Plotting a Webcomic
Coming up with characters and scenarios is one thing, but when you’re working in a longform narrative comic, you’re going to want to think about a plot. Planning out your plot in a webcomic is a unique challenge compared to some other mediums, so today we’re going to talk about it!
Listen to this episode on YouTube:
In this Episode:
- How do you plan the plots and plot beats for your work? What kinds of tools do you use? How much do you plan in advance for something like a webcomic?
- Is there such a thing as too simple/too complex of a plot for a webcomic? How do you know if your plot ideas need thickening up or thinning out?
- What is your advice to someone with maybe some vibes and some characters, but who’s stuck on coming up with a plot?
Useful Resources
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Episode Release Date: April 23, 2025
Episode Credits:
Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com
Rae Baade - they/them, https://empyreancomic.com
Miranda Schwemmer - she/her, https://mirandacakes.art
Star Prichard - she/her, https://thestarfishface.com/ https://castoff-comic.com/
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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.
Transcription
This transcript is auto generated by our recording software and edited by our team00:01.19
Delphina
Hello and welcome to Screen Tones, where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about plotting a story. I'm Delphina, I use she/her pronouns, and I make the webcomic Sombulus.
00:14.84
Miranda
I'm Miranda, I use she/her pronouns, and I make the webcomic Into the Swell.
00:21.07
Rae
And I'm Rae, I use they/them pronouns, and I make the webcomics Overlord of Ravenfell and On Empyrean High.
00:29.76
Star
And I'm Star, my pronouns are she/her, and I make the comic Castoff.
00:34.40
Delphina
Excellent. OK. So coming up with characters and scenarios is one thing. But when you're working in a long-form narrative comic, you're going to want to think about a plot eventually. Planning out your comic’s plot is kind of a unique challenge, especially in the medium of webcomics. I think it's a little unique. So today, we're going to talk about it. And I'm really excited to hear what you all have to say.
01:02.37
Delphina
So I'm just going to start off with like, how do you plan the plots and the plot beats for your work? What kinds of tools do you use? Or like, how much do you plan in advance for something like a webcomic? We'll throw it to you, Miranda.
01:21.03
Miranda
Uh, so I tend to start my webcomic planning by having characters in mind. They usually start as stereotypes and then evolve from there. But once I have those characters, the next step and taking the step into the plot planning is figuring out the conflict. What problem are these characters going to have to solve? What makes them uncomfortable enough to have to start their journey and leave their comfort zone?
01:50.34
Miranda
Just kind of setting up the world and the path that I want them to take, or even just knowing where I want them to get to based on where, where they're at, how I want them to grow and evolve. And then from there, that kind of gives me enough starting point of, this is the type of story it's going to be. And then, you can break it up into deeper.
02:22.42
Miranda
There's a paradox of getting halfway there. To go somewhere, you have to get halfway there. So the first halfway point is figuring out the conflict. And then halfway to the conflict point is figuring out the first thing that makes them uncomfortable and it just keeps breaking down into smaller steps. There's a lot of good tools that exist that kind of give you a good template for starting that I like to reference to kind of help me zone in on the most important plot points. Some I really like is just the basic Hero's Journey.
03:02.37
Miranda
There's a call to adventure, then they have challenges and then they get to the main revelation and the big thing that has to happen and then they transform and then they return to the start. It's kind of very circular, but it's a good breakdown of a very simple kind of adventure structure. Another tool I like to reference a lot is called Save the Cat. It's a lot more detailed, like several different more steps, but it's another good thing to look at and just kind of
03:38.13
Miranda
see, just to give you an idea of what you need to focus on if you're kind of stuck. It's nice to be able to look at something and say, “Oh, that's what I'm missing. I have these steps. I have these stages, but I need to figure out this.”
03:53.82
Miranda
As far as how much planning in advance I do, that really is a thing that depends on your writing style. Some people are pantsers, some are plotters, some are something in between. I like to have the main plot points
04:15.77
Miranda
a few scenes in the middle, knowing kind of where I want them to end up. And then I leave myself a lot of wiggle room in between because I've found that, as I go through the comic creating process, because it is so long form, things are liable to change as I go. So I like having the room to change if I need to.
04:40.26
Miranda
And if I think of an amazing way for them to get to point A instead of the route that I had originally thought, I have the freedom to change that. And I feel like the more plotting you have ahead of time, the easier it can be to do things like adding foreshadowing or setting up for a big plot twist or big reveal. You kind of have to know what you're revealing or foreshadowing so you have to at least have that much planned out. If you can do that without planning, then, that's also my wish I had that ability but yeah,
05:24.48
Miranda
so I don't plan everything from start to finish. I have the big points and then I like to fill in the blanks as I go. And that usually works for me, or at least I tell myself it does.
