one, and I'm not adding or removing chunks of story just to make each episode 'punchy'. If I need to have a bit of a short episode one update, I'll let the readers know why.

I definitely recommend updating bi-weekly, if weekly is damaging the pacing of your story! That's one of the better decisions I made with my comic, along with shifting to a vertical format. (I work faster in vertical.)

I definitely notice this! Some of my favourite webcomics are paced perfectly for binge-reading - which is what we should all be going for if we're making a story-focused comic, TBH. (It means our story will retain its longevity in the years after we finish releasing it.) But now that I've caught up on those stories, it definitely feels like they're not moving anywhere anymore. :cry_02: I know that they are, and the reason they seem so slow is the same reason I loved them in the first place, but in the age of Netflix, it's so much harder to summon the patience required for slow, episodic stories.

rajillustration
May '21

So when I was doing a one page a week comic for years (sometimes 2 a week, but on different days) I liked to think of it in terms of having a finished thought. Each page should introduce something, and resolve the thought. It might be something very small, it may even just be a moment of beauty and awe where nothing...really happens, persay...but there has to be some sort of satisfaction from the page.

I don't think that having more time would really resolve that, if it's something that an author struggles with. You see people with 50+ panel episodes who get freakin nothing done. So like when you write a comic and you know that you're going to have a part that's kind of a chore (because it's SO MUCH more of a chore to write it than to read it omg) I've learned that it helps to stagger talking head portions (just break up some conversations till later), change environments, have some sort of emotional beat to reflect on the page--things to help break up monotony you can have when there's a lull in the plot. Because plots will always have rise and fall action--but writing a really lovely slow part of your comic is totally possible and satisfying, just gotta make sure to finish the thoughts you start.

Darth_Biomech
May '21
GloamingCat

Depends. Ideally, every page SHOULD end with a hook, actually. Not an obvious one, but it should urge the reader to "what's next?!" and flip the page. Or, in case of weekly updates, look forward to the next page release.

thedude3445
May '21

Webcomics are tough. As a reader, I usually only catch up once every 6 months or a year because of stuff like this... But I feel guilty about it too...

GloamingCat
May '21
BreakingChalk

:cry_02: I can only dream of that (my max is 2 pages/week, and I still need a good buffer)

Exactly!! I wrote my story to be read in one go, so it's optimized for that and assumes there are no pauses... If I keep adding stuff at the end of every page it's gonna feel weird to binge-read it.

Oh yeah! I work with vertical too, I'm just using the page/chapter nomenclature to make things easier to explain. And actually... on Webtoon I update every three weeks :'D I started doing three weeks there because readers were saying the episodes were too short, but then I noticed that even a longer episode still suffers from messed-up pacing. Now that I think of it, I guess the problem is not just the length of the episode, but the time between updates? Weekly or bi-weekly, I still need 6 months to finish a full chapter :cry_01: That would be 6 months for a proper chapter closure/cliffhanger. So I guess the solution to that is either to add stuff to the episodes to make them punchy, or... draw faster :upside_down:

oOafterburnerOo
May '21

I've tried both ways. Weekly updates of 1-3 pages and whole chapter updates.
The main difference I noticed is that I would get complaint comments about the weekly updates being too short (among other comments) but on full chapter updates I would get almost no comments at all. So once they got to read the whole chapter in one go they no longer felt the need to interact.

So despite smaller updates ruining the pacing, and readers SAYING they don't like it, they show more interest, comment more, come back more often, etc.
So overall it seems much more beneficial for you as a creator to drag it out.

GloamingCat
May '21
Darth_Biomech

Maybe the difference is what kind of "thought" we're talking about? When I have to split a scene, I try to end each part with a small punchline or a pause, sometimes I reorganize the script or add/remove one or two panels to achieve that. But the actual "thought" that I wanted to resolve was the big one, you know? Like, the point of the whole scene. But it's only resolved after the last page of the scene, so... if I could, I'd release the whole thing at once, because it was written to be read like that. When I release it in small parts, even if the parts have some sort of small conclusion of its own, the whole scene feels longer than it should.

I agree with that, but I believe there's a difference between the "turn the page" cliffhanger and the "come back next week" cliffhanger? The second one tends to be more impactful to the reader and (ideally) to the story. So when you write something to be read weekly you gotta reshape the whole story to fit that nicely. I feel that with premium stories on Tapas. Some of them ended up being too fast-paced, have too much stuff happening with no room to breathe (not to mention much of it is filler), when you binge-read them. But if you read it weekly, I guess the wait of one week makes it easier to digest. Kinda like a soap opera.

Honestly I'd love if my current readers did the same thing :sweat_02: Because the page/week schedule is good to gain new readers, but not necessarily to make the reading expericente better for the current ones, I think...

Wow, that's interesting... and sad. With the weekly updates, did you actually change the content to make each episode more conclusive, or did you just split a full chapter in small updates and that's it? Currently, I'm doing the second one lol plus some minimum effort to make the episodes self-contained. I wish I could just release the full chapter at once, but it's not worth it if it hurts the engagement...

oOafterburnerOo
May '21

No I didn't change the updates content at all, it was just like picking up a graphic novel and reading 3 pages. :sweat_smile:
I would just post the pages as I drew them, but I had a lot more die-hard, invested fans than when I've tried full chapters.
To be fair this was a long time ago when there was much less competition in webcomics and maybe my first story was just better than my later ones. :information_desk_person:

Iridium
May '21

Greetings!
I usually go for monthly/bi-weekly pacings; it's the best for my story and it truly works for me. Okay, I might not get as much exposure as I'd like, but I won't sacrifice my plot pacing for it. My time will come, and I believe that my readers appreciate that xD
I draw the pages considering physical media, so I struggle with the pages and panels relations when it comes to webpublishings x.x

I publish around 10 to 40 pages per chapter, it's a massive work and sometimes I wish I had a buffer, but... It's the only way I found to work, I guess x.x