Possibilities kept popping up so I jotted them down quickly. All of a sudden I had an interesting premise to build on and 10 characters on my hands, all in the matter of an hour or so. Now I just hope that this will continue to seem like a good story. Usually my story ideas tend to lose their sparkle when they lose their freshness, and in the end I'm convinced that it was a bad idea to begin with. And that's as far as it goes.
This is not really an art post but it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has had this experience and what you do about it.
9 comments:
I have a similar problem. Ideas form faster in my head than I can draw them... and by the time I work out the plot/story from beginning to the end, I lose interest because I already know the ending. XD It's like I'm spoiler-ising the story for myself!
But with ML I finally forced myself to keep going, and discovered a different kind of joy than the original rush of thinking up an awesome story.
Wow, yeah, basically everything Faye just said! Don't get discouraged... just do it! If it had a freshness to it to begin with and you think you can see it working at that early stage, just go for it!
I do get super-bored blocking out stories, it never seems as innovative when you actually come to put it on paper, which is always a shame... but just focus on how excited you were to begin with! (Easy to say, I know!)
I often have this problem, and i've no idea how to fix it, or to be honest even if it's worth fixing-
thing is i tend to find if I have a super good idea that I will stick to, it will be instinctive, the ideas come easily, weather it's slowly over time or very quickly, i find with the stories i stick at and work on- the basic structure/story/ideas seem to just fall into place.
for a long time i had a web comci i was doing- the idea itself was instant but notihng relaly fitted in my mind, so i worked at it and -made- it fit (this was only the basic structure) the more i got into details, the lass passionate i got, eventually i just gave up on it. then a few months later I had the idea for my current webcomic- the idea itself was very basic and sort of developed somehwat instantly but also sort of slwoly over a month- the plot was basic, but it alll fell into place so well in my mind, the characters, the way each story interelated ect. all just fell into place- although like all stories i had to work on it to make it better, because the basic idea worked perfectly in my mind it was easy to find passion to do this! sorry to sound self involved but i tohught i'd give an example to show what i mean!
it's the ones i have to keep working on and working on, that i have to mull over i tend to drop in the end.
but then i suppose it's debatable that maybe you should stick with them,and with a less natural approach could you turn it into a story you really care about? it's really debatable quite interesting =0 you could compare it to love, you know, either there's chermistry or there isn't- and maybe there's nothing really to explain that! what do you think about it?
ps. maybe a lot of what you have is a lack of confidence in your own stories, but i'm not sure! it sounds like though you're really interested in this idea and so like kate and faye said you should continue to run with it =D SORRY TO RAMBLE!!
My finished comics are usually a katamari-like ball of bits of ideas formed around the core of some original idea. I tend to have an idea and be like 'oh man, yeah, that's an amazing idea!' and proceed to write it all down, only to later come back and go 'urgh, actually I don't feel like making this any more'. My solution is usually to tack bits together until the resulting concoction is to my taste.
I tend to get bored if an idea doesn't have a good balance of drama, visual dynamism (not necessarily action, but rather plenty of different poses and locations to draw, something action does tend to provide) and comedy. If I come up with an idea that's a pure comedy, for example, I may think it's really great at the time, but then realise it has nothing interesting to draw, and no interesting character dynamics and quickly tire of it. I also find that I can't write around a premise alone, I need to have a good character or cast because I tell stories on a subjective rather than objective level, so if I have a plot idea, it's useless without a good character idea or two! On the flipside though, I often come up with some great character idea and immediately run out of steam due to lack of any motivation or plot.
My solution is to try to balance everything out so that I can satisfy all the needs I have from a comic.
...wow, writing that down was actually really useful!
Have you ever tried bouncing ideas off someone? I'll admit, I work best alone, but sometimes another mind sees something in a different way. Whether you agree or disagree it gives you a different perspective on the story.
It's an odd one for me to understand because I love the planning part of my stories - I get so excited about it all. Nothing I like more than sitting with a sketch pad, throwing ideas down at the page - it might just be single words, a line of dialogue a character NEEDS to say, or a whole paragraph of text detailing a certain scene... then you gotta compile that into something more coherent - I use flow charts usually - this way I can wind plots around each other. Or spider diagrams... god I love those. And mind maps. Ideas sprawling out of each other that I can access with just a glance.