05:39.62
Delphina
Yeah, I like how you were saying that like, you kind of have to go halfway there. That's a really good way of conceptualizing it because it does feel like a lot of steps to try to get from the beginning to the end. But if you can just figure out the halfway points, that kind of helps you structure. And I'm definitely the same way about like, I can have a plan, but there's something that gets me in the zone when I'm drawing my pages and I'm thinking about them, and I'm just kind of meditating. I'm like, “Huh.” My brain is still working on this It's still chewing on things and it's actually coming up with better ideas than what I had written down, so like,
06:19.35
Delphina
“Huh okay maybe we should make some changes when we get to revising my plot again,” but…
06:25.98
Miranda
Yes. I feel like it doesn't work for me, maybe for some people, but it doesn't work for me to be locked into a specific plot because I do always like—the ideas are always churning and evolving as I go. and so I have to like… Granted, there's a point at which I just need to stop and stick with the idea, but for the most part, I like having that flexibility.
06:53.31
Rae
You always want to make room for a better idea to come along, essentially.
06:59.53
Miranda
Yes.
07:00.50
Star
I think that's one of the cool things about webcomics is that they do take so much time, they are very flexible if you happen to come up with something quote-unquote better. I've changed, like, because my thing is I like to plan really far ahead. I have a general outline of everything that's going to happen in the comic. I haven't scripted that far out yet, but I know the general, okay, this is how they get to this and then they get to this and then they get to this and then it ends.
07:26.06
Star
But I've changed large sections of the middle just because, you know, it takes so long to get from point A to point B to point C. Sometimes you'll be like you know, hypothetical example, walking to work one day and you're just listening to your music and you're taking a walk and you suddenly start thinking, “Hey, Point Q. It's a little boring. I think I want to change point Q.” And then you can just kind of go and spiral it out and be like, “OK, well, if I change that, then maybe I should change this instead. And I think actually changing this makes this point a little bit stronger. And you can go back and change stuff that's already been made. I would advise against that. But if you work far enough in advance, at least thinking about it, that gives you the opportunity to kind of—
08:17.93
Star
my preferred visual metaphor is putting your plot in the gas station hot dog warmer and spin it around for a long time. And eventually, you might figure out something that you wouldn't have thought of if you hadn't have been thinking about it that far in advance. And I think, like Delphina said, I also have had moments where I'm like, I'm just sitting there working on the comic and your brain is free to explore itself just while you're sitting there drawing the characters. And then I'm like, “Oh, it'd be kind of cool if this thing happened.
08:48.25
Star
Can that happen?” And then you go look at your script and then you're like, “Oh, I can totally make that happen.” It's very flexible. It's very freeform. And I think that a fun way to, you know, engage with webcomics as a medium is to let your plot be more freeform. Let yourself kind of play around if you have more interesting ideas during the publication of it.
09:12.53
Miranda
Mm-hmm. I agree. And now I can't get the visual of a hot dog warmer full of comics out of my head.
09:17.34
Star
Yeah!
09:17.83
Delphina
I know, same thing, I'm just like...
09:19.69
Star
Listen, when I say I'm spinning something around it in my head, that is what I am doing. I'm just like taking my little characters and I'm putting them in the gas station hot dog warmer and watching them spin around.
09:31.00
Miranda
So cozy.
09:32.10
Delphina
Oh my goodness.
09:33.28
Delphina
What about you, Rae?
09:34.36
Rae
I think that's better than my visualizing putting them in the pear wiggler.
09:41.56
Star
Oh, that's also very good. Perhaps more violent.
09:48.20
Miranda
Sometimes you need that.
09:49.55
Star
True, true, true.
09:49.87
Rae
Yep. Anyway, for me, the first thing I do for my plots is, I will have the beginning, and I will have the end.
10:00.82
Rae
And then I try to figure out how to get to the end and try to divide my chapters by the beats to get there, especially with, like, for instance, Overlord of Ravenfell is a bit more of a comedic thing. So I tried to go a bit more episodic in the episode and chapters. So that was essentially how I did that. And it does help to have a theme as soon as possible because referring back to it can help make the decisions.
10:34.69
Rae
As far as the tools, in addition to the ones that Miranda mentioned, which are very useful, another one that I like is called the snowflake method,
10:48.10
Rae
Which, what it is is you write out your story with all the beats that you know of in a sentence each. And then you divide your document up and then write a little paragraph for each sentence on how that's going to happen and you can divide that up even further and kind of extrapolate from there. And that gives you essentially something simple that gradually becomes more complex. And it's just starting from essentially a paragraph of what's going to happen in your story. Another thing which is not quite like a more abstract tool is, I actually use an app called Novelist.
11:45.01
Rae
Because you can have multiple projects, images, and you can even make your own sections within a project. There's also a schedule feature for those that need to light a fire under their butt to actually get it done. So you could also look into tools like that that try to give you a bit more motivation on it.
12:10.38
Rae
I do find that I work best without being too granular because doing that honestly kills my motivation and gives me excuses to be a procrastinator. But I will always have the overall goal for the ending in my mind when I'm working on a webcomic.
12:32.09
Delphina
Yeah, I like what you're saying too about having the ending and the theme because, not necessarily to dictate like, “Okay, well, this is what happens in, you know, step one, step two, step three,” but when you're getting to a crossroads and you're thinking about, “Okay, where's the story going from here?” Then you look back to your theme is like, what would make thematic sense?
