Coming Into A Fandom Late

Coming into a fandom late

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

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➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

100 Reasons NOT To Kill Yourself

1. We would miss you. 2. It’s not worth the regret. Either by yourself if you failed or just simply left scars, or the regret everyone else feels by not doing enough to help you. 3. It does get better. Believe it or not it will eventually get better. Sometimes you have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow. 4. There’s so much you would miss out on doing. 5. There is always a reason to live. It might not be clear right now, but it is always there. 6. So many people care, and it would hurt them if you hurt yourself. 7. You ARE worth it. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you otherwise. 8. You are amazing. 9. A time will come, once you’ve battled the toughest times of your life and are in ease once again, where you will be so glad that you decided to keep on living. You will emerge stronger from this all, and won’t regret your choice to carry on with life. Because things always get better. 10. What about all the things you’ve always wanted to do? What about the things you’ve planned, but never got around to doing? You can’t do them when you’re dead. 11. I love you. Even if only one person loves you, that’s still a reason to stay alive. 12. You won’t be able to listen to music if you die. 13. Killing yourself is never worth it. You’ll hurt both yourself and all the people you care about. 14. There are so many people that would miss you, including me. 15. You’re preventing a future generation, YOUR KIDS, from even being born. 16. How do you think your family would feel? Would it improve their lives if you died? 17. You’re gorgeous, amazing, and to someone you are perfect. 18. Think about your favourite music artist, you’ll never hear their voice again… 19. You’ll never have the feeling of walking into a warm building on a cold day 20. Listening to incredibly loud music 21. Being alive is just really good. 22. Not being alive is really bad. 23. Finding your soulmate. 24. Red pandas 25. Going to diners at three in the morning. 26. Really soft pillows. 27. Eating pizza in New York City. 28. Proving people wrong with your success. 29. Watching the jerks that doubted you fail at life. 30. Seeing someone trip over a garbage can. 31. Being able to help other people. 32. Bonfires. 33. Sitting on rooftops. 34. Seeing every single country in the world. 35. Going on roadtrips. 36. You might win the lottery someday. 37. Listening to music on a record player. 38. Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. 39. Taking really cool pictures. 40. Literally meeting thousands of new people. 41. Hearing crazy stories. 42. Telling crazy stories. 43. Eating ice cream on a hot day. 44. More Harry Potter books could come out, you never know. 45. Travelling to another planet someday. 46. Having an underwater house. 47. Randomly running into your hero on the street. 48. Having your own room at a fancy hotel. 49. Trampolines. 50. Think about your favourite movie, you’ll never watch it again. 51. Think about the feeling of laughing out loud in a public place because your best friend has just sent you an inside joke, 52. Your survival will make the world better, even if it’s for just one person or 20 or 100 or more. 53. People do care. 54. Treehouses 55. Hanging out with your soul mate in a treehouse 55. Snorting when you laugh and not caring who sees 56. I don’t even know you and I love you. 57. I don’t even know you and I care about you. 58. Because nobody is going to be like you ever, so embrace your uniqueness! 59. You won’t be here to experience the first cat world emperor. 60. WHAT ABOUT FOOD?! YOU’LL MISS CHOCOLATE AND ALL THE OTHER NOM THINGS! 61. Starbucks. 62. Hugs. 63. Stargazing. 64. You have a purpose, and it’s up to you to find out what it is. 65. You’ve changed somebody’s life. 66. Now you could change the world. 67. You will meet the person that’s perfect for you. 68. No matter how much or how little, you have your life ahead of you. 69. You have the chance to save somebody’s life. 70. If you end your life, you’re stopping yourself from achieving great things. 71. Making snow angels. 72. Making snowmen. 73. Snowball fights. 74. Life is what you make of it. 75. Everybody has a talent. 76. Laughing until you cry. 77. Having the ability to be sad means you have the ability to be happy. 78. The world would not be the same if you didn’t exist. 79. Its possible to turn frowns, upside down 80. Be yourself, don’t take anyone’s shit, and never let them take you alive. 81. Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. Be your own hero. 82. Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections. 83. One day your smile will be real. 84. Having a really hot, relaxing bath after a stressful day. 85. Lying on grass and laughing at the clouds. 86. Getting completely smashed with your best friends. 87. Eating crazy food. 88. Staying up all night watching your favourite films with a loved one. 89. Sleeping in all day. 90. Creating something you’re proud of. 91. You can look back on yourself 70 years later and being proud you didn’t commit 92. Being able to meet your Internet friends. 93. Tea / Coffee / Hot Chocolate 94. Sherlock season three. 95. Cuddling under the stars. 96. Being stupid in public because you just can. 97. If you are reading this then you are alive! Is there any more reason to smile? 98. being able to hug that one person you havent seen in years 99. People care enough about you and your future to come up with 100 reasons for you not to do this. 100. But, the final and most important one is, just, being able to experience life. Because even if your life doesn’t seem so great right now, literally anything could happen

