Email Answers: Afraid to Start
on April 1, 2011 at 10:00 pmOver the last year I’ve been getting loads of emails with questions about making a comic. I love it! It’s always fun to help anyone willing to ask for help. Sometimes these emails end up being so long and time consuming that it’s hard to keep doing it. So today I’m going to start something new to see how it goes. With each email senders permission I’m going to post the questions on my blog along with my answer. The beauty of this is that everyone can chime in and help out too. Most of us have the same questions and frustrations and it’s comforting to know your not alone. Hopefully this new method will bring deeper answers but also help more than just one person at a time.
So feel free to email me if you have a question. Help me decide what to call this section. For now it will just be called “Email Answers”. And now, here is the email that started it all…
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Hello Jason,
For a couple of years I’ve had a vague story in my mind, but I know the characters I want to use in and out, like if they were my own kids. I don’t want them to just be a thought like that forever though! I’ve storyboarded out tiny one-shot stories of them, but have never committed to making a full length comic. So, recently, I’ve started reading as much on script writing and comic making as I can. But I feel overwhelmed.
I can visualize my goal easy enough- I’ll have a years worth of stories scripted and laid out, model sheets, everything you need before you say “Okay, this is really gonna happen, I’m gonna do this.” But I feel like I’m missing a piece to the puzzle. The script writing has been very frustrating to me. I can get my ideas down in little drabbles but then I go to type a story and I freeze. Then, if it even comes to a point where I’m actually inking, I start to cramp up with art block and totally second guess my artistic merit and style. I guess I am afraid of failure.
How did you keep up with reMind when it was in it’s early stages? At what point was it no longer ideas floating around, and it was a concrete story? Did you ever study script writing? I think the writing is really holding me up, because like I said, I have these characters so perfectly built up in my mind but no idea how to turn it into a story worth reading. What do you do when you feel really down in the dumps and don’t know what to do with your ideas? – Lauren
Lauren,
Thanks for the great questions. Here we go…
First off I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you think you’re afraid of failure. Failure needs to be your best friend. Failure is part of learning. If you are afraid to fail then you will never be able to grow. There is a great quote in (the best and only animation book you will ever need) The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams that goes something like this: “A pencil has two ends. Use both!” (I can’t find the book on my bookshelf so don’t quote me on that.) What this says to me is this; instead of being bummed that you have to erase something look at it as part of drawing. Sure, every time you erase is because you made a mistake. A failure. But every time you erase it’s a chance to learn from your mistake and do it better the next time.
Secondly, From what it sounds like, you’ve spent plenty of time preparing for your journey and everything is neatly packed and ready to go. But all that packing will do you no good unless you start the actual journey. It’s time to start. You learn by doing. You also learn by teaching… that’s why I blog so much. haha. Another analogy I like to think about is this. Making a graphic novel is like deciding to walk from Los Angeles to New York. You will never get there by just planning and thinking about it. Planning may help your journey but until you start walking, you’ll never get closer. It will take FOREVER but eventually you will get there if you just keep going.
You need to take one of your script ideas and start thumbnailing it out. Start drawing the first panels, the first pages. You WILL mess up. You WILL fail. And you will learn from it. If you think your inks are bad them make the best bad inked page you can and move on to the next. Maybe you don’t need to ink. Only after you get a few pages under your belt will you start to see what you want to change and how to do it best.
I’ve heard writers say that the best thing you can do to get a script written is to get the first draft down on paper no matter how messed up it is or how confusing or disjointed it may seem. Just get it out of you head and onto paper so you can finally have something to refine. The first draft is always going to be a wreck but you need to just get it out and over with so you can move on to the second draft. 8 drafts later you might have a good script.
When reMIND was in it’s infancy, it’s was intended to be an animation. I had no idea how to animate or write a story at that point. I just started working on scenes. They all turned out terrible but I finished ‘em. Later I learned to animate and I reanimated everything and then I learned that my story was bad so I rewrote most of it and reanimated it again. When I started the graphic novel I threw out all my animation and started over again.
But honestly, I think you are very smart for putting in so much time to learn and prepare. I did the opposite and didn’t prepare at all. If someone could split the difference between us then it would probably be the best situation to be in.
I think there are always going to be ideas floating around with my storytelling. A concrete story for me is a detailed bullet point list of key things that happen and a loosely written plot. I never really know how the scenes will unfold until I start to draw them. I like to keep things loose so I can have some fun with the layout and scenes as I get to them. It keeps it interesting and fun.
