Man, all you guys with nothing but thumbnails...
I used to do just that, but it can make reaching plot points a bit harder, plus, I misinterpreted what was going on in my thumbs and lost a few of them. The story ended up going in strange directions.

I haven't the patience for scripting. But I used to be really good at story writing in high school and I actually still find writing extremely pleasurable, as much as drawing. So now I love to write out a story treatment. You know, with a beginning, middle, and end, and then write in all the bits in between. As long as you're not TOO clever when you do it (be careful with literary allusion, metaphor and all that), it's easy to translate to comic form.

Just DON'T be too clever with your writing. It's wasted effort since you have to cut all that out when it turns into a comic.

Most of the entire story is already outlined, so most of what I end up doing is finessing the actual panel writing. I'm a huge fan of ad-libbing in acting when I do that, so aspects of that end up in my finished work.

There have been a few times where I strike gold on a sequence or run of converstaion and I try my best to stick to it exactly. So I guess, I little of both. :)

Aussie_kid
While doing comics, I've done two forms of writing. One is planning out the story before the artwork gets started. Knowing what will happen from start to finish and some of the details or perhaps all of them. The second is when it's time to make the page, I just write the script then or even while it's being done.

So which do you guys tend to do more? Plan it out or make it up as you go along?

I end up doing on the spot a lot, but sometimes I write it out.

Both turn out good.

I'm just going to mention how I make up 1 issue. As I have a method for much larger as well.

I write down the key points 1st. What do I want to focus on this issue? How do I wish to further the plot, character development, etc

I also note what kind of story am I wanting to tell. Is this issue an action issue? Romance? Comedy? Mystery? I break the issue up into a % of all these. I'll say the issue will be 70% mystery, 20% comedy, and 10% action... Not sure why this may help but I like doing it =p

I come up with a very vague story to string things together after I figure out the direction. Kinda writing down a brief description with any key notes I need to remember.

Then all I have to do is fill in the blanks by scripting/thumbnailing. I use an amalgam method of the 2. I sketch out the scenes very quickly as the "episode" plays in my head. I leave lots and lots of notes at times sometimes spanning a couple pages for each page.

I like being far far ahead in my story (currently scripting issue 23)this gives me a LOT of time to fix any plotholes, continuity errors, and revise dialogue, layouts etc. It also gives me plenty of time to second guess and reinvision what I have done.

Needless to say I could NOT make my comic well without scripting.

Both.

I have scripts, sometimes they don't really work in real comic land, so I have to change them. I have major plot points planned out to make sure everything doesn't drag on forever, as it would do if I had free reign. Sometimes I'll take the comic off the tagent I had planned to follow a certain character or joke for a bit. In the end I have the comic broken down in three major books, planned along the lines of 'at the end of this book, this character will be here' and then each book has three sections. Which is where I plan which characters will be introduced and leave.

I do both, but I find that working improv with an idea what to do start to finish seems to work out better than writing a script. I do enjoy doing scripts more, and I've never considered myself and improv kind of person, but stories I make up as I go are the ones that my friends seem to enjoy the most.

Im kinda both myself. I think about the ideas but i dont write them out on paper. I often do them on the spot while its in my mind. Thats why my comic isnt allways on the same day. i often do them when i get a idea.

I at least like to write an outline for the events that happen in my comics. Otherwise I'm not going anywhere.

I prefer to write my dialogue on the spot, because I always change it if I write it out. I do sometimes write something on a piece of paper if I'm writing a chunk of dialogue.