IF that isn’t enough:

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696 Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433 LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255 Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743 Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438 Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673 Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272 Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000 Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253 Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453 UK Helplines: Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail jo@samaritans.org Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111 Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: info@mind.org.uk Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 legal@mind.org.uk b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: help@b-eat.co.uk b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: helpline@cruse.org.uk Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600 Drinkline: 0800 9178282 Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail info@rapecrisis.org.uk Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight India Self Harm Hotline: 00 08001006614 India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669 Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868, Free and available 24/7 suicide hotlines; Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430 Australia: 13-11-14 Austria: 01-713-3374 Barbados: 429-9999 Belgium: 106 Botswana: 391-1270 Brazil: 21-233-9191 China: 852-2382-0000 (Hong Kong: 2389-2222) Costa Rica: 606-253-5439 Croatia: 01-4833-888 Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67 Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908 Denmark: 70-201-201 Egypt: 762-1602 Estonia: 6-558-088 Finland: 040-5032199 France: 01-45-39-4000 Germany: 0800-181-0721 Greece: 1018 Guatemala: 502-234-1239 Holland: 0900-0767 Honduras: 504-237-3623 Hungary: 06-80-820-111 Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90 Ireland: 1800-247-100 Israel: 09-8892333 Italy: 06-705-4444 Japan: 3-5286-9090 Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292 Malaysia: 03-756-8144 (Singapore: 1-800-221-4444) Mexico: 525-510-2550 Netherlands: 0900-0767 New Zealand: 4-473-9739 New Guinea: 675-326-0011 Nicaragua: 505-268-6171 Norway: 47-815-33-300 Philippines: 02-896-9191 Poland: 52-70-000 Portugal: 239-72-10-10 Russia: 8-20-222-82-10 Serbia: 21-6623-393 Spain: 91-459-00-50 South Africa: 0861-322-322 South Korea: 2-715-8600 Sweden: 031-711-2400 Switzerland: 143 Taiwan: 0800-788-995 Thailand: 02-249-9977 Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800 Ukraine: 0487-327715 Uruguay: 095 73 8483 You will be missing out on every single wonderful thing yet to happen to you.

FERAL TANJIROU

Making a Webcomic

I have collected all my advice for webcomic making and compiled it into a long resource post. Keep in mind that these are not set rules but just advice and things I have learned while making comics over the years!

Where to start?

Generally when making a comic (or anything in general) you need an idea. It can be an elaborate concept or even just something small. For example, “I want to make a comic about coping with depression” is a more conceptual base. You don’t have to start with a deep message though, you can also start with something small such as “I want to make a comic about [thing]” which can be a place or a type of character, such as “I want to make a comic about a forest” or “I want to make a comic about bunnies.”

You can keep things this simple if you want to, or later apply a deeper message to it- “I want to make a comic about forest wildlife (focusing on bunny characters) that is symbolic for societal structures.” You don’t have to go that deep at all if you don’t want to, though. The point is that you don’t have to keep your plot as what you first came up with, and you can develop and get new ideas as time goes on.

For those curious, I started out my comic with the concept “I want to make a silly comic about horrible evil nurses, because I want to make fun of and cope with my bad experiences with them.” The first thing I did with that was design a bad nurse character, and from that decided it was just a silly bad hospital, and so on.

If you get stumped, there’s no need to focus on just one part of the world you’re developing. You can expand things by starting another branch. “These bunnies live beside wild deer. These deer have problems too.” You can switch back and forth between focuses in order to get the bigger picture, and in my comic, I did that by thinking about the outside world outside of the hospital.

If it’s hard for you to think about things in terms of groups and locations, it can also be switching between focus of characters you’re developing. Does your bunny protagonist have friends? What are they like? What’s their individual stories? You can also decide what is and isn’t important to the story you’re trying to tell. If your comic is just silly, maybe there’s a running gag about your protagonist and the way they interact with others.

