Recently it has become a trend at certain comics forums to ask for critique on story ideas. This is all well and good, and even preferred–getting critique on an idea before you actually execute it is excellent. However, if you’re going to bombard a forum with a giant, unorganized textwall, please consider this excellent guide by Gerry Swanson first!
The benefits of posting in this format are many, and also serve to help you think about what your comic is really about. People will also be less tempted to skim over your post or even just frantically mash the browsers back button!
LOG LINES
I think it would help a lot of people here to pretend like they’re pitching a movie to a Hollywood producer. The first thing a producer is going to want to hear is a “log line.” A log line is a single sentence that sums up your story. It’s not as easy as it sounds! If you are having trouble summing up your story in a single sentence, maybe you need to work on focusing what your story is about. Here is an example of a log line based on the movie Iron Man:
Playboy billionaire industrialist and inventor Tony Stark builds a robotic suit to escape from terrorists, and becomes a superhero to stop rogue executive Obadiah Stang.
THE PITCH
So assuming the producer digs you idea, you now give him a treatment or pitch. For our purposes I’m going to request you keep the pitch to one paragraph. Here you can go into some more detail. I wouldn’t go much longer than this:
Tony Stark runs Stark Industries, a multinational arms company. While demonstrating weapons in Aphganistan he is kidnapped by terrorists. They try to force him to build a bomb for them, but instead he uses his ingenuity to build a robot suit and escape from them. He decides that he’s been irresponsible, so he builds an even better robot suit and becomes a superhero. After discovering his own company is supplying weapons to terrorists he must stop the evil rogue executive Obadiah Stang!
WHAT NEXT?
So now hopefully you’ve sold the idea! Okay, so there are probably not any real Hollywood producers on this forum (but who knows?) However, every day at least 3 or 4 people post story ideas in this forum, and this will ensure that people actually READ your idea rather than skipping over it. Believe me, when most people are given a giant WALL OF TEXT they don’t read closely as they would have if the idea was more organized.
If you want you can write some short summaries of characters. Something short like this:
Tony Stark
Age: 37
Tony Stark is a brilliant inventor who owns Stark Industries. He is a heavy drinker and womanizer. He is also the Super Hero Iron Man.
But what about all those details you’ve spent so much time figuring out? Don’t worry about them right now. Right now you’re just introducing people to your idea. If people are interested, they’ll ask you questions and it’s then when you should elaborate.
