When I was in middle school, I had a hundred ideas for stories and would write them down in a notebook. However, they were garbage. Why? They were just extended pitch lines. A handful of sentences highlighting the coolness of the idea. Very few had an actual plot or even characters associated to them. It was just enough to tell my friends and get them to say something to the effect of "That sounds awesome."

And they did sound awesome. But that's it.

In high school, there was some growth. Every cool idea now came with a basic plot. But they were very straight forward and the characters were very cookie cutter. The good guys just marched through the plot without any difficult choices to make or any true motivation to act. But there was now structure. Maybe not a full skeleton, but an impression in the mud.

After a pause in college for my short-lived pursuit of a computer science degree, I resumed writing. I realized that my stories lacked any emotional weigh. Early attempts to add it clashed with my love for exciting, but isolated plot points. After several years of creative writing classes (really, peer review), it kind of clicked for me. For my writing, high ideas, plot, and character arcs had to be be developed in tandem from the start.

When I put a new idea into my notebook nowadays, I put the working title at the top of the page (even if I have to come up with it on the spot, every idea needs a title so I can refer to it later) and then a logline that encompasses the crazy high idea of the story, the basic plot of the story, and the personal conflict standing in the protagonist's way. Typical story construction, but it helps me develop the story later, as one part of a story informs another.

More on this tomorrow.

#comics #makingcomics #KYUSS #comicinprogress