Actually Writing

The biggest piece of advice I can give when it comes to actual production of your webcomic: scripting. Script everything. Literally everything. When drawing a page, you need to know where to position things based upon speech bubbles and panel content. If you draw a really fantastic detailed panel and forget you need to put a lot of text, you can lose progress that you worked hard on by not having space to show what you drew!

When writing a script, start with an outline. This can generally be a simple bullet point list of each event in your comic. After you have your major events in mind, fill in the gaps with smaller sub-bullets that have information of what happens in-between each major plot point. Even these don’t need to be particularly detailed- when you’re writing the actual script, you can use your outline as a reference or “skeleton” for what you want to happen.

Once you’ve figured out those major bullet points and the filler details, it’s time for actual writing! The best way to go about scripting is to section everything by page. On page one, how many panels are there? What all happens? How is this page going to lead into the second one smoothly? What happens in the first panel? How about the second?

A HUGE piece of advice I wish I’d known sooner: do not write your comic like a storyboard. If you’re like me and have an interest in animation, you may be tempted to have a panel for every change of position or movement that a character makes. While this sometimes can be good for dramatic effect, doing this at all times can be very bad for pacing and make your comic boring to read. Here’s a nice article that explains this a bit better than I can. There’s lots of more resources you can find online with pacing. If you’re unsure, try thumbnailing out your pages and think about how long it takes for things to happen. Are these characters sitting around talking for 5 pages, or have they finished talking and gotten 3 more things done? Have a friend or two review it and let you know how they feel about how easy it is to read.

When writing a script, do not make it for just dialogue. How are you going to know what to draw and how to make each panel look if all you know is what a character is saying? What are they doing? What’s the position of their body? What is going on? Include panel content alongside any or dialogue narration. You will not regret it, and your future self will appreciate it. You might know what’s happening now, but if you spend 6 months or more writing a script like I did, you might not remember every detail as you vividly did when you first wrote it. If you have visuals in mind, write them down.

I heavily advise that you have someone else read your script before you start production. See if it makes sense and flows coherently to someone who doesn’t know all the background. What is the experience of reading your comic going to be like to a first-timer? Is there too much background information you need to know beforehand to know what’s going on? If a reader is too confused by a flood of expected knowledge, it can make them lose interest and not want to read your comic. It’s always good to take a break after you finish and re-read it a few days later with fresh eyes. You might come up with something new or change your mind.

Actually Drawing

After you’ve perfected your script, it’s time for the fun part- also the most frustrating and time-consuming part– the drawing. You might be excited about it now, but a rule of thumb is to remember that you probably are going to get tired or bored of drawing or lose inspiration at some points. This is why it’s important to take breaks, don’t force yourself to stick to a strict update schedule if you’re just starting out. Update when you want and as your physical and mental health provides. Create a lengthy buffer before you start uploading if you need to. It helps to be able to post something even when you don’t feel like drawing, because you already have it done and can rest all the time you need.

If you have each page scripted out, start with thumbnailing and page layouts. What is the position of each panel on the page? Where do the speech bubbles go? Are you going to have room for that brilliant big illustration panel you want to do? Remember that your thumbnails and layouts do not have to be magnificently detailed. You can keep things simple and messy and off-model. Nobody is going to see them except you or your artists. It’s a personal reference to help you know where things go. Here’s an awesome article about thumbnailing and planning page layouts, and a pretty helpful dA post.

Once you’ve had your layouts completed, you can start working on sketching out the final pages. Once you’re satisfied with your sketches, you can ink and color, and so on. I personally find the inking and coloring parts to be the easiest, but those are the ones I need the most help with, because I deal with a wrist injury. Drawing comics is my favorite thing in the world, but I’ve suffered because I ended up doing it too much and hurting myself.

I cope with my injury with physical therapy and regular exercising, but the most important thing that helps is to limit my drawing. Never overwork yourself, even if you really get on a roll with working and don’t wanna stop. You don’t want to deal with a wrist injury like carpal tunnel. If you love drawing, this will hurt your ability to draw and can depress you like it did me. I know my injury may never go away, so I just do my best to learn to live with it despite everything. Remember to take breaks, do stretches, get up and walk every 30 minutes to take care of your body and posture. Take care of yourself so you can continue doing what you love for as long as you want.

Resources

To finish things off, heres a compilation of more resources I have found particularly useful and insightful for comic making!

50 Tools and Resources to Start a Webcomic

Makewebcomics.com

The Biggest Mistakes People Make When They Start A Webcomic

Sites to Publish Comics

Where to Host Your Webcomic