Writing Short Comics?

By: Richard Mercado

If you grew up dreaming about becoming a comic artist like I did, you might have had the same dream goal that I had when I was 12 years old: Creating long, epic stories that span multiple volumes with tons of characters thrown in. Through the years, as I learned how to actually create a comic, that dream of making that insanely long, volume spanning, manga became something that is almost impossible. It isn’t realistic.

As I got older, something that gave me more satisfaction than dreaming about that long, epic story that I know I’ll never be able to make, is creating a short comic with a beginning, middle, and end.

For this post, I will be explaining the importance of knowing how to create short comics, as well as tips on how to execute a successful one.

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATING SHORT COMICS?

1) DEVELOPING YOUR COMIC MAKING SKILLS

Many creators who have published long-form graphic novels started off with creating short comics. The main reason why short comics are popular is because it can be finished faster and comic artists can easily showcase their storytelling skills by doing it.

Creating short comics can test your ability to write something from start to finish. Finishing an entire story can give you a sense of accomplishment that you are able to definitively create something of your own.

2) PORTFOLIO

If you’re an aspiring comic artist who aims to make comics professionally, having a portfolio website is a MUST. Many young artists, especially undergraduate art students, tend to struggle with filling up a portfolio as they do not have a body of work to fill it with or they are insecure with the works that they currently have. A great way to fill up your portfolio is through making short comics.

If you want editors to notice your work and hire you, they are most likely looking for your sequential pages, and the best way for you to showcase that is to have short comics in your portfolio. Short comics can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time and a smart way to fill up your body of work.

3) ANTHOLOGIES / ZINES

Anthologies, like the ones that Level Ground Comics produces, are collections of short comics centering around a certain idea or theme (For example, A Taste of Home = Cooking). Having created short comics beforehand can help you with applying for different anthologies as it can be a way to sharpen your storytelling skills which will aid you in getting accepted to these small publications. Getting your works published in small anthologies can help you further your comics career as well.

4) SHORT STORY -> GRAPHIC NOVEL

Creating a graphic novel takes a lot of time. The average 250 page graphic novel has a timeline of 1.5 - 2 years to make. Professionals get paid to create those pages and have help from editors to refine their story and meet their deadlines at the same time.

If you are just starting out in making comics and you already want to create that long-form graphic novel, you would most likely be doing it on your own, so making something that long would take even longer and most likely you won’t even get paid to create it. Rather than spending so much time trying to create something long, why not start off with a short comic that you can easily finish?

Even accomplished graphic novelists take advantage of this format. Many graphic novelists also get picked up by publishers based on the short comics that they made. It can be a way to test the waters of your concept without actually having the need to have the entire graphic novel done. When submitting a pitch to publishers, they don’t actually expect you to have an entire graphic novel drawn, but they just want to see your concept and how you tell storytelling through providing a short amount of pages.

5) FINISHING A SHORT COMIC = LEVELLING UP

When you finish a short comic, you level up as a storyteller! You can then start evaluating your finished comic on what works and what could be improved upon. As you continue creating short comics, you end up sharpening your storytelling skills as you start to dissect the way you tell a story and you go through a process of improvement which is a skill you need to build up as you eventually start creating longer projects!

BASIC STEPS for WRITING A SHORT COMIC

1) BRAINSTORMING

As a storyteller, I’m sure you have many different stories in mind that you want to work on! Most likely you get your influences from your own life, something you’ve watched or read, something you’ve experienced recently, or just something kooky that you dreamt about the other night. Whatever it is, jot it down in a notebook so you have a bank of ideas that you can check every now and then.

Once you have a specific idea for a story, it’s good to think about the reason you want to tell a story. What is the big idea for why you want to create this story? Maybe you want to tell a specific story about your life that you want to tell the world. Maybe there’s something that you’re passionate about that you want to share through a comic format. Maybe it’s just a fan comic of your favorite anime. Whatever it is, having a clear idea of the story you want to tell will help you in the next step in writing a short comic.

*A good tip for creating a big idea is to narrow it down to a sentence or logline that can encompass what your entire story is about. The more concise it is, the more it can show how much you understand your own story.

2) SCOPE OF LIMITATIONS

Now that you have a strong, big idea in your mind of what to write, it’s time to think about how you’ll be able to execute the story. Many beginner artists get stuck from having an idea to executing their idea simply because they don’t evaluate the limitations they have in creating their work. They end up drawing so much concept art that they don’t need, creating an infinite amount of character designs, or having settings/backgrounds that in reality, they still don’t have the chops to draw yet. Evaluating your limitations is the best way to mediate that.

Limitations that you should think of as you start your short comic:

1 - How much time do you have to create this comic?

2 - How much time do you spend creating a page? Can that fit in the timeline you’ve created for finishing the comic?

3 - How many pages will the comic be?

4 - How specific should your story be to fit that amount of pages?

5 - Can I execute the story with the art skills that I currently have?

