Some Thoughts on My Stories (Patreon)

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my comics over the past two years. I feel that my comic art skills are pretty solid, but there’s always something lacking in the plots themselves.

As I was telling my girlfriend the story of my latest comics before bed last night, it suddenly hit me—am I putting too much emphasis on things like "novelty," "plot twists," and "unique gimmicks"?

I’ve poured so much energy into keeping the audience guessing, or coming up with new ways to play with the skinsuit concept, that I often overlook the core appeal of the skinsuit trope itself—the fundamental thrill of identity disguise and replacement. Those are the things that make skinsuit stories truly compelling.

There are so many ideas I’ve used before that I never want to revisit again. But now I’m wondering if that’s the wrong approach. In my effort to avoid repeating myself, I’ve ended up crafting all sorts of bizarre plots and content. But would the fans who love this genre really stop enjoying my work just because I reused a certain idea?

To be clear, I’m not saying I don’t want to come up with new gimmicks or ideas at all. What I mean is that some classic tropes are totally worth revisiting—so long as the story itself is compelling enough. Building new twists on that foundation is the right approach, instead of forcing weird, convoluted plots just to avoid reusing old ideas.

In other words, I feel that if I redo some of my old stories with my current technical skills while keeping their basic plots intact, they might be more engaging than my current convoluted storylines... When I told my girlfriend the stories of Fantasy Workshop 1-3 yesterday, I realized just how nested and overcomplicated they were. I tried to rationalize everything, but ended up creating the biggest inconsistency—Judy really had no need to pull off such an elaborate prank, because it didn’t bring a better or more interesting life experience to either Judy or John.

The same goes for the recent chapters of Little Sister. I stuck to the idea of introducing new character models in each episode instead of focusing on the mind games between the original few characters, which dragged the plot on and on with one foreshadowing and twist after another. I forgot that it was originally just a power fantasy story about a little sister with a crush on her brother who gets a skinsuit gun. While, I still really like the Halloween Story from October and November. XD

So moving forward, besides continuing the few long-form series I’ve been working on, I will embrace a certain degree of back-to-basics in my plots. I’ll focus on the core thrills that come with using skinsuits, rather than piling on twists and innovations, or adapting classic novels by my friends. I think this approach will be much better.

If you think I’ve been overemphasizing plot twists and novelty to the point where the story itself has suffered, please vote Yes.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and you’re more than welcome to leave comments and join the discussion!

我近来在思考自己这两年创作的问题，因为我感觉我漫画的制作水平还算不错，但是目前剧情总是感觉缺点什么。

昨天睡前我给我的女朋友讲述我最近制作的故事剧情，突然意识到了一个问题，那就是是不是我有些过于注重”新奇“，”反转“，”特殊玩法“这类内容了，我投入了过多的注意力在让大家猜不到剧情，或者怎么把skinsuit玩出新花样，而经常忽略皮物这一设定的本身爽点，也就是身份伪装/代替这些最本质的东西，其实这些才是皮物最吸引人的地方。

很多我之前使用过的点子我就再也不想做第二次了，但我现在在想是不是这样是不对的，我为了不重复使用这些东西而去琢磨出了太多奇奇怪怪的剧情和内容，但喜欢看这些的是不会因为我重复使用了某个点子而不喜欢看的？我感觉我应该返璞归真一些？

当然我不是说完全不想新的玩法或者点子，而是有些经典的套路是可以重复使用的，只要故事情节足够吸引人，在这个基础上，去开发新的玩法才是正确的方式，而不是为了规避过去的一些点子而去把故事剧情变得有些奇怪。

换句话说我感觉我把一些我的老的故事大致剧情不变，用现在的技术水平重新做一下可能都会比现在的复杂剧情更有看头……我昨天给我女朋友讲Fantasy Workshop 1-3的故事，才意识到我套了这么多层娃，我想把事情合理化，却造成了最大的不合理——Judy其实完全没必要去搞这么一个复杂的恶作剧，因为其实这么搞对于Judy和John两个人都并没有带来更好更有趣的生活体验。

还有Little Sister最近几章的剧情也是如此，我秉持着每集给大家带来一些新的角色模型，而不是老的这几个角色斗智斗勇的想法，把剧情一拖再拖，伏笔反转一个接一个，却忘了它本来只是一个暗恋哥哥的妹妹拿到皮枪之后的爽文。当然，10月和11月的Halloween Story我自己还是挺喜欢的。

所以我后面除了把之前的几个长篇继续以外，我的剧情要一定程度上的返璞归真，把重点放在使用皮物之后的爽点上，而不是一再的反转和创新，或者去改变我的朋友们的几个经典小说，我觉得这样可能会更好。

如果大家觉得我现在过度注重反转和新奇，而使得剧情变弱的话就投”Yes“。

我想看看大家的意见，同时也欢迎大家评论讨论！