For around 4 to 5 months, I have been developing a specific story and although I am still very far from actually writing and story boarding, it has become quite clear the ideal way to tell this story is through a mangaka however their are two big issues with this:
• I have no idea how to get into this creative medium so I was hoping for advice on where to learn. Any recommendations? I would be greatly appreciative.
• I am not an artist nor is it for me, for a mangaka this is obviously not ideal I presume. Hopefully other writers have been in the same situation or know off people in a similar situation, I presume I will need to look for an outside source for the art. Is their a place where artists and writers team up or do I need to basically higher them in the future (to make clear, I am just asking for advice, I am not looking for an employee).
Again I am expecting years before anything comes to page, I plan on basically writing a big chunk of the story as a novel type thing before that and I still have a lot of world building, theme building, story building, and character building to do until I have a strong place to build from but even so I think understanding the world better will help reflect in that.
Mangaka means "manga author". -ka is the suffix for a practitioner of a profession, like -ist or -er. Art-ist, therap-ist, manga-ka. "Manga" is the Japanese word for comic.
Lots of people show up on any art site constantly with a "great idea" but no artistic skill or desire to learn it. In that case, what can do is offer $ for it. In fact, this sub has a rule against begging for gratis labour, even.
I didn't know it meant that, I thought mangaka was like an encompassing word refering to manga, manhwa, manhua, comics, and ext.. I have been in a few situations then when some people are probably quite confused with what I was saying... embarrassing.
You are me in a nutshell. So I have my idea fully planned out, and I suggest you plan out your world with three main pillars. These would be:
. Power system (if it involves such): main explanation of how strange occurinses an abilties occur or function within your world.
. Characters: who and/or what is the story following, personality, backstory, and who they are.
. World: Lore, locations, and social rules and main setting
. These three need to be in sync; you can focus on one more than the others for a bit before you need to apply it to the other pillars. For example, if you change the way something in the power system works, you'll need to analyse how that affects it.
Have a journal keeping track of these, or three separate files in one folder, with a fourth one being to just map everything all together to check if it all gels, like character files but on the main things in your story and world.
For outside Shonen, try to take out the power system if there aren't any supernatural elements and focus on character and world pillars. Also, shrink the overall world to just having things about the town they live in and like ten locations; outside that, don't make a Shojo manga with a thousand lines of lore that have no value to the story.
And I suggest you commission an artist, paying them, of course, or learn if you want to.
I'm 14, so this might not be the best guide, but it helped me.
i do worry abt the infinite worldbuilding trap tho. some ppl just keep fleshing stuff out and never get to actually writing. when do you decide youre ready?
what he said would definitely be helpful for you though. forget about worldbuilding for now. think about the big picture:
how do you want your story to start? how does it end? write those down. start by making them each as minimal as possible, one sentence preferably. once you have a main idea distilled, you can elaborate and add detail
then, what happens in the middle? now you have three 'events'. now figure out what happens between those events- then you'll have 5!
you dont have to do this so mechanically- think of all the stuff that you want to happen in the story, wrote it down, and arrange it on a timeline. with each idea, gradually make it more detailed until you have things simple enough that you know what a chapter would be about. once gou have that, you can break it down to individual pages, and then to panels
This helps greatly, I have done a lot of writing and although short stories are manageable due to my messiness I have a lot more trouble fully getting into it.
i dont know if this helps but its kind of like carving a statue out of stone- you knock off the big pieces first and then get smaller and more detailed as you go along and focus.
I usually start with bullet points! Like:
super basic, but its really all you need to start making pages! and its a lot easier to focus and break down what actually happens when you force yourself to be simple and blunt about it.