12:58.49
Delphina
Like, that's what the theme is there for. And having that as the decision maker is a really important tool, but that's a slightly different tangent. God, we got to do an episode about theme, If we haven't already.
13:13.15
Miranda
We probably do.
13:14.78
Delphina
Ah yeah, for sure.
13:16.28
Rae
Even if we did it already, we can have the theme discussion with another theme.
13:22.38
Delphina
Oh, we could.
13:23.81
Delphina
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. But for now, we're talking about plots. So I just wanted to ask, is there such a thing as too simple of a plot or too complex of a plot for webcomics?
13:38.34
Delphina
How do you know if your plot is flimsy and needs a little more thickening up? Or if it's way too complex, it's got too many moving parts and you need to simplify it?
13:53.67
Miranda
Probably part of it is personal preference, but I don't necessarily think you can have too complex or too simple. All that to say, there's no perfect thickness of plot when it comes to webcomics. So it's very dependent on the story. But some things I personally like to look for is if I can't convey my plot and what my story is about in a condensed manner, like a logline or a quick synopsis,
14:33.99
Miranda
it might be too complex and I might need to break it down a little bit more or take some of the main points that I included out, or make them just kind of side stories instead of trying to make them as part of the main adventure.
14:52.41
Miranda
And then another thing I like to consider is, is the character driving the plot or is the plot driving the character? Ideally, at least for me, I like to have a good amount of the character driving the plot forward and making the decisions in the story. And then based on those decisions, the plot will drive the character a little further, but then the character will take over again. And it kind of cycles that way.
15:21.05
Miranda
If your story is just the character sitting there getting swept along by the plot and the character isn't actually doing anything, but the world around them is doing a ton of stuff and is going nonstop, you might want to kind of take a step back and try to put your character back in the lead and back in the control of the reins.
15:47.93
Delphina
Yeah, it's kind of about proactive versus reactive, right?
15:52.06
Miranda
Yes, exactly.
15:52.29
Delphina
You're trying to figure out like, okay, is this character like doing things because that's something they want to do or they're driven to do, or because it's something they have to do and what's their motivation for that?
16:06.86
Star
Yeah, so this is actually something—I talk about this all the time when I am giving story advice, is that—I was gonna mention this a little earlier, but one of the things that I like to do when planning a plot is figuring out a character's goal, right? Like what do they want? How do they plan to get it? And using that to kind of drive them forward. But in addition to that, a good way to kind of give your characters agency, and if they are just kind of getting swept along too much,
16:35.59
Star
think about your plot in terms of “because” statements. And that's probably a little bit weird so I'll explain what that is. It's basically like, when describing the series of events in your story, you want to be able to link it together with “because” statements.
16:52.84
Star
So for example, Bob lives in a small village and then he leaves his village to adventure and then he goes to this place and then he goes to this place. Like, that's okay, but Bob doesn't really have any agency with that summary. We don't really understand why Bob is doing those things. So instead if you say, “Hey, Bob lives in this small village, but then his village gets burned down by a dragon. Because the village gets burned down, Bob leaves town for this purpose, to go and take revenge on the dragon. And then because he leaves town, this next thing happens. And then because of that, the next thing happens. So if you kind of link it together with because statements, it gives your characters a lot more—not energy. What's the word I'm looking for?
17:45.70
Delphina
Agency.
17:46.37
Star
Agency, thank you. So, just kind of tying it back into the main point is, I suppose, you know, like, how does your character want to get these goals? What are the events that get them there? Another thing that's important to remember is like,
18:09.22
Star
keeping it simple is usually better just because webcomics take so long. Like, that would be one of my pieces of advice, is just, try to keep it simple as you can. I know we all love your epic fantasy story, but, you know, if you are making a comic that is going to take you years and years, you will probably have an easier time of it if you trim the fat, essentially.
18:33.05
Miranda
But honestly, just changing and adding those because statements, I was instantly like, “Oh, his village got burned down by a dragon. What is going to happen?” Like, I was drawn into that so much more just by adding those simple lines. And I think that is a perfect demonstration of making sure your plot isn't driving the character, like, make the character do the work.
18:58.48
Rae
Yeah, you essentially need to have your characters have a buy-in to the plot, essentially. It's kind of like if you're a DM and you're trying to get all the characters to be invested in why they're doing something rather than sitting in a corner and brooding.
19:18.56
Miranda
So hard as a DM, and just as hard as a writer and creator.
19:28.25
Star
That's kind of one of the reasons why I say every character needs to have a goal that they are working towards, especially in a series. Like I said, I've talked about this advice a lot on public forums and such, and I've had some people have the comeback of, “People in real life don't always have a goal.” And I'm like, “Okay, people in real life are not the same as story characters. Story characters are there
19:56.44
Star
for a reason.” There needs to be a reason why they are doing said things, and if there is not a reason why they are doing said things, you're going to fall into the trap of your story feeling like it's just the writer telling the characters what to do because that's what they want to happen.
