Welcome! It's a mess here.

This is a post for comic book artists preparing their pages for their publisher or colourist. I’m aware that many pros still don’t know some of this stuff, often because the bigger publishers have production teams who will take the incorrectly sized or shaped pages and adjust them before passing on to colourists or for print. However, this a) is giving more work to people that you can easily do yourself and b) reduces the amount of control you have over how your work is printed. It makes sense to provide files that will present your work in the best way possible.

So, the basics of a digital page file:

How to Fix Your Filler Scenes

The whole reason a scene would be considered "filler" was if it offered no contribution whatsoever to plot, worldbuilding, or character development within the narrative. Filler takes up space, can make the pacing drag, and often adds quantity but not quality to your story.

You never want ANY 100% filler scenes in your work, especially if you plan on publishing traditionally and need to keep your word count down, and unfortunately, there aren't many exceptions to this.

However, a lot of people rely heavily on filler to provide a segue into the next part of their story and keep the pacing steady, so in that case, how do you make these filler scenes worthwhile?

Here are some ways to fix your filler scenes to make them meaningful (and essential) to the story!

1. Make it About The Characters and Their Relationships

A good way to make a scene not filler is if you use it to help develop your characters or the relationships between them.

Maybe you can use this time to make your protagonist and their love interest grow closer, or maybe you could use it to reveal some backstory that you weren't sure where to piece into the narrative beforehand.

Maybe your protagonist has a revelation about themselves or about the others in their group, whether through a meaningful conversation or by observing their behavior.

This could be a good time to show how your characters view the world around them, having philosophical conversation about love or death or anything in between, or to show them changing their views based on their experiences and the experiences of others.

All in all, if you make your scene an important aspect of your story when it comes to character development, then it's not filler at all, and will serve the story well in not only connecting two important events, but also allowing the reader to learn more about the people they've invested in.

2. Make it About the Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is an important part of any story, especially in high fantasy and Sci-Fi. If you need to take a break from your plot in order to make sure things aren’t going by too fast, perhaps take some time to develop the world that your characters live in. 

Now, I’m not saying to use this time to infodump everything there is about your character’s world, but instead show it off in a beautiful and poignant scene that can be coupled with character development. 

It’s the night before a big event. The lovers sneak out of the motel to enjoy a drink at the bar at the far edge of the intergalactic satellite they’ve docked at to refuel. Perhaps while drunk, one of the characters reveals something about their past they’d meant to keep hidden?

A character takes their foreign friend shopping in a bazaar unlike anything you’ve ever scene before. Perhaps they find an item of interest there that helps them along their journey?

These scenarios make sure that the “filler” is actually an important aspect of the story that would actually take away from the overall quality if it were removed. 

3. Make it About Suspense

It's night. The sun is going down. The fire crackles and sputters.

Tomorrow, the characters will be off to battle. They know that they might be sitting in a room with people who will be dead by the following evening. They wonder if this will be the last time they see each other alive, if this will be the last conversations they ever have while they're all in one piece.

Suspense is a great way to make your filler scene important, building up the tension leading up to the next scene. Of course, this scene can only be used to segue into a very, very integral moment in the story, perhaps even the climax, so use it wisely.

Suspenseful scenes often benefit from an interesting setting and high-tension description and dialogue, and can also be paired with character development to show how your protagonists react in the face of fear.

4. Understand that Sometimes Cutting the Scene May Be For the Best

Sometimes, things just don't work out with the above ideas. Perhaps it's too late in the story to develop characters or worldbuilding, or maybe the subsequent event isn't important enough to prompt an entire scene dedicated to suspense.

In that case, it's probably best to just cut the filler scene. To keep from the timeskip being weird, have the event you want to segue into be at the beginning of a new chapter, or maybe re-work the narrative so that it weaves together more easily.

It'll be difficult to do this, especially if you've grown attached to what you've written, but I promise it'll work out all the better in the end; each aspect of the story is supposed to mean something, and I wouldn’t want you to put in all that effort and time into crafting a scene that, in the end, doesn’t really do much for the narrative.

