laurakrivera

[laurakrivera]

Mexican-American girl working 3 jobs to pay her mortgage meets a homeless guy who turns out to be a werewolf guarding an angel. After she absorbs the angel's powers, she must continue the mission they started. Sailor Moon meets Twilight meets Van Hellsing in this action packed new Webtoon by Laura Rivera.

[laurakrivera]

Webcomic Updates

My webcomic The Butterfly Cape is now updating every Thursday =) the first 2 parts of Chapter 4 are out! Go check it out https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/the-butterfly-cape/list?title_no=679219

[laurakrivera]

Happy October 3rd to those who celebrate!

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD (2009) | Episode 58: ‘Sacrifices’ MEAN GIRLS (2004)

[laurakrivera]

I want to lock myself away and rot here 🤍💭

[laurakrivera]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[laurakrivera]

I wish Americans fucked with more foreign music. You don’t have to know the language to appreciate a good record. Folks in other countries listen to our music and don’t speak a lick of english. Music needs no translator

[laurakrivera]

Webcomic platforms can help get your comic published when you want something quick and easy to start out! They generally share a few qualities:

They format everything in a basic way so you don't have to do much set up your own space to look nice on web/mobile

They have no fee to publish your comics there, because you are using their web hosting

They may get your comic in front of other readers with mobile apps or online catalogs

If you meet their criteria, you may also be able to find hosting with digital comic stores, publishers, and collectives, and this may get you a bit more in the way of money, promotional opportunities, or editor assistance.

Even if you choose to host your website on its own webhost with a comic CMS, you might also consider finding a platform that aligns with your comic goals and "mirroring" your pages there.

In this post, we look at all the webcomic platforms out there we could find in our research!

This post may be updated as time goes on as new platforms enter the hosting arena, or other important updates come to light.

Questions:

💻 Everyone uses social media, could I just use that as a platform for my comic? - One-shot or strip comics without a continuous story that can be read in any order can do okay on social media, and people have adapted Tumblr to display a series of pages. But for continuous long-form stories, social media platforms are better for keeping your readers updated and general promotion.

📚 Wait, what if I want to build my own website and drive people there? - We have another masterlist of website hosts for that!

🕵️‍♀️What kinds of restrictions can I expect? - Many comic platforms have restrictions on NSFW content, links to other sites, or could be invite/application-only. We've tried to note those on the cards, as well as a list of comic platforms that have predatory business practices at the very end that we recommend avoiding. Always do your research!

Webcomic Platforms

Webtoon Canvas

Tapas

Webtoon Originals

SpiderForest Webcomic Collective

Hiveworks

ComicFury

The Duck

Saturday AM

GlobalComix

NamiComi

DillyHub

Shrine Comics

[laurakrivera]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[laurakrivera]

Questions to ask beta readers

General:

Were you confused at any point of the story?

What genre would you say this book is?

When did you put the story down?

Is the ending satisfying?

If you had to cut 3 scenes what would they be?

When did you feel like the story really began?

What was the last book you read before this story?

Characters:

Do you get any of the characters names confused?

Which character is your favorite?

If you had to remove a character who would you and why? (you don't have to remove the character, just make sure their role is meaningful)

Which character do you relate to the most?

Which character do you relate to the least?

Do the characters feel real?

Are character relationships believable?

Are the goals clear and influence the plot?

Are the characters distinct (voice, motivations, etc)

Setting:

Which setting was clearest to you?

Which setting was the most memorable?

Am including enough/too much detail?

Plot and conflict:

Are the internal and external conflicts well defined for the main characters?

Are the internal conflicts and the external conflicts organic and believable?

Are there enough stakes?

Are the plot twists believable but still unexpected?

[laurakrivera]

A Simple Trick for Fic Writers

Hey, if you're a fic writer and a character speaks in a different language, you don't just have to add the translation in the notes. Use the following HTML coding to add 'text on hover' to the word(s). If the reader is on a computer they can hover over the text to see the translation.

<div title="This is the text in the box!">This is the text that shows in your fic!</div>

Here are some examples from a fic on my AO3.

This coding here <div title="a fool, idiot (lit. emptyhead)">Eyn utreekov</div> will show this on hover.

This next example shows that you can add a lot of text. The formatting is the same as above.

PS: When doing this, there may be spacing issues, but you can edit the text through AO3's html or rich text editor. From there you can add italics (like I did), bold, etc, and fix any weird spacing issues. Just be careful not to delete the coding that you worked so hard on 😂

[laurakrivera]

Enemies to Lovers isn't Haters to Lovers, and neither is it Rivals to Lovers

Haters to Lovers are two people who hate each other. It's usually petty, and they bring out the worst in each other. The whole journey to love is learning to love each other even after all their flaws have been exposed, and learning to deal with and accept why they disliked each other in the first place. Maybe they remind each other of a character flaw they don't like. Maybe they misunderstood each other when they first met and accidentally struck a nerve. But the beauty of haters to lovers is after that messy beginning they know they'll be able to stick by each other through every annoyance.

Rivals to Lovers is two people who are competing. They are both working towards the same thing or something similar, so they are trying to get ahead of the other. They may hate each other. They may act like enemies, but the best part about the dynamic is how they see each other as equals in terms of the threat they pose to their goals. The beauty of rivals to lovers is their respect burgeoning into admiration, into learning to care for another, into valuing the other's opinions and in learning to find validation that doesn't constantly require them to be only the best, just themselves.

Now for Enemies to Lovers, the people are on different sides. Opposite sides. They might hate each other. They might be rivals. But the most important distinction is that their ideals, their worldviews, clash and they are under the belief that their view must be the one to prevail. They try to kill each other or at least move them out of the equation. The beauty of enemies to lovers is learning to accept another's viewpoint, in seeing both sides in any story (bonus if both of their sides are evil so they run off to start a rebellion and a new way of thinking). The beauty of enemies to lovers is learning to trust someone who you believe would be the least deserving of that trust, and of finding beauty in difference.

Usually at the end of these the characters find that they aren't so different after all, and they went from antagonists to supportive lovers, but to me each of the journeys is a little bit different.

[laurakrivera]

harley quinn redesign but she dresses like xuxa

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Naruto's handmade Kakashi doll collection😁

[laurakrivera]

archers gloves vs digital artist gloves being opposite of one another

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this aint duck season

[laurakrivera]

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.