I suppose I work in a very chaotic way. It's like none of it will actually make that much sense to anyone else until its finally drawn on to the comic page. I even leave writing most of the proper dialogue until I get to thumbnailling the page. It means at each step of the way I'm adding something to the story - there is always something interesting and creative going on with the storytelling right up to the last step. There is nothing anywhere that says you need to write a full, stiff, solid script before drawing anything. You story idea doesn't even actually have to be complete! Rainbow carousel could STILL end one of a few ways and I'm looking forward to making that final decision when the time comes - which will be soon as I'll have to start putting real foreshadowing in soon... but again, it makes it still fun and creative right up to the end. As long as you have a solid spine for your story to build off and make sure to go through all the major plot points you need, your story can be as open as you like it to be. :)
And like Sarah says, have confidence in your ideas! Sometimes you can tell something's a dud and drop it like a stone... but other times, if you feel you're really onto a jem, hold onto it. Muse over it. Think about it. You'll never get all your ideas out in one sitting - of course you'll get bored. Take a pad with you and brainstorm ideas on the go - nothing worse than having that AMAZING idea then forgetting it as soon as you get close to something you can write it down on. Maybe you need a more organic writing process? I dunno~ What works for me might be abhorrently disorganised to others... Though I do my studies in a similar way and I swam through those so perhaps I'm onto a winner! XD
@Faye: In my case I don't think it's necessarily because I get bored from knowing the ending, it's more that I can't find that spark that made the idea seem worthy of taking further after a while.
You know the saying "it's not what you say, it's how you say it"? I think the "what" can be more or less interesting on its own and it's easy to put down on paper for posterity, but if it's not done right, it won't matter how ingenious the plot is, it wouldn't click. Holding on to the "how" that makes the "what" worth pursuing is what I need in order to visualise the tone that I want to set for the comic, and it's also the thing that seems to slip easily with time for me as my tastes for the moment shift.
You're probably right in that sticking with it can take you out of the swamp, but I think there have been times when I've been in the situation Sarah describes. You keep noodling on the story without getting anywhere and finally you realise that the story probably just isn't right.
@Kate B: Yeah maybe this early stage is the really precious time to get everything that's in your head down on record. Hehe glad to hear that this is something other's go through as well. I guess everyone's different. Reading Chloe's post below shows just how different. :)
@the thirtes knght: Thanks for sharing that! I do wonder if some stories are just beyond saving. Maybe the thing that made it seem like a good idea at the time isn't strong enough to carry it through... but then that should mean that if you inserted another story element it could be saved by giving it a new direction... but then it wouldn't be the thing you imagined to begin with so that might make you drop it.
Gahh I'm not a writer so I can only speculate. It's very rare for me to have an idea come this easily so I think that's a sign as good as any that I should make an effort to try and iron this thing out.
@Kate Holden: Those are some good points. Understandably, stories take work. I think it's when things deviate too far off the original vision in order to make the logistics work that I start feeling dissatisfaction. You make a good point in that there are probably certain things that you enjoy doing in a comic. If you're naturally a comedy writer then doing a dead-pan blood and gore seinen story probably wouldn't work very well, even if the idea was cool. But then you could incorporate things that you like into the idea in order to make sure that you stay true to yourself. I might really love a comic like Naruto, but that doesn't mean that I'd do a good job at drawing one myself.
I'd never really thought about it but you're very right. I think this will help keep me on track if I start going off into directions just because I think they're cool. Thanks! :)
@Wyldflowa: It's still a little bit early but I would definitely pass it around for second opinions when I feel a bit more secure in my own vision. :)
Actually the way this idea (or any idea that seemed good at the time for that matter) came to me is exactly as you say - very chaotic, random lines that some character might say, random things that might happen. In the past I've felt that when I wrote it down it kind of killed the life in those things though. It could be that the formulation was uninspiring, but when it was there, black on white, it felt stiff. It's almost as if I want to keep the idea flowing freely in my head for as long as possible before cementing it on paper. Even though the stuff on paper can be changed, the act of writing it down kind of puts a damper on the free formation of possibilities.
I think your relationship with your characters is what makes it possible for you to just go with the flow and let things happen. You can anticipate what will happen based on characters' personalities. I have a hard time writing characters that feel real, mostly they're just puppets that act out my story. Hopefully this is something that can be overcome, possibly as you live longer and meet more personalities.
This idea is actually a very character-driven story. The premise got me excited because I could see the possibilities for characters to just be themselves and make it interesting, it pretty much stands and falls on whether I can make the characters come alive.
Thanks for all the advice guys!! This has been very helpful and it's been interesting to see that people have similar, yet also different ways of managing and growing an idea. I'm going to let this thing swivel around in my brain and hopefully I'll get to a stage where I feel that I can start straightening things out. Maybe I should take more showers... XD
I foresee the water bills in the Li-Citrine-Fitzpatrick household rising RISING RISING! XD
Can't wait to see how this pans out! :)
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