20:12.76
Miranda
And also, okay, there's probably people out there reading this, but we don't read books and stories about our daily lives as they are. That's not—and again, there may be people that do read, and that's great for them. But I don't read stories because I want to read about someone who is living my exact life or someone who is just going through a normal existence. I want them to have some high stakes. I want them to have something that gets them out of their daily grind.
20:53.07
Star
Very funny that we're recording this on hourly comics day, the day where everyone makes autobiographical comics and about the daily minutia of their lives.
21:02.89
Miranda
That's great. Keep it up, guys. Keep it up.
21:18.16
Rae
But even if you're doing something that's just essentially following a character around, you also have to keep in mind that stories do have themes. Like, for instance, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. The theme is about, essentially, grief and accepting that grief. It goes alongside the character and you experience her everyday life and the joys and problems that come with that. But overall, it is still about something, and all stories are about something, so you should consider how
21:54.19
Rae
that essentially affects the characters and the decisions that they make.
22:00.30
Delphina
Yeah, that's a really good point. I love Frieren for that reason. And I think when you don't feel like you have a lot of high stakes or a real big arc that somebody wants to do, like maybe that's not the type of story you're telling. Maybe it is a little more mundane. Coming back to that theme and figuring out, okay, what is the character doing that's informing this theme? What am I trying to say about grief or loss or growth or whatever that is?
22:30.04
Delphina
And that is what will make the story interesting.
22:35.04
Star
Another comment I had on kind of a similar thing is, a lot of people here, it's like, “Oh, every character needs a goal.” And I feel like sometimes people can get stuck on, “Well, I don't want to do a story with super ridiculously high stakes. I don't want my characters to be saving the world. That's not really what the type of story I want to be telling is.” And my answer to that is, “Why do you think that goals need to be something huge?”
22:58.52
Star
You know, like I have—full disclosure: I have not watched all of Frieren. I've only watched the first couple of episodes, but I know that her goals would be, you know, learning more about her companions, even after they've died, learning more magic and stuff. And your goals don't have to be huge.
23:15.01
Star
Your goals can just be like, “Oh, I want to work up the courage to ask Stacy to prom,” or “I just want to, I don't know, have a cat. And these are the things I need to do to get a cat.” But like, also characters can have multiple goals that all have different levels of stakes. Like, you can have a character who really has this one ambitious goal, but then they have smaller goals that are kind of worked into it. You know, it's like, I feel like sometimes people conflate real people with characters a little too much, they think that just because it's like, oh yeah, a real person might not have these specific goals. But like, we're not writing about real people. You're not probably not writing an autobiography. You're writing a comic with a story.
24:02.43
Star
And so it's like, how do you tell that story? How do you string these elements together? How do you show what your characters want? Because every character should want at least for something, or else why are they there?
24:18.20
Rae
Exactly. It's like sometimes, like say Dungeon Meshi, the main character wants to save his sister, but he also wants to eat his way through the dungeon and that is also very important.
24:28.43
Star
I just had the mental image of Laios' Pac-Man. You go little guy, little buddy.
24:39.17
Miranda
I love Dungeon Meshi.
24:40.83
Star
That's so good.
24:42.22
Delphina
But you go back to the theme of Dungeon Meshi too. And it was about, like, people's relationship to food and people's relationship to keeping yourself healthy and stuff. And it was an adventure story. It had dragons, it had all kinds of monsters and stuff that they had high stakes fighting, but it was also, at its core, about that theme. Why am I making this the theme episode? This isn't the theme episode. This is the plot episode. Oh my God.
25:10.03
Star
Well, plot and theme are very much like two snakes just kind of intertwining around each other, I would argue.
25:16.03
Miranda
They really do go together.
25:16.29
Star
They kind of inform each other, you know?
25:19.26
Rae
Yeah, and Dungeon Meshi is great in how the theme informs the plot because it's always about consumption, is always how you eat to survive, how eating brings people together, and also how it can set each other against each other if there is not enough to go around.
25:43.63
Rae
It just completely informs the entirety of the plot at every turn.
25:49.17
Star
Surprise. This is also the themes episode. Brr, brr, brr.
25:55.55
Delphina
Yes.
25:56.00
Miranda
What a plot twist.
25:58.31
Delphina
Oh my gosh.
25:58.48
Star
Speaking of plot twists.
26:03.47
Miranda
There's another episode. Plot twists.
26:08.02
Delphina
Okay, so these are great thoughts. We'll put theme aside for now. We'll come back to it. But yeah, just on the terms of thickening up or thinning out, like how do you figure out what to do?
26:30.04
Rae
So my advice is, I am a huge fan of the kiss method, which is keep it simple, stupid.
26:43.07
Delphina
Yes.
26:43.79
Rae
I love sprawling epics, but even those epics have a focus. And even with simple plots, execution tends to matter the most when it comes down to it, and things will always evolve as it goes along. So I'm actually having a project that I'm working on, that I'm trying to pare down one of my current ideas into something that's a bit more basic.