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Take frequent breaks (drink water too!) and do your goddamn wrist stretches

I’m going to split this response in two, because before we talk about how to write a sequel, I think it’s helpful to talk about types of sequels and how they work. It's not unusual that an author plans to write a sequel(s), but first has to pitch a book as stand-alone. It's also not unusual for an author to plan a stand-alone, but land a multi-book deal, so it’s a good idea to give it some thought regardless. (Indie authors, you have more leeway with this, but there’s no reason not to consider sequels as well.)

Duologies. Increasingly popular, especially in YA, there’s a lot of advantages to the duology. Readership-wise, it’s easier to sell folks on a two-book series than a longer one, and if you’re writing for younger readers, you don’t have to worry about them outgrowing the series by the time the third or fourth book comes around. Duologies are good for tight-knit plots, first book cliffhangers, and I see them most commonly in fantasy and sci-fi. If you have a idea you know you can’t fit to one book, but aren’t sure you can manage three, consider the duology.

Trilogies. Still very common in adult sci-fi and fantasy. Good for long-reaching, expanded plots that need three books to cover, the final book dealing with the ultimate threat, finishing with a bang. If you want to do a trilogy, make sure you have a plan. The biggest issue trilogies face is readers dropping off after the second book, especially if it seems like the writer doesn’t know we’re they’re going.

Serial Stand-Alone books. Most common in mysteries, from cozy to police procedure, though you’ll also find it in urban fantasy. Stars the same characters, but deals with a different mystery (or monster) each time. Like a TV show, you’ll want a “series bible” for this in order to carry forward character development, but these books often operate as stand-alone stories for anyone picking them off the shelves. Interested in mysteries? Want to write the better version of Supernatural? This structure is for you.

The Episodic series. Useful for pretty much any genre, this type of series can’t really be read out of order. Like that part of Supernatural, where suddenly you had to know all the backstory from the last season (confession: I have not actually watched Supernatural), you’ll have to be familiar with the last book in order to fully understand the next, even though the problem or challenge might be completely different. A Song of Ice and Fire or Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood and Co are good examples of this. Middle Grade also has a lot of these, like the Rick Riordan books.

Other:

The-not-quite-sequels: Books that seem unconnected, but actually carry through key characters from the last book. Diana Wynne Jones was a master at this.

Same World books: Just as it says, books based in the same world, but involves different characters. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is a good example of this.

Anthology series: Linked by theme or similar elements. Really common in romance.

In picking the type of series you want to write, consider the following:

How much story do I have to tell? If you’re focusing on a tight-knit, dynamic story focused on a character’s development, you’re going to want to lay out how long it’s going to take against the typical book lengths of the genre you’re writing for (remember, YA and MG tend to have strict word counts, and even adult fantasy readers might balk if your book becomes a doorstopper.) Duology/trilogies are your best bet here.

Is there enough of the world to explore over multiple books? If you want to do a serial or episodic series, you’re going to have to consider how much you have to work with. On one hand, if it’s a mystery, you’ll never run out of murders. You also have plenty of slice-of-life situations and mythology to pull from if you’re leaning toward those directions. But you’ll need to determine that before you launch down that road.

Consider your genre. Duologies/trilogies work well with sci-fi and fantasy. Literary novels are probably not going to get many sequels. Mysteries are going to lean toward stand-alone serials. Horror probably works best with episodic books, etc. You’re not limited by genre, of course, but it’s worth considering your audience and what they expect (and therefore will buy).

Alright so if you’re a writer then you’ve probably familiarized yourself with plot…and the structure it provides to a novel. There are countless articles online on “how to plot a novel” or the like. Which is fantastic for you writers because it’s at a fingers reach from us. Not so great when there’s about…a billion ways one can go about plotting a novel. It can seem daunting and overwhelming and more important confusing! 

I want to break down this massive task bit by bit. Starting with the very bare bones and working into more detailed parts. Making it more manageable.

