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Drawing versus Writing
BrushwoodMutt
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I enjoy both drawing pictures and writing stories. And the number 1 advice I always hear on how to get better is to do them everyday. Unfortunately I don't always have a lot of time to do both everyday, or even one in some cases. But I was curious if anyone had advice with regards to how much time do each require to get better? Is there a way to make the most out of time put into each? I'm just looking for advice from the writers and artists or others who might know some tips to help me refine my craft.
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The answer is that there really isn't an answer. No one is going to give you an X amount of hours that are going to make you a better writer. The advice you already gotten is probably the best one- to get better, you just got keep doing it, day after day, month after month. But it's more than just sitting down and writing. To get better, you have to be critical of your writing, read a lot, and read outside your normal genres. And when you read, you have to read critically, find why a story works, why it doesn't. You have to listen to people around you and remember how they talk, so your dialogue rings true. And you have to be prepare to throw away 10 pages and save only one sentence.
And I'm sure drawing is just as intensive.
I'm in the mindset that unless you're one of those special, rare people, you probably won't be able to do both extremely well. There's nothing wrong with drawing/writing just for fun, but if you want to get better, either to make a living off it or because of an artistic need you have inside of you, at soe point youll probably have to make a choice between the two.
That is why I'm asking about tips and tricks for both.
39 hours between work and school still leaves approximately 4-6 hours of leisure time a day during the week days and approximately 10 hours on weekends for various forms of art. The best tip/trick you can learn is to stop doing the time wasting things and add something to your routine that helps you focus. Lets say you have work at 8 every morning, wake up at 6 instead of 7 and spend that hour drawing or writing every morning. Lets say you get home at 6 every night, after dinner spend 6-7 drawing or writing. The only way you wouldn't have much time to art regularly is if you are seeing art as the same as your work and school obligations, which isn't a good way to look at it. Even if you want to do either professionally you really have to live and breathe it over other hobbies in order to get solid (so in place of video games, netflix, etc).
Have gaps between classes? Pull out your sketchbook or open a google drive doc on your laptop.
Even if you spent 30 minutes a day at it, you will improve like crazy over time. The only real tip and trick to getting better at something is hard work (RUDY! RUDY!).
Spending some downtime on the couch? Pull out a laptop or sketchbook and write up some short scenes while you veg and watch TV.
As an aside, the Writers Block and Artist Block's threads have great reservoirs of free tips and tricks as far as techniques and review, so check those out too!
I don't know if we need to put an exact hour on the time doing something. Yeah, there's days I put that much time into writing (and come out with like 1000 words to show for it), but there's also days when I put in less than that. The important thing is to be doing it, and to be doing it consistently.
There's none. You simply either make time for what you want to do better, or you don't. A good question to ask yourself is why you want to get better at drawing and writing. Do you have a passion for both already? Do you feel like you need to put down the stories in your head? I know a couple of people that write fan fiction. They have no real interest in getting 'better', they just have a couple of ideas floating in their head and they get a kick out of people reading their stuff. I don't necessarily think that's the way to go, but it does satisfy that urge they have to write, and they keep it siply as a hobby.
Tabletop gaming - 2-4
work and school - 40
Sleep - 40
general transportation, upkeep, chores - 16
This puts you at aproximately 100 of 168 hours. What are you doing with the rest of that time?
That being said, there is a huge difference between how effective putting time into art, and writing is.
Drawing is generally pretty straight forward, meaning that most people will see improvement in their work if they draw for 30 minutes every day, even if they don't look back at their old drawings. At the very least, the art will get looser and not take as much time to create. This is probably because art is a visual-motor skill and you can see a difference between the drawing of a cat you just made, and an actual cat. (Then adjust your work the next time you try drawing a cat.)
Writing doesn't work that way, though. A lot of learning how to write doesn't actually involve you doing any writing, because you can write for 30 minutes every day and not get any better at it. (Probably because writing is a lot like talking.)
To get better at writing, you have to look back at your old writing and edit it. Or at least figure out what things you've done well, and what things were done poorly. You have to look at other people's writing and figure out what it is that they're doing well to learn what makes a good writer. You need to show your writing to other people- people who will give you honest answers as to what's good and what's bad about your work. Then sit down at your computer, and try applying what you've learned as you write. That's really the only way to get better at writing.
One thing that helped me with both writing and art, was taking a bunch of Art History classes. Seriously- you spend all your time analyzing minute details of other people's artwork, learning about what it was they were doing that made their work so great. And then writing about it. You really learn how to describe stuff in a compelling way, and how to tighten up your writing in general. It's really, really helped me.