Did you ever study script writing?
I’ve never studied script writing but I’ve studied story structure and creative writing on and off since starting this over 15 years ago. Scripts don’t do anything for me really. I’ve read plenty for work and it’s like pulling teeth. I’d rather just write my ideas out it like a childrens story.
What do you do when you feel really down in the dumps and don’t know what to do with your ideas?
There are two things that I tend to do depending on my situation:
A) Take a long break. Take a vacation. Put it down for a hour. A week. A month. Don’t think about it anymore. Completely take your mind off it and then one day you will pick it up and get so exited about it that it’s all you can think about. You will have new ideas and enthusiasm and it will flow from you like gold. I like this method. It’s why I like having multiple projects in the background. If I ever get burned out by one I can jump to another one that I’m excited about again. That’s why I have this blog. It helps me when I’m burned out with drawing.
If this is not an option then there is the opposite approach:
B) Push through it. This is the product of being a working artist. Sometimes you just have to get something done right now. You just have to sit there and force yourself to draw something or write something. Eventually after messing up 20 times in a row something finally clicks and you start making headway again. I hate this method but sometimes it’s the only way to hit a deadline.
Thank you SO so so much for this post, Jason. I really felt like I was at a dead end when I sent that e-mail; like I said it really means the world to artists like me that you take your time to help out and pass your knowledge around. The pencil quote is a good one. I feel like it’s so easy for an artist to fall in a rut when they’re expecting a lot from themselves… and personally, like you picked up on, I’m one to spend a massive amount of time planning and studying before I take the proverbial trek from Los Angeles to New York, almost to the point where it becomes a fault.
I’m surprised to read that you haven’t studied scripts, because I had it in my mind that anyone who is making a comic of their own has to take that up also. It’s eye opening to see someone do it another way! It’s sort of a big relief, I’ve always felt I’ve had a much easier time “feeling” out a story, and it’s when I strained to add in certain script elements that the creative process started to frustrate me. (Not that structure isn’t important, I think reading “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder has helped out in it’s own right, too.)
Again, thanks so much for this post. I hope that other people who are struggling with the same things as I can read this and take it a bit easier on themselves and focus on doing what they like rather than being so worried about how something is going to come out. I’m a bit shy topost right away, but I think it would do me good to participate in the forums you’ve said up and share my ideas. I look forward to reading more of these email Q+A’s, I’m glad I got over my shyness and sent that first email, haha.
Thanks Lauren!
It’s definitely important to learn as much as you can about story and scripting to make a good graphic novel. In a way I never thought reMIND would gain the audience that it has and I wasn’t as concerned about making it perfect when I started showing it. I figured it would be my first graphic novel that only a few people read. One that I could learn all the do’s and don’t's of making a GN. Now that there is a big audience I admit I’m a bit more nervous about my storytelling skills. haha.
About 2 years ago, a friend of mine and I came up with a term: The Age of Generosity. People taking time to share knowledge, hope and good karma with people they’ve never met who might never be able to repay them.
People like you, Mark Crilley with his 100′s of how-to-draw vids on YouTube, the thousands of people on DeviantArt who create tutorials about every conceivable thing… You guys are the vanguard of that movement, whether you realize it or not.
I think the noblest purpose of the Internet is letting people know that there are others out there who understand you and who can help you find your way out of your personal prison, even if it’s just to offer encouragement and saying “You’re not alone.”
Thanks for being one of the good guys.
Really an excellent post, and an exceptional answer to an important question! Many thanks to both of you for posting it!
And I have to say that the most important thing in all of this is that the best way to do something is just to do it! You don’t necessarily have to have the destination in sight to start the trip. There’s a critical mass to an art project like a GN, and you have to get to the point where it becomes a chain reaction – and even then, you’ll always have self-doubt, worry, writers’ block, and so on. It’s part of doing a creative thing. I have about fifteen or twenty great comic ideas that never got off the ground, and frankly, I think a lot of them are better than what I am currently working on, but I finally had a talk with an old friend of mine who told me, basically, just to pick one, start it, and see it through to the end, even if it wasn’t the best thing ever. Completion can be something for its own sake, and a big barrier is the fear that the finished product won’t measure up to the ideal I have in my head of what it should be like. If you can swallow that and just do it, one drawing at a time, the whole process comes together.
