Making a comic

[toby]

Me and a few friends have decided to write,illustrate and distribute on the internet our own manga. I have been given the job of story writing and Plot development. This sounds so much harder than I thought it would be.

First I wanted to make a completely unique story. I have already went through 4 different drafts yet my stories always find a way to be similar to something else I have seen My stories always sem to be like Roruni Kenshin, or Samurai Champloo or some other anime.

Does anyone know I way I can jumpstart my brain and find a completely original idea.

[Son of Bryce]

No story is really completely original, the anime you mentioned aren't exactly original ideas either. They're "historically" based in specific time periods in Japan. They just come up with a twist and creativity to make it seem unique (like Champloo is hip-hop influenced right?). You may want to do research on true samurai stories to find inspiration. Or at the very least, I would recommend checking out classic Akira Kurosawa movies based in feudal Japan like Seven Samurai, Rashamon and Yojimbo. I would say a lot of (if not all) samurai anime/movies have drawn influence from his movies.

To come up with an idea, the easiest thing is take the basis of another story and make your story around it. Most stories are really the same archetypal situations, just set in different settings or situations. Maybe not start with an anime for reference, try Shakespeare or whatever.

[Drewbacca]

or you could maybe do a manga about france or england or america and take the story in a totally unique direction to differenciate yourself from all of the japanese history routed manga out there. It's tiresome.

[Wolffen]

There are no more original ideas any more, just new mixtures. The important thing is a good foundation/mixture. The star of your comic could be a character, a team of characters, the time period, an environment, or even a situation. What if you took a samurai and put him in Mexico during Poncho Villa's time? What if you had a murder mystery set during the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate? What if people from different times/cultures found themselves in Dark Age Germany? What if you look at how different people responded to the brutal killing of a love one?

Find the focus of the manga, and play with it. You'll get a spark eventually.

[jonas]

No more ideas?

Man, this world is doomed.

[Drewbacca]

There are no more original ideas any more, just new mixtures. The important thing is a good foundation/mixture. The star of your comic could be a character, a team of characters, the time period, an environment, or even a situation. What if you took a samurai and put him in Mexico during Poncho Villa's time? What if you had a murder mystery set during the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate? What if people from different times/cultures found themselves in Dark Age Germany? What if you look at how different people responded to the brutal killing of a love one?

Find the focus of the manga, and play with it. You'll get a spark eventually.

People who say there are no new ideas are mediocre.

[Wolffen]

Thank you. Nothing like debating the statement by attacking the person, Andrew.

You could pick apart most any fictional story and find elements similar to another story or fable. Most stories feature conflict, and there are 5 main conflict types:
* Man vs Man
* Man vs Himself
* Man vs Nature
* Man vs the Supernatural
* Man vs Fate

By mixing archetypes and elements you can create something new to the reader, which is what counts.

[Drewbacca]

Just because it can be categorized doesn't mean it's unoriginal. Subtext is a powerful writing tool.

[Anarkex]

when i come up with a comic story, i usually make the character first. The character usually begins as a freehand doodle i draw just to experiment with a physical characteristic, and then after the first ten or so times i draw it, something clicks and the character writes its own story. Try doing sketches of different ideas. or write a few random, one-page stories about different time periods, places, worlds, whatever. It doesn't always matter how much effort you put into it, if you keep writing, something will come out eventually.

[rezo]

Just because it can be categorized doesn't mean it's unoriginal.

Yeah. I don't think people should concern themselves with the idea that "there are no new ideas", because when people are talking about that, they're talking about something like "a comic about a basketball team isn't original because there is another comic about basketball out there already" and that other comic wasn't original because it wasn't the first sports comic, and that first sports comic wasn't original because it was about a young boy maturing, and that's been done plenty of times. All of the characters and scenarios that you come up with that make your work distinct from others is what really matters. The basic theme or plot is just there to get you started on something you're interested in. "Oh, I sure like ninjas", so you do a comic about ninjas. Or "Oh, I sure do like spaceships shooting shit", so you do a space opera. But the real work and content of your story comes from what you do with it. If all you have in your head is "I want to do a space opera!" Then yes, the one you come up with will probably be a cliched hodgepodge of characters and events that you were a fan of. However, if you have original ideas(in that you're not aware of them being used before) then go with them. What's important is that you tell the story you want to tell, and that you pick one that you don't remember being told before.

Maybe someone has/had the same idea you consider original. Who cares. Just go with it. If you're sharp enough, you'll come up with such a nice set of characters and events that it won't matter, and you and the guy that had the same thing to say will likely say it in a very different way. And so may have other people in the past did it in their own way. Just try and avoid mimicking the path some of those people took, and try to come up with something that is unique enough to be worth reading to any of the people that are fans of work that may be considered similar.