27:13.32
Rae
Just because I already know it's going to be a lot to juggle. So I'm considering on what to keep, but also when my story should start. Because I look at it and I'm like, I don't need a thousand pages of backstory before I get to the meat of this. So just simplify.
27:38.28
Delphina
Yeah, for sure. I feel like anything I try to think of doing with a webcomic, it always takes twice as long. It's just gonna, like, webcomic time is a thing. Like, it's just gonna take longer than you think. So even if you think you're paring things down way too much, I feel like that might be a good call.
28:02.84
Delphina
But what about you, Miranda?
28:06.28
Miranda
I feel like the majority of people seem to have like—the majority of plots and from personal experience, they typically need more thinning out than they do thickening. But
28:25.73
Miranda
it's a cycle, I feel like, as you are coming up with a story, you're gonna have an explosion of ideas, then you pare them down, and then you get to the next point and you're gonna have a huge explosion of ideas and all the things you want to fit in and make these characters do, and then you need to rein it back.
28:43.83
Miranda
But if you are really struggling and you get your story to a point and you're completely lost on what to do next or where your characters are going to go, or you're finding that you have a lot of dead air and just nothing is happening, that might be a good sign that you need to kind of pause and reevaluate your story and figure out what your character—where your characters are at and how you can make them do something more than what they're actually doing.
29:22.40
Miranda
You can add a little cornstarch slurry to your plot soup and get it amped up again so it can go on its way to fatten up and get that momentum back. Especially with webcomic time, I do feel like sometimes it's easy to lose the momentum of a story.
29:39.00
Miranda
And it's obvious that not every page has to have something momentous happen. But if you're having like an and like an entire chapter and it's just kind of filler, maybe reevaluate your plot points and kind of smush them together to be closer together and kind of get the plot, fatten it up a little bit.
30:08.55
Rae
See, my go-to for fattening up plot is toss in a Molotov cocktail. You want your characters to fail.
30:15.49
Delphina
Yes.
30:19.08
Rae
You want your characters to mess up, have something unexpected happen, and right from there—because a lot of the webcomics I read that have this problem, nothing tends to happen. Everything goes a little bit too smoothly and it really drops the tension and the stakes, which, sometimes the stakes don't always have to be high, but there still needs to be some sort of conflict. So I would say that if you're worried about having the plot be too thin, make something messy happen.
31:02.29
Miranda
We love a good bad decision or failure to just get a story back up and running again.
31:08.51
Star
So one thing for me, I know, when I'm trying to worry about, like—I'm usually the type of person who, when I'm writing, my stuff gets way too complicated, way too fast. And then I'm like, “Oh, no, this script is like 300 pages long. What have I done? This is going to take forever.” Something that I like to keep in mind is, A,
31:30.92
Star
every scene should have some kind of point. It should show us something, it should get some sort of information across to the reader. Ideally, a scene can have multiple things it's showing you. But basically, like every scene that you are presenting to the reader should have some sort of objective.
31:50.01
Star
And it's okay if you're not sure what that objective is when you start, but like, you know, once you have your first rough draft of a script, perhaps go through, break it down by scenes and try and figure out, okay, what is the audience getting from this? And if the answer is, “It's just kind of there,”
32:08.24
Star
that's definitely something that you could take out of the main story. If you're still in love with it, like it's just a really nice kind of characters rambling—I know I really, really, really like writing dialogue and just characters having a back and forth. And sometimes I'll just write too much of that. And then it's like, okay, I've lost the plot here. But I still really like those rambles. I'll take them and make them into little side comics or something.
32:30.80
Miranda
Bonus content.
32:30.86
Star
Yes, exactly. But yeah, every scene should have some sort of point. And if you find that you've got a lot of scenes that are just kind of fluffy, maybe consider taking those out or just try—a lot of times like thickening or thinning out your plot is going to depend on what you want the reader to take from it.
32:54.69
Star
You know? And so what I love to do is, I do my scripts in like Google Docs or whatever and I will put comments at the end of every scene. Whenever there's a scene break, I'll go in and add a comment saying, okay, here's what the audience can take away from the scene as it is written. Here's what I would like them to have taken away from that scene. And if A and B are not kind of simultaneous, maybe go back, change a few things, cut some stuff, add some stuff, and just kind of figure it out. Like this also kind of ties back into pacing, which is the topic for a whole other episode.
33:27.70
Star
33:28.75
Miranda
Weird how all these topics just tie in together.
33:31.18
Star
Wow, incredible.
33:31.65
Delphina
I know, right?
33:33.53
Rae
That's comics.
33:35.17
Star
It's almost like they’re multiple aspects of the same whole.
33:39.12
Delphina
Weird.
33:40.50
Star
Wow.
33:42.97
Star
But yeah, so my advice for that would just be like, figure out what you are trying to show people, and, are you lingering too long on one certain thing? Don't belabor the point that you are trying to make, but at the same time, make sure that you're giving people enough, that they actually have something to go on and they can take away what they need to take away.
34:03.38
Star
Conversing with your beta readers, if you have them, is a great way to help figure this out because sometimes you just need to get out of your own head. Scenes are about deploying information and you got to make sure that your audience is catching up on it.
