On Worldbuilding (Patreon)

"So...touching on the topic of comic planning, exactly how much of El Indon is already set in stone, and how much--like this--is up in the air or could change? I'd like to start on a webcomic of my own someday, but I feel like I'd be a bit hesitant to really do anything with it unless I had something along the lines of a full script for the entire thing already set out. Is something like that even remotely necessary, or can you figure things out as you go so long as you have a basic storyline in mind?"

First of all, by all means, please start your own webcomics. They're a wonderfully versatile medium with a low barrier of entry and more diverse creators are always welcome. You don't need a script, or good art, or an audience. All you need is an idea and the will to put it out there. But the other part of that question relates to worldbuilding, the process of imagining an interconnected world like El Indon, and nearly all fantasy writers have to confront this particular beast at some point. I had this same question a while ago, so I'll share what I said then, here. I feel like Past Jeff has a pretty good grasp on it.

So I was going to answer this short and sweet, but it became something complex and I feel like other people might as well read it.

There’s an old story that I don’t think I have any material left over from … I wrote it in high school, it was called “Sands of God.” It was meant to be a sort of mean farce, an unforgiving slam on the kind of lame, cheap paperback fantasy that I used to get from book fairs and discount shops. The idea was that it would be a fantasy novel set WITHIN a bad fantasy novel, the latest in a long-running series by a fictional author. And at some point during the story, this fictional author would die, and his creations would be left adrift, forced to continue the story without his guidance. It was a really intriguing concept that I made an awful lot of supplemental material for - plotted chapters, designed characters, even charted out paths for a sequel. But I never actually wrote a word of it. The setting was vast and interesting, I just never made a narrative to go with it.

Writing up your own fictional universe feels like a massive undertaking because, more often than not, it is. Even short 16-page scripts can be a huge job because you need to pick over details again and again to make sure what someone says isn’t out of character, or that you didn’t forget that visual detail from Chapter 2, or you didn’t remember what shade of orange Roth was. And because it’s so much work, one logical strategy is to hash out absolutely everything in the setting - the “worldbuilding,” as some call it. Does this world have the same physics as our real world does? What’s the map of this planet look like? What languages do the people speak? What ethnicities do they have? What are the names of towns, cities, kings, criminals, gods, food, animals? This is a very, very fun part of writing fiction. Weird and wild settings are INSANELY amusing to write up, and are the color and flavor of every story… but they’re NOT the story, now are they?

Worldbuilding is fun to detail, but that’s all it is - detail. In writing El Indon, I wanted to make damn sure I didn’t fall into that same pothole. So I outlined the narrative arc first - crudely, superficially - and fleshed out from there. Pages and pages of copy. Then I did an awful lot of trimming. Whole characters vanished, came back, were renamed, were combined. And now, the ending is decided, and written. I even like it a little. So now my document looks like this:

The “meaty” outline of El Indon is about 70-75 pages of single-spaced copy. On a good day. The comic so far has covered about 12 of those pages. A lot more is gonna be cut out from here, but make no mistake, this story I’m writing and drawing is … well, it’s gonna take a while. And I’d rather finish it before I keel over and die, so I’m trying to optimize it as best I can.

My biggest point to new comic writers is this: keep it moving forward. You need to keep brevity and efficiency in mind. Remember, every page you type is a page you have to draw, and color, and shade, and format correctly. Every single one. It really helps to where your trail ends, too - all narratives end, and one doesn’t embark on a journey without knowing where they’re going. Now I’m not saying to rush through your story - god knows, you and the reader want to enjoy the time you’re spending here. But know where you’re going, and make sure that you get there.