 Now, I know some of you might roll your eyes and say I know all there is to know about plot. I was you. I went into every workshop and craft class thinking the same thing. And yet, when I started plotting my recent WIP ( The Cost of Defeat ) I realized I didn’t know jack. I thought every story I ever wrote would adhere to my system of structure because of sheer will and blunt force. Yeah wrong.

It wasn’t until just recently I started diving into the structure ( because I like pretty diagrams and being organized way more than I should) that I discovered there are a lot of different Plot Structures out there. No one bothered to ever teach me let alone discuss these things. My mind was blown. 

Some worked better for me than others. Some mesh better together than others. It’s all about experimenting and figuring out what works for you. And I’m hoping that this will also help others, or at least give a jumping off point. Now it’s not a whole list ( there’s a lot of elements that I could probably talk about by themselves) but it’s a good overview of the popular ones that reoccur a lot.

1) Freytag’s Pyramid

Freytag’s pyramid is the most basic plot structure I know. It’s the one we’ve all seen in school when we start learning about story structure and analysis.

This bad boy is the simplest plot structure used to dissect and understand Greek and Shakespearean Plays. 

Pros     x Simplistic. Makes it easy to understand      x Great for those just starting ( or those who want to understand film and literature analysis.     x Great for AP Literature/Comp papers

Cons     x It creates simple stories     x Not super awesome for modern novels or anything longer than about 25K words

Uses     x Children’s Literature. Picture books mostly. Children are still learning to understand things like conflict effect on characters and having such a long falling action allows for that.     x Short Stories. Since short stories are compact for punch, this structure allows you to get the most done without boring the reader in 25K words or less.   x Analysis. This structure is the easiest and most common to apply to plays, film, tv and even in classic literature. It’s a great way to dissect plot and events in order to better understand the pieces working parts 

Examples: Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet                    Sophocles’s  Antigone                    Henrik Ibsen  A Doll House

2) Three-Act Structure

The Three-Act Structure is probably the most known. We all know this intuitively as storytellers. Everything needs a beginning middle and end, after all.

This structure is very similar to Freytag’s Pyramid but adds elements that beef up and create points of interest. Obstacles, for example, add conflict and build up suspense for the climax. It’s also important to note that the falling action and resolution is much more compact.

Pros    x  basic building block for all good stories    x  Roadmap-like so you can be systematic about things    x  Good “big-picture” visual

Cons    x  Pacing is super important for this    x  Bit rigid and formulaic

Uses     x  Literally anything. Because it’s versatile it works on  a plethera of stuff, let your imagineation run wild.     x Film analysis. This struccture is like the holy grail in almost any film class ( sometimes they call it the four act structure)

Examples:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes                    Alfred Hitchcock’s  Vertigo                    Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice

3) The Fichtean Curve

The Fichten Curve Is really unique in that it starts right with the rising action. There ain’t no time to build up or nice slow introductions, you’re dumping the readers right where it hurts. But you make up that lost time with the small bits of exposition

This is one of the most popular plot structures for modern novels.

Pros     x  A lot of opportunities to ramp up the stakes, bit after bit     x Good for pacing     x  Great for Overcoming Monster & Quest stories     x Translate over almost any genre

Cons     x Not a lot of time to slow down, breathe     x Not suited for Voyage and Return, Comedy or Rebirth stories

Uses    x Thrillers/Mystery novels. You need something to keep readers in the story, chomping at the bit. here’s the plot structure for you.    

Examples: Max Brooks’s World War Z                  

4) Plot Embryo/Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is also super common in the literature (namely western literature) With this plot the protagonist ( the hero of hero’s journey) undergoes a literal or figurative death-like transformation that changes him. 

The protagonist must venture from one state into another. To take it a step further there’s a variation called the Ploy Embyro. Dan Harmon takes the hero’s journey a bit deeper and modernizes. [ here’a great video on it by youtuber Rachel Stephen x] 

As you can see, the Hero’s Journey and Ploy Embyro are both cyclical. This baby comes full circle in both plot and character. They have similar plot points. But if I were to gush about this the post would be waaay longer than it already is. This is one of my preferred methods because it just makes sense for me and allows me to have some freedom and wiggle room while still adhering to the 3 acts.

