-->EDIT: If you are new to the topic, please try the extend version. It's based on this graphic and more detailled. [link] 2. chara sheet :thumb247532384:
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Sry for this bad design. ^^' But my creativity is completly down at the moment...

Nevertheless I decided to do something helpful and created this little pic. It is supposed to help out my crappy explanation in my current blog thingy. I explained the importance of a main character and main conflict as the basement of a story in there and I felt like there should be some illustration.

Just a short explanation on this whole thing:

[The base:] The main conflict and the main character of a story belong toghether. They decide in which direction your story goes, how it developes and how it ends. They are the basement of your story. If you changed them you would write another story.

[Layer 1:]
The first layer is conceptional mostly. Before actually telling the story as a manga, a novel or whatever you have to think about the points mentioned in layer 1.
-> Who are the most important characters?
-> Who are minor characters?
-> How is the society build up? What are special attitudes/ behaviours/ prejudices/ conceivabilities/ of the society your characters live in? How do the characters think about that?
-> How is the world they live in structured? (ranks, social status, politic system, econimic system, poor/ rich country/... )
-> How does the nature/ animals/ plants look like? Typical landscapes? Strange fantasy animals? Carnivorous plants?
-> What are typical beliefs and traditions in this country/ state/ nation/ etc.
-> How does their History affect the people/ nation/...
-> What technical equipment do they have? How industrialized are they?

-> Which important actions toke/ will take place in your story?
-> When does your story have climax/ turning points/ ... and how do you arrange them? (tension!)

[A very good tip here is to make a timeline for yourself. Put in all the actions you know from the beginning of cronception nd add further ideas later on, when you are already writing or still plan your story. This will help you to keep an overview on your timeline and prevents you to make any (chrono)logical mistakes.]

And very important ->style -related:
-> In what artistical way do you want to present your story? (written, illustrated, ...)
-> What atmospehere should your story have? (-> affects choice of words/ colors/ stilistic devices/...)
-> What's the concept of telling the story? (dairy entries, mostly chronological story with some flashbacks, ...)
->From what point of view will the story be told?
-> Does your style fits the approach you claim on the story or do you have to change it to get the story across as you have thought of it?

[Here the key words are chosen for comic artists. If you are a writer you should watch your choice of words, how you build scenes (order of describing environments, characters, actions), and also how you format your text in order to tell your story effectively.]


If you have thought of all these points and know at least roughly a few things related to all these points you are pretty well prepared to start the story and concentrate on layer 2 while telling it. Notice these preparations are made to help you to build up a logical illussion of a world you want to present, because even though you are writing a biography it is always affected by a point of view and that's why it is always some kind of fiction and not a real and objective text/ illustration of an actual situation. The preparations are not made to explain every single fact in your story neither to explain every character from the bottom of his heart or anything. There preparations are a big help for the author/ mangaka/ ... to understand his characters/ world/ story... and therefore to tell the story in the most effective way and with the most tension. Try to avoid long explanations in storys in general!!!

[Layer 2:]

The information the author/ mangaka/ ... wants to get across the reader have to be packed into the story - some of them by short explanations, some of them just as common part of the notional world the author creates (e.g. clitschees!), and some as part of own interpretation by the reader.

This information are put into the things mentioned in layer 2. These are also the things you should concentrate one during the writing/ illustrating process. Working out relationships, demonstrating conflicts and solving them, telling the story of a character as part of inner monologue or flash back - all these things and more are the stylistic devices authors/ mangakas (in general all people who invent stories) have. They are driving the story and make it interesting. They put the tension in it. Creating such a complex network of relation ships , conflicts, information about the world, and the resolution of all this is the most hardest part of making stories, but it also the most fun, when you boost the story to (another) climax or surprise your readers with another turning point that completly changes everything and opens new questions while answering others.

In my graphic I put in some of the story driving things, such as relationships, background information, etc. I scaled each across certain features of layer 1.
All features covered by one of these bars have to be considered when thinking about this special device in layer two. E.g. If you want to give your reader a deeper look into the relationship between two characters (look at the bar relationships in layer 2) you have to consider all the features of layer 1 below which are covered by this bar. Here it is "Important characters, Minor characters, Society and History". So, when you go deeper in a special relationship keep in mind , where your characters come from, what point of views the society might have given them, why they are related to each other, what things happened to them in the past and affected their opion.

[Result:]
The result of this big creating process can be a story that is most of the time not real obviously, but a story readers want to dip in and explorer through your eyes - in short a real looking illusion of a fictional world.

[In Addition:]
As I said, it is complex to create a good story, but it is also a lot of fun. This graphic shall help a little bit, when considering the one or another thing. You can also extend it for yourself with other stylistic devices or features.

I hope it will help you. I will also use this as some guideline for further explanations on my blog. You can visit me there if you like. [link] . But I also think about making an additional tutorial explaining all these things a bit more in detail - using the text from my blog then. Tell me if you are interested!

Additions or constructive critic are also most welcome!

Please tell me if there are any language mistakes. I am not a native speaker and my English is crappy sometimes! ^^'