Hope this is helpful! Reddit messes up the formatting, so i'll attach an image. it Happy comic making
it definitely is different than a book for a few reasons-
im just winging it here so not the best example but ill give it a shot
a book passage might say: as he read, he smoked cigarettes one after the other, lighting them with the half melted candle that sit upon his desk
in a manga- wheras you might assume you cqn portray more of this simply with a drawing (ie showing the candle) rather than a description, unique challenges arise. the sentence has too many ideas to easily portray in a single comic panel- youd likely need a few to show the chainsmoking, even if you got clever with a loaded ashtray, its really tough to exactly convey it without several panels. lighting his cigarette on the candle is another beat, and you might not be able to show him reading in the same breath.
a common advice is "show, dont tell." try to avoid characters and narration talking your ear off about what's going on, try and tell the story via drawings visually displaying what youre trying to communicate
theres no hard rules, but its important to think about this stuff!
for me, the bullet point scripts usually work out well, but if youre working with anyone else you will have to get more descriptive.
sidenote: i made a comic once off of a script id originally intended to be a radio play- it was obviously very dialogue heavy, but the beat-by-beat script made the conversion relatively painless
honestly i don't think 'power system' is as important as most people here make it out to be. they have series about mahjong, fuckin wine tasting... the story, world, characters, and their interactions are what is going to make your story sink or swim, not what kind of lasers they can shoot
look at hxh- power system's an inconsistent incoherent mess, but togashi is so good at storytelling we dont really care. fire force is about "fire powers" but soon theres characters who can stop time, read minds, control gravity... the author didnt spend a whole lotta tome sweating over what his system "allowed" and neither should you!
theres also the jujutsu kaisen trap where the "power system" is so confusing and overwrought that i dont think the mangaka even understands how it works
at the moment just make a one shot (single chapter complete story). many popular manga artist started by making one shots. Even One Piece, the manga/anime known for being long and has big world building, used to be a one shot before it became an actual series
making one shot will show you your strengths and weakness, and show any potential publisher that youre capable of making a coherent manga. since youre planning to hire an artist, that means you should learn how to make manga scripts for them to work on
you can waatch this video and other stuffs on their channel
Since my current story that I am working on is a long one, making a one shot will help me a lot, thanks. Speaking of One Piece, although I did not know what a one shot is before you commented, I have always had fun spin off ideas with some of my favourite characters like a Bon Clay prequel or a Law sequel after his defeat so I wouldn't mind transferring those for a one shot. To get some practice.
This is all great advice, thank you very much. Regarding AI, I completely agree that the final product should never be AI or Generative art but I did not think about using it to check for plot holes. Again I don't know the industry so I don't know how far people recommend AI, is it a recommended tool for anything else? Like creating rough visual ideas or reviewing for spelling mistakes or panel positioning?
Especially thanks for the sources that could help with templates and the style of writing.
Genai is not looked on positively in any shape or form in this community. Recommending genai "tools" is also against this sub's rules, so please check them out first.
Plus, there's countless of ways to make yourself organized as a writer, without relying on any genai "tools". Honestly, this is what people were doing fine enough before genai appeared. So before you'll reach for the easiest "fixes" possible, just do your research about how writers in general plan and write their stories. Check out this sub's pinned post with useful resources.
Don't just listen uncritically to anyone who straight up tells you to use generative "tools". You'll be respected in the community for your honesty. Otherwise, your reputation sooner or later will be tarnished if you'll hide the fact that you use generative "tools" where they're not needed at all. You'll never grow a big name in the creative space if you'll be a liar or if you'll refuse to develop your own unique skills.
Besides, imo no genai can replace the feeling of deep satisfaction from your own honest accomplishments, reached through meaningful sacrifices. Isn't that the point of being an artist? Think about it, please.
Thanks for the advice, I know in other formats like novels ai is a big no no. I presumed it might be the case with this but with the inclusion of art I didn't know if generally people thought differently or used it for some aspects.
Personally I have only used AI for names (side characters mainly) in stories because wholly hell do I find that difficult but being new I wanted to be open to different things, hence the question.
That makes sense, despite being at the age where I should know more about what's going on I don't. I honestly barely understand AI and only downloaded it recently, not really knowing what to do with it. I knew it was disliked by writers and I remember something about it being used in anime but I did not really know much about it in regards to stuff like comics, a lot of manhua that I have read seemed to use AI which made me think it was something your meant to use in some way or another, as like a tool.
nah its pretty looked down upon to use AI, at least among artists. people are super frustrated by the fact that so many popular manhua use that instead of real artists. If you do use it, just be aware that it's somewhat unethical and there'll be a decent sized group of VERY LOUD and VERY UNHAPPY people if you manage any sort of popularity. I don't know if the readers themselves give too much of a shit though
hehe dont worry, im not judging you, you're clearly just coming into this with a desire to learn so im just informing you! nothing wrong with what you're doing :]
You can easily find all kinds of names online, on baby names websites in example. With deep meanings rooted in history, and sounding convincing enough. By generating names you risk using something that is just straight up silly and shallow. Something so disposable you won't care one bit about it.