34:17.44
Delphina
Yeah.
34:19.22
Star
So.
34:20.07
Delphina
Yeah, I feel like a lot of times people get stuck in this rut of, well, I need this scene. I really need this scene because this scene explains blah, blah, blah.
34:32.00
Delphina
And it's some worldbuilding aspect that the reader could actually possibly do without, or it can be conveyed at the same time as a plot happening instead of two characters talking about it in a room.
34:48.25
Delphina
And I think there are places for two characters talking about stuff in a room, I think there's room for fluffy banter things, but maybe not too many of those scenes in a row. I think what helps keep a plot going is when you look at it as a whole and you kind of take a step back and say, okay, this was a fluff scene. This was an action scene. This was a fluff scene. This was an action scene. This was a happy scene. This was a sad scene. And, you know, just trying to balance that all out is going to make everything a little less slurry-like, I feel.
35:25.88
Miranda
Yeah, taking that step back and looking at your story so far as a whole is an excellent suggestion, because sometimes you do just get lost in the scene you're working on and you forget everything like how it fits into everything else. So, seeing that big picture again can help you see where you need to fatten and where you need to thin and so on.
35:54.56
Delphina
Yeah, for sure. So I'm just curious if, if you're just starting out, and maybe you've got some thematic ideas, some vibes, maybe some characters, and you picture them in your head, you're rotating them on your gas station hot dog machine, and you can hear them in your head. They're having cute conversations. You're like, “Yes, I want to make a comic out of these guys. I love them so much.” But you're stuck on how to come up with any kind of plot for them. What do you do? We'll throw it to you Miranda.
36:32.85
Miranda
Well, take those characters and, as they're rotating, look at them. See what personality have you given them. Have you given them flaws? Have you given them strengths? Go back and listen to an episode that we have or will have about character development.
36:50.99
Miranda
And make sure your characters—because if that's all you have, this is where you're starting with—make sure your characters have goals like we've mentioned. Give them flaws, give them strengths, and figure out how you want them to change, or what you want them to achieve, what their goals are. And then from there, what type of things, what type of events could they go through to help them get to where you want them to be?
37:23.89
Miranda
Obviously if someone's goal is to be the best, like if you decide your character's goal is to be the best baker, having them go on a ship voyage where they are eating gruel for weeks is probably not the event or adventure that is going to get them to their goal.
37:44.11
Miranda
Maybe in a very—
37:44.61
Delphina
Counterpoint, One Piece.
37:46.72
Miranda
Okay, well, like it might eventually get there, but it'll take some time, like One Piece.
37:55.37
Star
One Piece is also thousands of chapters long, so you know.
37:58.05
Delphina
Oh my god, yeah.
38:00.25
Miranda
But like obviously any event could be tailored in some way to get them to where they want to go. But just take the characters, take their goals, and figure out how they're going to get there. And that “how” is your story. And from there, you can branch off and thicken it up and have a whole perfect plot in your gas station hot dog warmer.
38:31.48
Delphina
Oh my god.
38:32.82
Star
I'm so glad that this mental image is sticking.
38:36.46
Delphina
We need buns. Hot dogs cannot exist alone. We need buns to—the bun of the plot to hold them.
38:43.83
Miranda
Yes.
38:44.27
Rae
And gas station nacho cheese.
38:44.70
Miranda
Oh yeah. The nacho cheese.
38:47.51
Star
It's the Holy Trinity, so your characters are the hot dog, the plot is the bun that holds them together, and then the world is their circumstances, i.e.
38:51.48
Delphina
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
38:59.14
Star
the hot dog gas station warmer.
39:01.14
Delphina
Oh...
39:01.42
Miranda
Perfect.
39:02.73
Star
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, anyway!
39:06.11
Miranda
So great.
39:09.67
Delphina
But yeah, I feel like there's just a lot you can—I do get the impulse of like, “I have these OCs,” and I feel like that's how Sombulus started too.
39:19.80
Delphina
It was just very much like, I have some characters, I've been drawing them between classes in my notebooks, and yeah, I can kind of hear them talking together. And it took me a lot of time and a lot of trial and error to get them into a plot that I wanted. And it almost felt like the AU cycle, right? Like just like, what if they were ghosts? What if they were, you know, fighters? What if they were aliens? What if they were blah, blah, blah? And so I was just kind of—
39:55.27
Delphina
I was trying on a lot of clothes in the mall, I guess, just trying to figure out what they could wear that I wanted them to wear.
40:05.83
Delphina
And yeah, it was a little bit of an adventure.
40:10.14
Miranda
Looking at it from an AU perspective and approaching all of the possibilities is a great way to kind of rapid-fire get a better start point. Just, okay, I love that planning night idea because I think it would help narrow things down faster, quote unquote.
40:38.09
Miranda
Like I mean, it's webcomics. It's not always fast. But you could just pick them up and move them from scene to scene and world to world. And, do they fit there? Nope, next world. And this is all if you have your characters first, which, I'm a character first kind of creator. So I don't know how—having the vibes and the theme and the plot first is new to me.
