Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-02-21 05:27 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-02-21 05:27 pm
[ SECRET POST #1876 ]
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 095 secrets from Secret Submission Post #268.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-02-22 12:17 am (UTC)(link)Here's some advice:
1. Do the art to the best of your ability and make sure it's polished to the best of your ability. Don't spend a month on one page, but make sure it looks good. Do something nice with the font and bubbles. If it's just lines, make sure it's clean and nice.
2. Don't copy. Don't trace. Nobody cares if you can't draw a toaster well, as long as it doesn't look just lazy. But if you've got attention and somebody finds that traced toaster, they're going to point it out. References are fine, just don't copy exactly.
3. Keep trying to improve artistically. Draw from life. It's fine to have a style, but your art is going to have flaws. Style is a thing you continually have to work at and improve. It's okay not to take concrit when there's a personal stylistic preference going on ("make it more anime!" "I hate that style of hat! make it a cuter hat!" "HER TITS ARE TOO SMALL, THAT'S NOT SEXY") but be gracious about it and actually think about the crit you get before dismissing it.
4. If you're writing a story with a plot, know where your plot is going to go. It's bad writing to make a million things happen and then just keep piling on more things. Don't make a conflict happen if you don't know how to resolve it and aren't willing to deal with the fallout of leaving it unresolved.
5. If you want the audience to love a character, do it by making that character actually appealing and interesting. Don't just have other characters talk them up. This goes double if there are actually pretty legit reasons to dislike this character. On that note, if a character is doing that naturally would have consequences, don't be afraid of that.
6. If you're doing a plotty comic, don't spend a lot of time on things that are going to get swept under the rug. Your fans might like the world building better than the romance, or the romance better than the political conflict, and if you're going to just abandon the world-building/romance/whatever without a good reason, then you'll have fans who feel short-changed. This isn't to say "don't do more than one thing," but if there are multiple draws to your comic, treat them all as important.
7. If none of your characters are queer, don't tease same-sex ships. Of course, people are going to ship weird things you don't intend, so don't feel like you have to tone down your really close friendships. But if you have girls kissing each other and groping each other's tits and talking about their relationships in a very romantic way, and then they both end up with boyfriends cause they're TOTALLY NOT AT ALL GAY, then people are going to be pretty understandably pissed.
8. It is not a bad thing to write characters who are not like you! But do the research, and avoid giving preferential treatment to the characters that are more like you. Remember that everyone is a person, that characters who belong to oppressed groups have a history of being written as less of people, and that your fanbase may include people who belong to said oppressed groups themselves and are sick and tired of Bury Your Gays or Black Dude Dies First. Don't go the other way and make your minority characters too perfect to be interesting, either, if everyone else is fucked up in their own unique and special way. Just try to be equal about it. Also, stereoypes are not accurate representations of people. The deliberate opposite of every stereotype out there is also not an accurate representation of people.
9. If you are writing about some heavy ass subject matter that you have not personally experienced, again, DO THE RESEARCH. If someone who HAS experienced it corrects you on an offensive portrayal of it, listen openmindedly.
10. Double if it's rape.
11. Respect your fandom. They do not have to give you their time. Don't assume horrible intentions and don't be a dick about stuff that doesn't matter. If you think something's okay to do with other people's characters, don't get mad when other people do it to yours. You don't have to like it, but if it's not hurting anyone, try to just ignore it.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-02-22 12:45 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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(Anonymous) 2012-02-22 02:37 am (UTC)(link)no subject