WEBTOON Basics Finding Story Ideas and Making Logline
GCC Academy
Learning Goals Can explain the definition and effective ways of writing a logline. Can explain the ways of brainstorming for webtoon ideas.
Learning Content Definition and writing method of logline How to come up with webtoon story line and idea
Kang Ji Young Webtoonist Career: Mentor for Seoul Webtoon Academy (SWA) Works: King's Maker (Triple Crown) OH, MY GOD! 2014 Naver Webtoon, What If? 2012 Rookies' Short Series (Hell Camp Season 2): Demon at the Convenience
Hello, I am the author of King's Maker (Triple Crown) on Kakao Page and Lezhin Comics
And Oh My God! at Naver; I am a Webtoon artist Kang Ji Young
Today I will be talking about brainstorming for ideas and writing loglines
Good to see you all
Before we begin, I say this before every class
That I am going to talk about my experience as well as general examples
Meaning, you do not need to take my words as unchanging rules
You are more than welcome to ignore any parts that you do not agree with
Because creative work has no right or wrong
Today you will learn what a logline is
And how to write one
Next, you will learn about ideas and brainstorming for Webtoon
Shall we begin with the logline?
Definition and How-to: Logline
Definition and Purpose of Logline
A logline is a tagline for the work that summarizes its core content
If you have some background knowledge, you may also know about synopsis and treatment
Synopsis is a chronological summary of events
Treatment is individual story for each episode
You usually begin with the synopsis for a bigger picture of the story
And then go into more details for the treatment
At this time, the logline helps with the synopsis, treatment
and completed Webtoon
It's because of the meaning that logline has
So where do you see this logline of the work?
Yes, usually when you click on a Webtoon banner, there is a description below the title
Which explains what the work is about and what the themes are
It is like a manual for a product
The readers will decide whether to try the work or not based on this logline
Lately we use hashtags such as action, romance, time travel, regretting male character
That can serve some of the same function
Or the title may be descriptive on its own
Such as "My SS-Rank Husband Marries Again"
Meaning, anything describing the work functions as a logline
Therefore logline's main function is to describe the work
When else do we need this description?
That's right
We have to introduce the work to those such as the production company or the PD's
Saying what the work is about
Appealing for the serialization
And this is when we use the logline
In summary, logline functions to appeal for the work
Which describes it in a short sentence
Therefore, there should be enough hook in that short line
When condensing the story into a logline
Refrain from wordy descriptions
And rather go with keyword-based points
The length of a logline depends on the amount of
effort put in to explain the core content of the story
And it becomes as interesting as each word used is relevant
Let's take an example from a popular work
The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, all very famous
The Lord of the Rings
Let's try...
Delivering a dangerous ring that could destroy the whole world
For Harry Potter: A naughty orphan
Enters into a magical school, Hogwart, and becomes a hero
What do you think?
Does this remind you of each work?
Now, how do you tell that you've written a good logline?
What is an appropriate, or an inappropriate, logline?
Let's find out together
Inappropriate Logline
When you do not explain a new term
The author is familiar with their work
And the names and concepts are also familiar to them
The author must've looked at it a million times
But then, what about this?
Does my neighbor know about my friend, Kim Chulsoo?
I walk up to my neighbor and say, Kim Chulsoo won an award!
And they will say, who is Kim Chulsoo?
Because they do not know my friend
We've tried writing loglines for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter
What if the loglines were written as:
I said, delivering a dangerous ring that could destroy the whole world
But what about Frodo bringing Sauron's ring to Mordor?
Or, Harry Potter, a naughy orphan
Enters into a magical school, Hogwart, and becomes a hero
Instead, Harry Potter battles Voldemort at Hogwart
What about this?
What do these sound like to those who don't know about these works?
They must ask
What's Sauron?
What's Hogwart?
Of course, the author may want to use the names
These names may sound cool, and they may deserve to be on a logline
But this may incur another problem
Which is, let's move on
When the description is too wordy
Cosmic Calendar Year 5213, Mighty King the 13th is crowned
Does this give you any clear idea about when this is?
It does not
Because I just made it up
Likewise, when you include an unknown background or name
You may have to explain it a bit too much
Which I will try, let me explain what I said
When there was no such thing as a universe yet
A Mighty Being created one
Which disappeared after some amount of time
This counts as one Cosmic Calendar Year
The present is after 5213 repetitions of that
I mean, we get it
But all these can't be in a logline
Because I just said that a logline is a one-line summary
As verbose your description gets, the more confusing your logline gets
Let's bring in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter again
The Lord of the Rings, in a northwestward area of the Middle-earth
Called The Shire lives a little-bodied Hobbit, Frodo...
Or, Harry Potter: Voldemort, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
Has murdered a magician couple, James Potter and Lily Potter, whose surviving child Harry Potter...
How is it?