41:10.66
Miranda
Do we have any people that have the plot before they have the characters?
41:15.16
Rae
Not me. A lot of my characters are RP characters first.
41:16.40
Star
Nope.
41:19.86
Miranda
Yeah.
41:20.03
Delphina
No.
41:21.42
Miranda
If one of you out there has plot first, let us know. Share your thoughts.
41:29.01
Star
I know they exist. I've gotten comments from people who do that, and I'm just like, I don't know how. Because I just have my petite blorbitos that I'm just like, I just want to do something with these little guys specifically.
41:36.78
Miranda
Yeah.
41:40.17
Miranda
Yeah.
41:40.26
Rae
I kind of wonder if the people that are like more architect-type people tend to be like that, where I know pantsers and like gardener-type plot creators tend to have their blorbos first.
41:44.71
Delphina
Mm hmm.
41:58.20
Miranda
Huh.
41:59.06
Delphina
Yeah, I think plot-first people, when I talk to them, they have an idea for a theme, they have an idea of what happens. And then they're thinking, Okay, what kind of characters do I need to invent to say the thing I want to say?
42:13.28
Miranda
Yeah.
42:13.60
Delphina
And that's how they get their characters. And I feel like, I've gone through that a little bit, which is why, like, there's so many stinking characters in my comic. Because I have the blorbos that I started with, but then I needed them to do certain things, and that would require them to meet certain people. So then I had to come up with, okay, well,
42:38.19
Delphina
here's this character, and they have a family member. What is their family member like? I want to do something with the blorbo, but I need the second. And so that's the difference between primary characters and secondary characters for me. The primary characters were the blorbos I started with, and the secondary characters were the ones that I needed to make up to get the plot moving. And to that point, I feel like there's a lot of people who come up with these very large casts because we're influenced by Shounen manga or whatever. And we have a million characters and they all have a goal. And that's when it gets too much, so you do kind of need to figure out, okay, who's the core here?
43:26.16
Delphina
What do I need to keep it simple, stupid, and who can I kind of pare back on and just leave in the background?
43:34.36
Miranda
That leads to one observation and then one thought. The cycle of character-driving-plot-driving-character, it actually happens in the creating process as well. You create a character and then you end up creating the plot and then the plot creates more characters and it cycles through. And I thought that was interesting how the cycles kind of repeat themselves.
44:05.09
Delphina
Yeah, they do.
44:05.81
Delphina
And I feel like it's just so weird to think about, like, you have characters and they come from one place, but then there's other characters that don't, and then, like, what if the primary characters become the secondary characters and secondary characters became the primary characters and it's just like, oh my gosh.
44:24.80
Miranda
The possibilities are endless. But that also leads me to think that we've talked a lot about how your plot itself can need thickening. But Delphie made a great point about, if you have too many characters and they all have goals and they're all trying to reach their goals, eventually something's going to get muddied. Not everyone's going to be able to get there or it's going to take a “One Piece” amount of time for everyone to get what they want.
44:52.57
Miranda
And so that's another good thing to look at if you're, just in general, whether you're looking to fatten, thin, or just figure out your story, is kind of zone in on the most important characters and what their goals are,
45:09.55
Miranda
rather than trying to make sure your entire world of characters all has goals, which they should. They just don't need to tell everyone. And you don't have to solve everyone's problems and help everyone achieve their goals. Your story is about—it has main characters, and those are the people we're most worried about. So that's a great thing to look at if you are struggling with your plot.
45:41.53
Delphina
Absolutely. I feel like there's just a lot of things you could do, a lot of different approaches depending on how you think, and we're throwing around “plotter versus pantser,” like, the pantser thing is like you're writing by the seat of your pants, so to sort of speak and I feel like a lot of us start from that place.
46:06.55
Delphina
But I just want to say, too, that I feel like even if you do start from that place and you feel like you're a little chaotic and a little disorganized, I think the process of making a webcomic really helps you figure out your focus. So even if you're sitting there and you're sitting in front of a blank Word document and you're like, “Oh my God, I'm just so confused and I'm doing things and I don't know what I'm doing. I can't start this comic until I figure it all out.”
46:34.07
Delphina
You don't have to figure it all out. You will figure out things along the way.
46:39.34
Star
Yeah, and I just kind of wanted to comment while we're still sort of on the subject, how to come up with a plot if you have the characters. I'm currently going through this right now with what my potential next project will be. It's not a comic. It's right now looking like it's going to be a novel.
46:56.11
Star
I don't know, TBD. But one thing I hear a lot from potential creators who want to make a story, and this is something that happens with me as well, is maybe you have your characters, and maybe you've come up with a couple of different scenes. Like, you've got a lot of really cool scenes that you want these characters to do. And you're like, “Oh, man, I'm going to do this cool scene and then this cool scene and then this cool scene.
