u/Horrorcartoonistftw

I have gotten the critique a few times that whenever I try to write serious fiction it reads like a comedic summary of a longer serious fiction.

Something like Overly sarcastic production's journey to the west, or a crashcourse video about a classic piece of literature. Or one of those youtubers who summarize analogue horror.

When I bring my writing to crit groups, and don't specify that I am not trying to be comedic, people always launch into complementing my jokes and giving ideas for punching up the punchlines, when i didn't intend for their to be any jokes at all.

The big thing seems to be that folk's don't think my characters art like they are in a serious version of the events they are in, they read like the situations they are in have the gravity of a monty python sketch. And that critique makes sense, but I don't know how to get past writing like that.

Have any of you had this sort of issue? What would you recommend for getting past it?

I have been wanting to further my education and learn to be a better writer for awhile. So I decided to finally get it started and start taking a community college class

For the summer semester i signed up for a single once a week creative writing fiction class. Seemed like a solid place to start.

However, because of how portland community college works, i am going to need to sign up for fall classes before actually TAKING summer classes.

My first thought was that it would make sense for me to make my 2 days off a week tuesday and thursday, and just load those 2 up with as many classes as they would let me take.

But i feel like i dont know what im signing up for. Like if i sign up for 4 classes, how much time am i going to need to spend OUTSIDE of class. Because like, more then an hour and a half a day and suddently my scheduling is looking really really different. that kind of thing is tougher to figure out when your an adult with adult responsibilities.

How long do you spend on coursework outside of class per class? Any suggestions for what to do?

I have been wanting to take a writing class for awhile. And decided to finally get it started and start taking a community college class

For the summer semester i signed up for a single once a week creative writing fiction class. Seemed like a solid place to start.

However, because of how portland community college works, i am going to need to sign up for fall classes before actually TAKING summer classes.

My first thought was that it would make sense for me to take 2 days off of each week, and just make those days full school days where i spend all day in class.

But i feel like i dont know what im signing uo for. Like if i sign up for 4 classes, how much time am i going to need to spend OUTSIDE of class. Because like, more then an hour and a half a day and suddently my scheduling is looking really really different.

How long do you spend on coursework outside of class per class? Any suggestions for what to do?

I was wondering if you have any advice for Self publishing and advertising Comics. Specifically book sized graphic novels, which is my focus.

Here was my strategy for my last book:

1. while creating the book upload it section by section to webtoons and tumblr so that it can build an audience.
2. Get a kickstarter ready to print the physical version
3. pay for youtube, tumblr, and facebook ads to promote the kickstarter. (the cover on facebook, the kickstarter video on youtube, and full chapters on tumblr)
4. run the kickstarter and print the book. Use the leftover money to print 100 extra copies.
5. sell extra copies at conventions, do pretty well.
6. try selling them on amazon. (didn't work, no sales)
7. put up a print on demand version on ingram spark that I would make no money on per sale since it is in color, but bookstores could buy. (didn't work, no sales)

I'm working on a new project, a black and white horror graphic novel around 200 pages. Could be a stand alone, but I do have a full trilogy planned if the comic turns out well. And I am debating how I want to do the business side of things.

Part of me is debating whether or not to upload the project as I do it. Webcomics typically need to be fairly long before building an audience (or I might just not know how to do it). So it might work better to just skip the webcomic and the kickstarter, and publish it straight to amazon, then spend the ad money to promote the book their, and send or advanced reader copies so it can get reviews? Since it is black and white the print on demand won't be ridiculously expensive.

I will say I don't have much of an audience, most of the backers of my kickstarters have been people who found them on kickstarter.

Do you have any suggestions on how to approach this?