As someone trained in this fashion for writing, I can say nothing hurt my writing more than being taught that this was essential to writing at early developmental levels. This turned me off to writing so much that I ended up stopping writing for almost eight years due to instinctively deconstructing and analyzing everything I read. It taught me the functionality of literary techniques, true, but at the same time made anything I wrote seem miserable and really robbed the entire fun of writing for me.
Your miles may vary with this.
Maybe I'm assuming too much here, but it sounds like you were looking at and analyzing writing. Not artwork.
The reason I suggested Art History and not writing classes was because there's enough distance between Art History and fiction (which I'm assuming is what the OP is trying to get better at) to not suck all the fun out of writing fiction while still teaching you a lot of things that can be applied to fiction writing.
For drawing improvement, there are going to be times where you need to sit down and have a longer than an hour session to improve. You'll be making a bunch of mistakes and you'll need to really put your full concentration to figuring out whats wrong. The enrichment have a lot of suggestions for small assignments to do. We were rolling them out monthly, and I consider that a good time frame to focus on one area of your skills, spend a few weeks on some structure exercises, a few weeks on anatomy, color and light, and keep rotating for ever. At least once every few drawing sessions, set out to do a fundamental exercise. You'll see improvement over time.
If both of these activities are hobbies that you don't really plan to pursue as a career, I would avoid stressing out about cramming hours for each every week. Carry a sketchbook/journal around with you, doodle when you sit down for lunch. Some weeks you'll do more, some less, that's okay. Seek feedback from your peers and don't work in a vacuum
I suggest picking up the wonderbook: Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer
It has some pretty good insight on both inspiration and structure when it comes to writing.
https://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-“thought”-verbs
it takes a while to get to that point. you need to read a lot to get there and reading later on will help you boost the drive to bring it out. you need to have written quite a bit, have shared your writing, and have properly invested some time into learning about literary techniques and identifying them in short stories, novels, poetry and other mediums. you also need some experience and a good idea of your context as a writer - your audience and the industry. those things aren't too hard.
so basically be a writer, then be a drawer
To answer the question most touched on: What's my goal? Why am I asking this?
So my end goal is to create a webcomic. I do have a plan on how to make money to help support this, if it works out. And so to that end, since I plan to do a narrative piece, because I know I'm not humorous enough for a gag comic, being able to write seemed like a good skill to have. I have always loved writing and drawing, so both are important for me. Before anyone says "You don't need to write a full story to do a webcomic," I know that. However, I feel like there are some things that can't or shouldn't be translated into the comic medium. For example, when people have walls of text to describe some history of the world they created, this typically being in the prologue or early on. Or when doing tie-ins, such as Jerry writing a book on the Lookouts and not just writing the webcomic with Mike. I recognize that they are two separate people with different skills, but I don't work with anyone. So I'd be doing both the webcomic and written literature about the world, most likely stories that are tied to the story of the webcomic, be it sidestories or history/mythology.
And to answer the math problem, it isn't that exact on time allocation because different days require different schedules. But I will admit I procrastinate a lot...mostly because from a very young age the idea of perfectionism was beaten into me along with a crippling fear of failure...I am currently working on overcoming that issue.
I also seem to be taking from this thread, to perhaps set-up a thread in Writer's Block and Artist's Corner to get feedback to help facilitate growth.
You should be reading graphic novels, and thinking about what the different cartoonists are doing right as you read. It's a good way to see what a polished cartoonist can do.
Read story-heavy webcomics. And webcomics where the cartoonist was just starting out. Look at how their art developed over time. Compare the old art to the newer art. It's a really good way to figure out how to get better, because with practice you can see somebody else correcting their own work and what they did that improved it.
There are books you should read, if you haven't already:
How to make Webcomics- a pretty good intro to webcomics in general
The Webcomic Handbook- a little self-congratulatory, but pretty decent about explaining how to set up a webcomic and more in depth than the previous book
Making Comics- this is just really good for giving you some pointers on basic comic-making
Understanding comics- generally considered a must-read
For example, everday, no matter what, I write at least 250 words. When I'm on a roll, I can get that done in five or ten minutes, and if the juices are flowing, that gets me primed to writing more, hitting even a thousand in a night. When I'm having trouble getting the ideas to turn into words, 250 is still small enough that I can force through and still get something done without completely weaing myself out
. I'm just about to reach the 8th month of unbroken writing, with roughly 80,000 words behind me Set a goal, and stick with it every day, for example, a strip's worth of script, and a single completed panel, every day, no matter what.
You have two options, learn by yourself, or learn by studying in a good art academy. Books such as the Loomis series are a good start.