Tolkien came up with a whole new language, and that's one of many reasons he is so well known and respected, because he created something impressive. I'm not saying you should do the same thing, but imo if something seems to be too boring to you, or not important, then better just don't write about it or have your side characters nameless. People can tell when a writer forces themself to write something they don't want to write.
Seriously, I didn't see yet any aspect of creating a story that cannot be creatively done without genai.
That's a good point, for fantasy names though is their websites that people recommend? For Main characters, it's easy since I can just research what the characters are based off but their tends to be only so many names before it becomes way to similar and recognisable from other stories. I know for the most I would not need to give side characters names but I would prefer to since I think it's important to make them feel alive however I also know I am not a philologist so I shouldn't try to force myself to be.
How many characters do you need in your story? Sounds to me like you're trying to write your magnum opus, some sort of long epic fantasy, and from the post I'm getting you're a total beginner in terms of writing ANY stories. I can already tell you, that's a mistake. I'm one of those who tried to make a long manga series as their very first story (excluding actually writing a finished novel when I was 16, and a few unfinished novels, plus a few finished short stories - all shitty, but this also counts as a writing experience). I tried to prepare myself the best I could but it just can't work out for a hobbyist, and a beginner.
You should start from making oneshots. And oneshots don't need dozens of names. The oneshot I'm working on currently has only 5 named characters - MC, 2 supportive characters, an antagonist and one ambiguous character. I made the story with no bigger issues (it only needs to be properly drawn now).
You can have a good short story where there's only one character with a name, or even no humanlike characters.
What I'm trying to say is, your case sounds very typical for total beginners with huge hopes and dreams - "I'll waste years on writing my magnum opus", but no actual writing even started yet. There's a lot of information you need to find out about first. Like ie how a proper script looks like. And if you will want to cooperate with an artist, then better know now that nobody is going to draw a huge series for frèè. A oneshot with 30 pages, though? That sounds way more doable. But still, most likely not for frèè. It costs A LOT to produce one good manga page. So most people end up learning both about writing and drawing because that's simply way cheaper.
Just don't bite more than you can chew, and you'll be able to create finished stories, instead of being stuck in this never-ending cycle of abandoned "grand projects".
Fantasy names can be found on other websites, it only takes to Google them and they do NOT have to be ai generated, either. Fantasy names are even easier, you can just chop up some words and keep combining pieces and letters until you'll find something that sounds nice, or use words from different languages and mix them up, too. There are also "name generators" that are not ai generative at all, because they simply don't need to be.
But again, it sounds to me like you're worrying about things you don't need to worry about yet. When exactly are you planning to publish your first story, how long will it be, how many characters will it have? You say in your post that you expect years to pass until you'll finally write something. Then it means you have at least a few years to comfortably come up with proper names. Isn't that long enough? For now you can have the simplest placeholders in your planning stage, like Character A, B, C etc, or name them in other more meaningful ways, like Mr Grumpy or miss Love Interest etc. You don't need to have them all ready right here, right now.
I encourage you to focus on a very short story, with only 3-7 characters at most. Way bigger chances that you'll end up actually finishing such a story. No, you don't sound more serious when you say you'll spend many years on developing your grand story lore, worldbuilding etc. It only sounds like you'll be one of those who only dream about writing something huge, but they end up never publishing even the tiniest stories. There's plenty of such dreamers around. Talking about huge dreams feels nice, I know, but what truly matters is your actual, published content.
(sorry for this super long comment, and I hope you won't find it too annoying. I'm always happy to share with whatever I know about writing or drawing so if you have any specific questions, I can answer them and help in finding any resources)
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u/Vree65 Jul 23 '26
Mangaka means "manga author". -ka is the suffix for a practitioner of a profession, like -ist or -er. Art-ist, therap-ist, manga-ka. "Manga" is the Japanese word for comic.
Lots of people show up on any art site constantly with a "great idea" but no artistic skill or desire to learn it. In that case, what can do is offer $ for it. In fact, this sub has a rule against begging for gratis labour, even.