I get my ideas from a variety of sources; usually from real-life incidents, or from movies, books or comics/manga. It doesn’t really matter, because idea acquisition is an evolving process, and once you get more experience from handling ideas and creating complete stories from them, more ideas should follow.
To foster this, I previously aimed to work my way through all the genres, producing short stories based on my interpretation of each genre. The challenge, I suppose, is to avoid falling into a cliched reworking of something. That said, so far it has been a success – most of my stories cross-over into other genres, which is a good sign of diversity and being able to mix a variety of themes. And that is where I continue to work.
Story Creation
When I have a short story in my head, the first thing I do is to stake out the beginning and the ending in my head. At this stage, I don’t do much brainstorming or scripting. The middle part is not as important – it’s usually the beginning, followed by the resolution. The process is slightly different for longer stories, but it’s true for shorter stories up to 50 pages. I feel that if you have a short story with a bad or rushed ending, the reader ends up feeling short-changed (though there are exceptions). Because of this, I find short manga/comic stories more difficult to write than longer ones; and more difficult to write than fictional short stories. If you can write good, self-contained short stories, then longer ones should be no problem. However, the reverse isn’t necessarily true.
It’s been 10 years, and the above still holds true. These days, however, I’m a lot more likely to script my short stories, where as before I didn’t. If you work professionally, then scripting is necessary, since you’re beholden to people other than yourself. I start off by opening up Notepad and summarising my story page-by-page; describing the events on each page in a single sentence or more. I find this a good way of estimating how long a story will be. Once I’ve done that, I will turn it into a page-by-page script, which will naturally be turned into a manga/comic.
With longer stories, possibly the only difference in the creative process is that there’s a lot more room to play with the characters in the “middle” portion of the story. My short stories tend to be plot-oriented and are rarely character pieces, so there’s little room for the characters to interact and grow. In longer stories however, there is time to set the characters free in the world you’ve created, and watching them interact with each other and with the environment. If your characters are well-constructed, then they would behave accordingly, and sometimes in ways completely unexpected to you. I find writing longer stories to be rewarding in that way – your own creations can surprise you in delightful ways.
All imaginary worlds need time to grow, and to be fleshed out by their creators (me, in this instance). If you run into a brick wall and you seem to be stuck in a creative rut, it’s always best to leave the story and work on another one. When something else happens in your own life, you may get inspiration and a solution to your original problem. That’s why it’s important, as a writer, to always grow as a person, and to challenge yourself. Stories don’t get created in a vacuum – they are directly influenced by the things that happen in the life of their creator.
Last Updated: 11th May, 2011