Asking these questions can help you properly manage your expectations as you create your short comic! It helps ground yourself so you can create something that’s doable. You don’t want to end up disappointing yourself midway through drawing the comic when you realize that what you set out to do was much harder than you thought it would be.

3) SYNOPSIS/OUTLINE

Writing a simple synopsis or outline for your story will help you structure your comic properly. It gives you something to look back on when you start writing your script and when you start drawing the comic. It will help you to break down your story beat by beat.

A typical short story would contain the following story beats:

1 - Establishment - Establish your character’s world. Where does the character live? Who does he interact with? Most importantly, what is the character’s goal? Most engaging stories must have a main character that is actively seeking something. Does the main character have a crush on someone? Does the main character want to win a tournament or want to avenge someone?

2 - Inciting Incident - It is the hook of the story. An inciting incident is an event/plot point in your story where the main character is thrust upon something that they will have to act on or change their worldview. This develops into the main conflict of your story. This is usually where you implement the big idea that you have come up with. For a short comic, this has to happen immediately as you only have a few pages to tell your story.

*Examples of inciting incidents: Harry Potter - Harry discovers that he is a wizard; Twilight - A vampire enters Bella’s life.

3 - Journey - This would contain the bulk of the story in which the main character reacts to the inciting incident and goes on a journey. The inciting incident triggers a series of events that the character goes through which is the journey of the story.

4 - Midpoint and Consequences - At a point in the story, the character gets what they want/what they think they want which creates a whole set of consequences for the character. Usually this is when the antagonists come in to take away what the character achieves as consequences or when the character gets what they want, they realize it wasn’t what they wanted all along.

5 - All is Lost - The consequences that happen at the midpoint reach a point where the main character feels that everything is lost and because of this, the only way is to go up and rise above the challenge.

6 - Climax and Conclusion - The character reaches a realization through the series of events that they have experienced which results in the climax of the story. Using the growth that they went through in the journey of the story, they finally act in a way that shows that they’ve grown or changed. In a movie, this can be when the main character finally discovers how to defeat the villain, or when the main character realizes who they love is someone different all along. It’s the action that comes from a decision that the character makes through the experiences that they accumulated. For a short comic, note that you only have a minimal amount of pages to execute this so it has to be concise and satisfying.

*To learn more about story beats, check out Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. Although Save the Cat is targeted towards movie making, studying it can help you understand how to dissect your own stories, beat per beat.

*You can also check out Level Ground Comic’s digital workshop All About Plot: Story Beats for Comics Creators which can be found here: https://levelgroundcomics.wixsite.com/mysite/gallery-03

4) REVISION / FEEDBACK

Get a different pair of eyes to look at your work and give honest criticism. Sometimes, you can get so caught up in developing your story that you end up disregarding the flaws of it, which is why getting someone else to look at it is an important part of revising your story. Having like-minded colleagues or mentors who aren’t scared to tell you what their opinions are of your story is something you should seek as they will help you accept criticism which will lead you to improve your storytelling skills.

5) SCRIPT

Comic artists work in different ways. Some who are more visual, start working on rough thumbnails immediately while others write a fully detailed script. If you are just starting out in making comics, having some form of a script for you to follow is a good practice. Having a script can help you edit your story quickly as you are working on it.

Adjusting your story is much easier when you’ve written it out first. Adjusting your story in the script phase is much faster, and less labor intensive than having to adjust your story in the middle of drawing your comic.

6) DRAW THAT COMIC!

Now that you have everything you need to draw, executing your comic should be much easier. Making short comics doesn’t have to be perfect as the ultimate goal is just to finish it. Learning to adjust your expectations on what you can and can’t do, as you draw your comic is something you will only really learn when you draw that comic.

Some things to think about as you draw your comic:

Brevity - Since you’ve set yourself to draw your short comic in a set amount of pages, brevity will be a skill that you’ll sharpen especially in the thumbnails phase. As you make your comic, you can easily check how many panels you need per page, which dialogue is necessary to tell the story, and the amount of detail you put in drawing a page to execute the story.

Page Turners - If you are printing this comic, or working in a typical comic format, page turners are something to look for and adjust as you draw your comic. Ideally to make a big reveal in a comic effectively, you can leave a clue on the page before it that would make the reader curious as they flip the page. Page turners can work as a way to add suspense in your pages.

MAKING SHORT COMICS WILL TURN YOU INTO A BETTER STORYTELLER

In conclusion, creating short comics will help you become a better storyteller. Short stories help you nail down your writing skills as well as experiment on your drawing styles, which all serve to help you get better. If you find that after making a bunch of short comics, that creating stories is getting a little harder, that only means that you are getting better as it means you are able to dissect the different aspects of comic making and you can pinpoint your flaws better which only serves to help you improve.

That said, enjoy the process of making short comics! Ultimately, it is you who dictates how to make your own story. The magic of short comics in the end is on how you execute it.