47:23.81
Star
And I don't know what's going to happen in between.” I think that's definitely something that I know I struggle with, and I'm sure a lot of other people struggle with. And honestly, it can be as simple as, “OK, you've got these really cool scenes in your head. Just put those in the gas station hot dog warmer and start breaking them down to their base components.” What is cool about this scene? What is intriguing about this scene? What is the audience going to learn from this scene? How do you get there? What is the resolution in terms of like,
47:56.16
Star
this is what needs to happen in this scene. This is what I'm trying to get across to the audience. And here's the consequences of the events of that scene. And so that's how you figure out what happens after. And then you have to figure out what leads into that scene. It's like, OK, well, in order for this scene to happen, we need to have A, B, and C before that. And so you can break down, OK, well, how do we get A to happen? How do we get B to happen? How do we get C to happen? And then it combines to form this cool scene that I have this idea for later on. And you can really write
48:24.74
Star
a story just by kind of spider webbing it out from the cool ideas that you have. I am very much in favor of, you don't have to write your story in order. Start with the stuff that you are so confident on and work your way out from there. I have an example.
48:41.10
Star
Actually, there is a scene at the very beginning of Chapter 11 of Castoff where it's like, we finally meet the big villains of the story and they have a conversation with one of the secondary characters. That scene is at the beginning of Chapter 11. I scripted that scene
49:00.78
Star
when I was drawing chapter two, and I'm like, I don't know when in the comic this is going to be, because it kept getting pushed back. It was originally going to be in chapter nine. It was like, well, it doesn't really need to be here. Maybe it could push it back, push it back, push it back. And it kept getting pushed back until I finally was like, OK, no, it has to be here or else it's not going to get in the comic.
49:20.20
Star
But I'm just like, I'm confident. I know that I want to get to this at some point. So I'm just going to go ahead and write this now and then I can think around it. And it ended up working out and I love webcomics because they are just so freeform. You can just do that. It's fun.
49:40.97
Delphina
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like there's a lot of times where I'm drawing pages and I'm like, I cut them out for one reason or another. I'm like, this is taking too long. I don't want to spend the time on this now.
49:52.79
Delphina
It's kind of muddying the focus of what I did want the scene to be about, but God, it's so good. And so I just kind of have it on the back burner.
50:01.19
Delphina
I have a little other file where I throw it, and then someday, someday this is going to come back.
50:08.99
Star
Or you can just take that one page in isolation and just post it on social media or something and like, “Look at this silly thing. Tee hee ha ha.” Or Patreon.
50:17.03
Rae
More side comics.
50:18.87
Star
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had deleted scenes that I've turned into side comics and those are always fun.
50:20.74
Miranda
Yeah.
50:24.76
Rae
Yeah, for me, I also do have a ton of OCs and I'm like, “I want to make a comic out of them.” But what I like to do is, I look at, essentially the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
50:44.57
Rae
And I'm like, okay, they're gonna start on this side of the pyramid. And then the inciting incident is when I knock them down. So if you're unfamiliar with it, at the top is self-fulfillment needs.
51:00.36
Rae
Then there's psychological needs like esteem and belonging and love. And then basic needs, which are things like security, food, water, shelter, and stuff like that. So, say I have a noble character, and he's got it good. He has everything. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to knock him down. And how do I do that? Oh, let's have a war. He loses everything. So he has to work his way up to regain the things that he's lost.
51:37.22
Rae
If you need a visualization of where your character is and what the inciting incident should be, I always find that to be a good way to start a plot for your main character.
51:56.72
Miranda
That visual is... superb for figuring out what, just getting an idea of possible goals and needs. I mean, it's the hierarchy of needs, but just visualizing like, oh, they're only based on, how I designed this character, they're only on the second level. So there's these three that they could get to. Which of these appeal, like, that's a great resource.
52:29.20
Delphina
We dropped the pyramid in the document that we're working from now. And I'm just looking at them like, oh, oh they… my characters fell all the way down this. Oh, no.
52:42.00
Miranda
Yeah, and we'll make sure this is in the show notes on our website so you can also see it, but it's Chef's Kiss.
52:53.67
Delphina
Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh. I think that the end of it, you know, just make sure your heroes are going on the journeys you want them to, make sure they're saving the cats the way they're wanting to, make sure they fall down the pyramids the way they’re wanting to, and make sure they're rotating in the gas station.
53:19.46
Delphina
so
53:20.24
Star
Be in my gas station.
53:22.40
Miranda
What have you done to us, Star?
53:24.78
Delphina
Oh my God. I think this has been a hot dog with nacho cheese. So thank you all for joining us. I've been Delphina, and you can find my webcomic, Sombulus, at sombulus.com.
53:42.45
Miranda
I'm Miranda. You can find my work at mirandacakes.art.
53:47.70
Rae
And I'm Rae. You can find my work, Overlord of Ravenfell, on Webtoon and On Empyrean High at empyreancomic.com.
53:57.51
Star
and I'm Star, you can find me at castoff-comic.com.
54:02.10
Delphina
All right, let's go to Costco and get some fucking hot dogs because—
54:06.06
Star
Yeehaw!
54:07.52
Miranda
I love Costco hot dogs.
54:08.42
Rae
Gotta love those hot dogs.
54:10.08
Miranda
So good.