Common mistake beginners make with Manga

I made a post on Tumblr the other day, talking about what I believe to be a common mistake made by beginners when first trying to write a Manga for the first time. I figured I might as well make a DA journal of it too.

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I thought about this a lot last night, and I figured I should write about it here.

When I first started wanting to make my own Manga, I had a very distinct goal in mind. To create the best Manga. Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a great Manga, but my idea of how it was done was very off.

You see, I would start to plan the kind of Manga I want to make, and it would be a lot like. - "I want it to have the in-depth, strategic characters of Deathnote, the intense battles of Bleach, the funniness of Bobobobobo(Or however it’s spelled) and the et cetera of etc.

The problem is that I just wanted to take all the good aspects of Manga that I liked and put it all together into one thing. The same applies to when thinking of what genres to use. - action, comedy, romance, drama, suspense, horror, mystery, crime, supernatural, etc. etc.

You see, take any one of those genres/types of stories and you can make a great story. In some cases you can have multiple types of genres in one thing. ie, action-comedy, drama-supernatural, crime-etc. BUT, when you try to mix all of them together, you end up with a poorly thoughtout, and underwelming story.

Think of it this way. Take the color red, it’s a good color all by itself. Now add some blue, and it makes purple, a completely new color. This is how mixing genres/story types works. You mix two-three things to make other things.

Now, if mixing blue with red worked the first time, then adding other colors should make it better right? no. Because when you add too many colors, it turns black/grey. I’m not sure if that’s the best metaphor, but you get the idea.

A good example is to look toward your favorite Manga/book/tv show, and look at what stories they went with. Deathnote for example. It had a strategic plot, and serious characters. But aside from the shinigami(Which didn’t do much), and the titular deathnotes, the story was more or less very plain. There was no magic battle, aliens, or insanely funny moments.

I suppose you could say that the most common mistake of every beginner is to try to be something perfect instead of just something good. When I started thinking of Manga stories, I wanted them to be perfect, and while I still aim to make a great Manga, I know that no Manga can appeal to everyone.

There’s a reason that the greatest Mangas ever are loved by some, and hated by others. Look at DragonBallZ, hailed as one of the greatest Manga ever made, and also criticized for it’s simple plot, lack of character development and a handful of other things. The reason for this is because what it does do, it does well, and what it doesn’t do, didn’t NEED to be done. If you added an in-depth plot/subplots, strategy, or other story filled things into DBZ, it would possibly ruin it.

The point of this, is that if you want to make a slice of life story, it doesn’t need huge battles, alien invasions, and demon portals. Just as an action filled space battle between gods doesn’t need to be based in a slice of life high-school setting.

Don’t try to do to much, or you’ll end up doing nothing at all.

I’m not sure if anyone will find this useful, but had I read this when I was fourteen, it would have prevented me from making a lot of dumb mistakes.

I primarily mention Shonen Manga, as that is what I myself read, but I’m positive that this applies to any genre of Manga, and also other mediums of story telling, such as American comic, and even literature and movies/tv shows.