“Creating one interesting character is hard enough — but when it comes to writing a whole novel or series of books, you have to create dozens of them. How can you keep your supporting cast from seeming like cookie-cutter people? There’s no easy answer, but a few tricks might help you create minor characters who don’t feel too minor.” [x]
Give them at lease one defining characteristic. ”…lots of people have one or two habits that you notice the first time you meet them, that stand out in your mind even after you learn more about them.”
Give them an origin story. “…Your main character doesn’t necessarily need an origin story, because you’ve got the whole book to explain who he/she is and what he/she is about. But a supporting character? You get a paragraph or five, to explain the formative experience that made her become the person she is, and possibly how she got whatever skills or powers she possesses.”
Make sure they talk in a distinctive fashion. “…you still have to make sure your characters don’t all talk the same. Some of them talk in nothing but short sentences, others in nothing but long, rolling statements full of subordinate clauses and random digressions. Or you might have a character who always follows one long sentence with three short ones.” "…One dirty shortcut is to hear the voice of a particular actor or famous person in your head, as one character talks.”
Avoid making them paragons of virtue, or authorial stand-ins. ”…People who have no flaws are automatically boring, and thus forgettable.” ”…Any character who has foibles, or bad habits, or destructive urges, will always stand out more than one who is pure and wonderful in all ways. And nobody will believe that you’ve chosen to identify yourself, as the author, with someone who’s so messed up. (Because of course, you are a perfect human being, with no flaws of your own.)”
Anchor them to a particular place. “…A huge part of making a supporting character “pop” is placing her somewhere. Give her a haunt — some place she hangs out a lot. A tavern, a bar, an engine room, a barracks, a dog track, wherever. It works both ways — by anchoring a character in a particular location, you make both the character and the location feel more real.”
Introduce them twice — the first time in the background, the second in the foreground. “…You mention a character in passing: “And Crazy Harriet was there too, chewing on her catweed like always.” And you say more about them. And then later, the next time we see that character, you give more information or detail, like where she scores her catweed from. The reader will barely remember that you mentioned the character the first time — but it’s in the back of the reader’s mind, and there’s a little “ping” of identification.”
Focus on what they mean to your protagonists “…What does this minor character mean to your hero? What role does he fulfill? What does your hero want or need from Randolph the Grifter? If you know what your hero finds memorable about Randolph, then you’re a long ways towards finding what your readers will remember, too.”
Give them an arc — or the illusion of one. “… You can create the appearance of an arc by establishing that a character feels a particular way — and then, a couple hundred pages later, you mention that now the character feels a different way.” “…A minor character who changes in some way is automatically more interesting than one who remains constant…”
The more minor the character, the more caricature-like they may have to be. “…This one is debatable — you may be a deft enough author that you can create a hundred characters, all of whom are fully fleshed out, well-rounded human beings with full inner lives.” “…some writing styles simply can’t support or abide cartoony minor characters. But for your third ensign, who appears for a grand total of two pages, on page 147 and page 398, you may have to go for cartoony if you want him to live in the reader’s mind as anything other than a piece of scenery.”
Decide which supporting characters you’ll allow to be forgettable after all. “…And this is probably inevitable. You only have so much energy, and your readers only have so much mental space. Plus, if 100 supporting characters are all vivid and colorful and people your readers want to go bowling with, then your story runs the risk of seeming overwritten and garish.Sometimes you need to resign yourself to the notion that some characters are going to be extras, or that they’re literally going to fulfill a plot function without having any personality to speak of. It’s a major sacrifice they’re making, subsuming their personality for the sake of the major players’ glory.”
It’s basically a massive database full of high-quality images of different hairstyles. I mean, look at all the options in that sidebar (and part of it’s cut off):
In total they have 976 pages of hairstyles with about 17 styles each, that’s about 16592 hairstyles to look at.
I absolutely love your blog and comics! I'm an aspiring graphic novelist myself, and I was wondering.. where do you even begin?! How did you get your start in this industry? What are some things that beginners should know? I'd appreciate any advice you have! :)
You begin by making comics. Seriously! :) Just go make them.
Don’t wait for publishers to approach you (they won’t, unless you’re already making comics).
Don’t wait for a magical moment when you finally feel like you’re “good enough” at drawing to make comics (it’ll never come, I’m still waiting for that moment).
Just go and make comics. It’ll be bad at the beginning, you will make some terrible, terrible comics. But you’ll get better, and eventually the right people will be like “oh hey, that person’s made a lot of comics! They’re pretty good! We should hire them.”
I have nothing else practical to offer*. If you’re me, you get your start in the comics industry by making comics**.
Good luck!
*I can offer one practical suggestion: read a lot of comics, lots of different types of comics, and try to figure out why the ones you like work. This is very helpful.
**Fun fact: I had written and drawn over 1,000 pages of comics before I was published.
I feel that making comics is a lot like getting on a bicycle. There is really only so much you can do except actually get on it and go for the first ride.
This ties with that famous Ken Robinson TED speech about how modern society stiffles creativity by punishing the idea of making mistakes. In a way that’s also what brings comic artists to stop before they rise. You always want to plan things out— to be ready, to feel ready and perfect and like you’re going in with an absolute, 100% chance of victory at this endeavor, but the thing is, in order to actually LEARN the trade… you have to participate on it first. The mistakes are not only unavoidable, but part of the path to victory.