Pros     x Character development holla, cause this is where it’s at.     x Visually appealing     x  Simple 8 point outline ( for those who might not enjoy long-winded outlines)     x  Works alongside A beat sheet ( if you use that sort of thing)     x  The holy grail for myths.

Cons     x Overdone ( but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing)     x Not suited for those who really detailed outlines

Uses     x Adventure Stories. It is all about the adventure and journey with this     x Myth Retellings. I mean it’s based on the myth structure of the Odyssey and the like so it makes sense

Examples: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird                    Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief                   J. R R. Tolktien’s The Hobbit

5) In Media Res

A literal translation to “In the Middle”. This plot structure dumps you right in the middle of the story.  Think if you were to open a story on the second of third crisis/pinch point. there’s still a lot of upward trajectory to go before the climax.

Don’t confuse this with simply opening a story mid fight/action. Media Res starts well deep into the story itself, close to the climax but with enough room you can still build up to it.

Pros     x High Actions     x Simple and fun to play with     x A good use for flashbacks     x Hell of a hook for readers

Cons     x  Can be confusing for reader’s if not done right     x  No build up     x takes some finessing to get just right

Uses      x Mysteries. This is a great plot if you want to start a story perhaps where the killer has already committed the murder.    x Epic Poems. Maybe you wanna write the next epic poem, this is great for that.       Examples  John Milton’s Paradise Lost                    Homer’s Illiad                    George Lucas’s  Star Wars 

Now I could go on and on but this monster of a post has carried on long enough. If there’s a certain structure you’d like me to go into more detail about feel free to leave a comment on this post and I’ll be sure to add it to my line up!! As always happy writing/creating!

We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.

Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:

How do you populate your backgrounds?

Well, here’s the answer:

If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.

The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.

How do you fix this?

Well, here’s the simplest solution:

This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.

From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)

From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)

Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.

I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!

Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!

Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)

The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.

By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!

Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.

We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!

Here are ten questions to ask that will not put your friend in a tough spot, but will still give you some useful input on your novel:

1. At what point did you feel like “Ah, now the story has really begun!”  2. What were the points where you found yourself skimming?  3. Which setting in the book was clearest to you as you were reading it? Which do you remember the best?  4. Which character would you most like to meet and get to know?  5. What was the most suspenseful moment in the book?  6. If you had to pick one character to get rid of, who would you axe?  7. Was there a situation in the novel that reminded you of something in your own life?  8. Where did you stop reading, the first time you cracked open the manuscript? (Can show you where your first dull part is, and help you fix your pacing.)  9. What was the last book you read, before this? And what did you think of it? (This can put their comments in context in surprising ways, when you find out what their general interests are. It might surprise you.)  10. Finish this sentence: “I kept reading because…”

Your friend is probably still going to tell you, “It was good!” However, if you can ask any specific questions, and read between the lines, you can still get some helpful information out of even the most well-meaning reader.

Click here to download the brushset!

by  Almu Redondo

A Song of Fire and Ice Novels (In case you’ve never read the books.  

Bryke is back at Nickelodeon in a big way.

⚡️💙⬇️💙⚡️

Mike and I are heading up a new studio dedicated to expanding the Avatarverse. Here’s our quote from EW.com (link for the full article):

“It’s hard to believe it’s been 19 years since we created Avatar: The Last Airbender. But even after all that time, there are still many stories and time periods in Aang’s world that we are eager to bring to life. We are fortunate to have an ever-growing community of passionate fans that enjoys exploring the Avatarverse as much as we do. And with this new Avatar Studios venture we have an unparalleled opportunity to develop our franchise and its storytelling on a vast scale, in myriad exciting ways and mediums. We are exceedingly grateful to Brian Robbins and Ramsey Naito for their enthusiasm and respect for the Avatar property and us as its stewards. From the start, they’ve supported our ambitious plans and created a positive, proactive environment for us. We’re excited to be back at Nickelodeon where Avatar began, doing what we do best in the biggest way possible. We can’t wait to build the great teams and productions to make all of this fantasy a reality.” – Bryan Konietzko & Michael DiMartino