The process of trying to write dialogue that sounds like two earth humans having a conversation rather than two competing salvos of one-liners and mission statements. (Or if I'm doing really badly, one salvo of one-liners and mission statements and the other person making vague helpless noises that set them up for more.)
I want to start drawing again and see if I can get better at it, but I'm not really sure what to start with. Basic figure drawing?
I'd start with shapes maybe? Most things are just a lot of basic shapes put together a certain way, and a good circle can get you far! Knowing your basics well will boost your art a lot, and makes for a good warm up as well. Also, tracing things is good practice! It gets you familiar with things like body shape and placement, things like that.
this is gonna sound so weird, but does anyone else feel like people are completely out of their mind when they compliment your art? def less of a creative gripe and more an adjacent-to-making-stuff-that's-creative gripe.
That's the imposter syndrome in action babeyyyy On a less self-flagellating front -- yeah, I sometimes genuinely look at a thing and go "I do not see a single thing that is appealing to me in it" and then show it to someone else and experience that moment where you watch from the outside someone else having that "click" moment and every time that happens I remember that as an artist I am not perfectly capable of translating my taste into.... like, a thing. So it's not a surprise that sometimes we cater to someone else more than we cater to ourselves.
isn't imposter syndrome just a thing in people who are actually well versed in something but believe they aren't? (edit: like, people actually working in a certain field, etc.)
My understanding is that it is a general feeling/anxiety that you somehow tricked people into "letting you get away" or "faking your way" into accomplishments of any kind, feeling like recognition of your skill of any kind is unwarranted, either because other people are better at things or because you feel like you didn't actually acomplish anything/do anything worthy of note.
Yeah "people who are good at the thing but think they suck" is... I wanna say Dunning-Kruger, even though that mostly gets used to talk about people who don't know jack shit overestimating their performance. I've always found visualising the Dunning-Kruger graph helpful whenever I start getting overly critical of my own work, because it's so much likelier that I'm just being hard on myself and that my critical abilities, in that moment, are better than my creative abilities. IvyB's explanation of the imposter syndrome is exactly correct, too. That feeling of being the emperor without clothes while everyone is complimenting your impeccable style falls under it by virtue of the disconnect existing between the quality of your work and the perception of it.
how do you manage large amounts of characters in a scene i accidentally six people in a room together and it's already so many. related gripe: how do i character description without it being too intrusive.
Relatable, on both, but especially the character description. With the many characters in a room, think about what the characters are doing any what they might be interested in. Of course, just because they're all present doesn't mean they have to all be participating, especially not all at the same time. It is hard to keep a sense... position, though. And honestly you probably shouldn't listen to me, I'm the person who turned my work into a comic (which I am now not developing properly) because I couldn't into dialogue and descriptions.
Maybe try writing each character's dialogue and actions in a different colour text so you can keep track of who's talking how much?
Legitimately I assign figures to them (or like salt shakers or coins or what have you) and move them around as the scene progresses so I don't lose track of anyone. Physical aids are gold.
all of this is very helpful, thank you. luckily this is from one character in specific's perspective so people can duck in and out and i don't have to handle them all ALL the time. esp the assigning figures, i'm gonna grab my dnd minis and use those for reference.
This is more from forensic reading of other people's stuff than from my own work, so I have no idea if it's any practical help, but re: character descriptions, my rule of thumb is 1) if Viewpoint Character A stops to study Character B, you can put in a pretty big chunk of description and it won't be weird. 2) If Character A is seeing Character B for the first time since the beginning of the scene, even if A isn't paying them a ton of attention you can drop in a line or two summarizing the most immediate visual impression they make. 3) Other bits of description can be dropped in piecemeal if/when something might draw A's attention to them.
thanks, I appreciate that. I'm trying to find a happy medium between "i have no idea what these characters look like" and "we've had eight paragraphs about her dress"