And if I may, add this to what to do with artists’/writers’ block: I tend to think that a large part of what helps, at least in my experience (and the same seems to be true of reMIND from following it!) is the interaction with the intended audience can help an awful lot as well – doing this online gives you the chance to get feedback on your work as you go, and, in my case, helps me feel like I’m doing it for more than just my own whims. I took a lot of inspiration for going online myself from Jason, and it can really help!
And again, thank you Jason for the post and Lauren for letting your letter be made public – you are not the only one who goes through this!
–M
Yes, great question and great answer. I’m sure huge numbers of people go through variations of this same problem.
The long-term fix I’ve used is to change the objective in my mind. The aim is not to produce something perfect, or even something as good as you can possibly make – with that in mind you’ll be constantly afraid to make any kind of mark on the page because it might not be optimal.
The aim is always to learn. Every project is just an opportunity to learn-by-doing so that the next project will be even better.
In the specific case of having the theory of a story so well planned you’re afraid to start on the practice, I recommend producing a story set on the edge of what you’ve created. You can leverage the assets you’ve already got planned out, but it shouldn’t feel like you’re at risk of compromising your vision. You can then edge towards the vision from there, with references to or cameos from your main characters for example. It worked for me.
Then there’s this manifesto, which I guess is more of a call for Jason’s approach:
http://www.boingboing.net/features/morerock.html
That is a great link: Less Talk, More Rock. I’ve also heard it phrased as “Fire, then aim.” That’s how a cruise missile works, after all.
I suppose one safety net you gain from doing it that way is if the project does turn pear-shaped early on, at least it’s not something you’ve been agonizing about in public for a year before you put pencil to paper.
Let it die a quiet death and get rockin’ on something else. Once you get some traction and suspect you’re onto something, then get chatty. :-)
Great answer Jason and Great question Lauren …I got some good advice on protecting a graphic novel from Jason a while back. Thanks Jason!!
Lauren got some tips that helps me get my fingers to walking on the keyboard when I got a story idea, 1) every story comes from inspiration. something has to inspire you to want to write in the first place, so pen (ha pen ) point that one thing that is fueling your engine for the story. 2) what helps motivate your story, by this I mean every writer has a corky thing they do to get the story out. whether it be listening to music (movie trailer music for me), movies, jumping jacks , standing on their head for an hour etc. Raise that passion for your story and you will see how to break through that writers block. piece oh peace
The best advice I can offer on writing is to dive right in and just do it! There’s no law that says you have to stick to the first version of your script. I’ve had to rewrite some of my scripts for Sunnyville Stories and even delete entire ideas. What I do is I first write a story treatment. I write by hand about two to four pages giving a synopsis of the story, including the conflict, the reversal of fortune and recognition of said reversal. Then working from that, I type out a whole script.
For more on writing, I recommend the book by Aristotle called “Poetics” and the more modern book, the DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics. I also discuss writing in two of my blog posts as part of a series on how to make comics:
http://sunnyvillestories.com/2011/02/how-to-make-comics-writing-stories/
http://sunnyvillestories.com/2011/03/how-to-make-comics-more-on-writing/
i asked these same questions of a very well known comic creator. He’s advice: just do it..put in the work, but be original. Don’t try to chase trends and styles, just make something new and interesting.
I’d say that advice works for any creative field.
jason,
i have been bashing my head into the wall for a very long time. I’ve a rewarding artistic enough day job, but have become an accidental luddite and fallen baffled about how to continue in the creating of my ” need to do this for the sake of feeling vital” project. Have spent the last couple of hours looking over your advice, very much obliged and inspired. my thanks and best wishes to you.
-den
well im twelve years old and want to write a book so i came on this site hoping u would respond to me and i want to make a graphic novel like you.It is the summer so i have plenty of time and next year im going to stem academy.I really need help and inspiration.Did you ever feel like your story wasn’t going to make it?All im asking is…….HELP ME PLZ!
I feel like my story is a fail and my characters are a fail and im a fail
All I gotta say is that you have to just keep making stuff that you love to make and don’t worry if it’s a fail or not. Make a goal for yourself this summer to make a few pages or a whole story or whatever you think you can get finished and have fun with it. The good thing is you are young. Let me know how it goes too!
thanks for your inspiration and i think i have a idea going i just cant get the right characters.I just need to work a little harder i guess.I am no longer afraid to start!
you should get into deviant art(an art website)