This is soooooo soooooooo sooo important. Making comics is really really nerve wracking because I was so hung up on wanting to be totally prepared, wanting perfect characters, wanting perfect art, etc, but like… it doesn’t work that way and we have to learn to be ok with accepting that fact and making progress as we go along.
The best way to learn how to make comics and get better at it is just making comics and accepting when things arent as good as you want them to be and plugging along to the next thing with new shiney ideas and lessons under your belt <3
- Don’t whine about other artists being better, more popular, etc etc. Don’t whine about not being good enough. Don’t worry about popularity or money or any of that shit. They’re awesome, but wont help you draw any better. (If you enjoy what you’re drawing and do it well odds are good they’ll happen on their own.) Don’t fall victim to distractions and “easy outs” or “I don’t feel it” moods. Take a break, walk around, stretch, get a drink, clear your head, then shut up and draw.
Step 02 : Never stop. Ever.
- Do it every day. Practice constantly. Make it your obsession. Draw what you see, what you know, what you like. Try new techniques. Look at how artists you like do things, emulate it, then twist it into your own version. Make sure your style is yours and not a carbon copy of someone else. Carry a sketchbook with you to work, school, everywhere. Draw when you wake up. Draw when you’re tired. Draw when you’re bored. Want to play a video games? Draw instead. Draw when you should be doing something else. Draw. Draw. Draw. Never stop. Ever.
Do that for a few years and you’re golden. There is no trick or magic spell that can make you draw exactly like you want right now. Artists are like Saiyans, every fight makes them stronger. Every picture makes us better.
Go draw.
Ducky actually gave me this speech awhile ago, and it helped me a shit ton.
is there anything planned for 2015 nagranowrimo???
nagranowrimo Said:
There aren’t any firm plans yet but I do want to have a 2015 session, just a matter of finding the month that will work best for the most people. I will try to get a poll up this week asking everyone when the best time is for them. Meanwhile any comments or suggestions on how to improve the Nagranowrimo challenge or posts/resources you would like to see are welcome!
HELLO, witchy is the best webcomic ever and could you please show us your progress of how you create a comic page? It would be very helpful to me. thank you!
hi! thank you for the kind words, it means so much to me that people enjoy witchy this much! Here’s a gif showing my general work flow.
1. Thumbnails. I usually only have a very vague script written down as to what happens in a scene, bc I prefer to draw as I write dialogue because for me it’s easier to visualise and focus that way. I rewrite the dialogue here ALOT and usually just hand write dialogue over old dialogue in a new colour. The first pass for my dialogue is always quite awkward or choppy because I’m just thinking about the general feeling or sentiment I want to convey.
2. Usually when I’m working on the previous page I’ll have ideas as to how I want to write the dialogue on the next page to make it flow more naturally from one page to another. In this case I’ll write the idea down quickly in the next page’s file. (a quick note: I made a file naming convention for every page/chapter from the get go to make sure everything is always organised. Do not underestimate the power of organisation when starting a webcomic!)
3. Initial sketch. I didn’t do it for this page but usually to figure out a layout I’ll grab the thumbnails I think will work in a single page and play around with them using the transform tool until I find a balance of panels that works. I’ll then go over it with a loose sketch like you see here.
4. I make a new layer and go over the parts of the loose sketch that need refining, which usually involves hands, more nuanced facial expressions, and perspective or background issues.
5. I draw in the panels! all my panels are freehand because I really like the feel it gives to the page, and I think it really works for a fantasy comic like Witchy. It was slow going when I first started the comic but I can draw in panels super quickly now. I think even little details like panel style can really add to how a comic looks, but at the same time you don’t necessarily need to add something quirky to your panels; simple usually works best.
6. Inking! I try to turn down my sketch layers super low so I don’t lose the spontaneity when putting down lines. While I admire people who can ink super precisely, it’s not something I like to do. I prefer a more organic and wobbly feel to my work. That being said, I think inking well is about CONFIDENCE. even though I strive for an organic look, I still want my lines to be confident. I usually use Kyle’s rough inking brush for inking.
7. Unfortunately I don’t really have any screenshots of my colouring process here, but usually I rough in colour and then figure out my placing of dialogue, and then I draw the balloons in so I don’t have to do any polished colouring underneath where the placement will be. There’s some good articles on the subtleties of comic lettering here, here, and here, that I recommend looking at, but also taking with a grain of salt. I break these rules often and you shouldn’t be afraid to break them either. Comics are a constantly evolving medium and you should make your own rules. (although it can be good to be aware of the pre-existing ones)
8. I don’t have much to say about colouring here because I already decided on the palette for this whole scene on an earlier page, but if you ask nicely next time I’m working on a new scene I can do a tut for you. I usually flat and then add in a bit of shading with one of the default soft brushes in photoshop, nothing fancy.
9. Finally I add all the little details like some magic sparkles and some colour adjustment/glow layers, depending on how I feel, but I don’t always use them on every page.
It’s important after reading this that you don’t take my process to be the be all and end all of comic making methods. Find your own way to do things! I am CONSTANTLY finding different ways of making comics. Just last week I figured out a new way of making a page’s palette that really works for me. don’t limit yourself and don’t be afraid to experiment.
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