TLDR. I've written a script for my 1st episode, I whole heartedly believe the structure I have is the best possible for this story, but worry a reader might give up before it gets good.
I've been working on a story for a while (on and off for 18 months). It's a psychological horror with supernatural elements about an art student at university, who predicts the deaths of people around her by drawing her nightmares before she forgets them. I have planned the whole story, with 1 sentence for every scene. I'd say it's small to medium, with a planned 16 chapters complete story (not open ended) with 50 pages for chapter 1, then possibly dropping to 25 for the rest. I know this is ambitious, but I'm just going to slowly chip away at it even if it takes me years. I'm doing it all myself, writing and art (no AI). My 2D may be a bit weak, but I plan to compensate with my 3D. I've been enjoying making it and hope to one day finish it :)
I have finished my script for the 1st episode and want to move to either storyboarding or scripting episode 2, but am worried my 1st episode isn't strong enough on 1st reading.
I open with page 1 showing the climax of the episode, but hide key details. To hopefully hook the reader and to show this will be a semi gory horror story.
Then I flashback to a few days earlier to establish the cast's normal life, the place of comfort in the traditional story circle. This lasts about 40 pages, where I try to drop hints and clues for the reader to try to predict what happened in that cold open when the story catches up to it. If they completely miss all the clues, it does come across more like a slice of life comedy, so I intentionally tried to make my main cast fun and likable, hoping they will find them entertaining even if they miss the psychology and horror build up.
Things eventually catch up to the cold open with a sudden twist at the end of the chapter that even with the clues the reader hopefully won't see coming.
I'm genuinely proud of what I've come up with and I know it's impossible to make it perfect. I suspect it has some issues such as potentially being a little dialogue heavy, but that's because it's focused on characters and their conversations, which I hope to solve when story boarding with the bubbles or splitting some pages if I need to. But even though there may be a lot of dialogue, I do focus more on the visuals and try to avoid talking heads.
But this is where I need some advice.
Even though I think this is as strong as it could possibly be, I worry that if a reader expects psychological horror and misses all the little details, they will give up before the story really starts, even though I tried to make the 'slice of life' elements fun and engaging for the people who overlook this stuff or don't spot it till a re-read.
I think chapter 1 is the most important in any story, so I'm really just trying to get the strongest foundation before I move on to the next step. I'm just not sure if I have a problem and how to fix it if I do. Or if it's just a lack of self belief of confidence.
I know that getting some feedback would help, and I've had some from a few friends, which has been overwhelmingly positive. But they don't really read manga/comics. I believe they are just trying to encourage me rather than being critical.
So I have thought about trying to find beta readers online. But I just can't seem to bring myself to do so. I'm not worried about plagiarism, or even being told it's bad. I just seem to have this massive anxiety about sharing things online. For context, even making this post took several hours, due to worrying about how every line might be read or misunderstood, so my full script is terrifying to think about sharing publicly.
I guess I'd just like any advice on how to get past this feeling of doubt. Its like im getting imposter syndrome before I even have made something that is good enough to get imposter syndrome about :’)
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to look at my post 🙂