What these two works are loved for is their detailed and vast setting
Nevertheless, imagine this as their tagline in a bookstore
I'm sure no one would have bought them
Of course, you may have an urge to use your amazing names and settings
Then, you have to use familiar words for the readers
To understand without any background knowledge
Especially for genres like fantasy, other-world, SF, which use a lot of unfamiliar words
You need to break them down
Like so:
For Harry Potter
A nobody-orphan Harry Potter enters a magical school, Hogwart
battles Voldemort, the archenemy who killed his parents, and becomes the hero of the magical world
The Lord of the Rings
A little man Frodo goes on a journey to destroy a dangerous ring of Sauron
And eventually throws it away at the destination, Mordor
These explain who Frodo and Harry are
And that each, respectively bringing a dangerous ring of Sauron
or entering a magical school Hogwart
And then respectively going to Mordor...
And so on
Or, to avenge the archenemy
And becoming the hero of the world
Only with this information
You know that Voldemort is a bad guy
Or that Frodo is a little man
All these must be clear for the readers
Of course, if your work is set on a real world
Like an actual history or the present time
You could be freer with your words
For example, 18th century England
Or, ten years before
Or, 2024 Seoul, South Korea
Or, the space station launch in 1998
All of these make clear senses
With that, you do not need to explain them further
Because the readers already share that background knowledge
Therefore, you should be aware of what your era is
And how much of that the readers already know
So that they understand your concepts
Of course, details make things boring
Shouldn't a logline work as a hook?
That is correct
But only focusing on the hook aspect
May cause yet another problem
Which is, you only focus on being interesting
And miss out on the core of the story
Of course, you may want to strategically omit to induce curiosity
You could use an ellipsis and say
And then...
Of course this is hooking
This is a common strategy for commercial works
However, if you focus too much on doing this
You may conceal the whole storyline
I said that a logline aimis to introduce the work
Let's look at this example
The two works again
Harry Potter
A nobody-orphan Harry lives with his uncle's family
One day, a mysterious letter is delivered...
The Lord of the Rings
Frodo finds a ring suspicious
And asks Gandalf the wise
And the answer is shocking!
And Frodo comes to a decision
How are these?
Can you tell what the works are about?
These are not enough for us to know about the core storyline
Let's move away from these two
And use some other examples
What about Frozen?
I won't use an ellipsis here
Frozen
Princess Anna has been locked up in a castle her entire life
With the enthronment ceremonny, the castle opens up
And she gets to live a new life
How is that?
Of course this happens in the movie
This is not wrong
It even does the things we've talked about
Such as explaining unfamiliar terms
Such as, who is Anna? What is the ceremony about?
And it's not too verbose either
Nevertheless, this logline is not appropriate
Because this is not the core of the storyline
The other protagonist, Elsa, is not even mentioned
When the readers or the production companies read this logline
They will be imagining something completely different
Meaning, this isn't wrong
But it doesn't talk about the right things either
Appropriate Logline
What is an appropriate logline?
Once you do all the things we've talked about
To describe the unfamiliar concepts and all
Does this make yours a good logline?
Let's first begin with the basic steps of writing one
First, a textbook method
Logline is about who does what
To be how
This is the format
Stories are formed as such as well
Let's break this down
1. Who is the main character?
2. What are some core hardships and conflicts?
3. How does our main character deal with those?
4. So what happens afterwards?
This format is a textbook structure of a logline
Let's take some examples
A chosen hero goes on adventures
To eventually beat the dark lord and save the world
Or, a crazy scientist saves the earth from
The invading aliens
Both of these tell you what the stories are about
It has the core content and the overall atmosphere
However, this structure only ensures for the accuracy
And doesn't necessarily make a logline interesting
So here, we need to decorate our loglines
Number two, add some interesting points
An interesting comic must have an interesting logline
An interesting logline
Must include all the interesting bits of the story
Do not hide your interesting things, bring them out
Such as, the main character has a secret ability
Or, later in the story an interesting setting arises
You may think that it will be a boring giveaway
To talk about these in advance
Things will get very interesting soon
So you may not want to ruin the party
However, these may only be interesting for the authors
Because you already know about your story
To the readers and the production companies who read millions of logline
They do not care too much about the hidden charms
If they can't tell right away
Why this work is interesting, they will just pass it thinking it's boring
It may feel like a waste, but please reveal any interesting things right away
Of course, if there is a shocking plot twist
Or something that must stay hidden, you may omit that
However, it should still be interesting without that
You need to keep your readers hooked in the beginning
Until you lead them into that hidden setting
The other way is, of course, to become a famous author
Once you become really famous, readers will proactively look for the meanings
Sadly, we are not
So we need to make things as openly interesting as possible
Let's take our loglines from a while ago
And add some interesting layers
A weak yet very lucky boy receives a divine message to battle the dark lord
And saves the world with his luck
Or, a scientist who secretly knows that the earth is flat
Stands against the Origami aliens who target for flat planets
And tries to trick people that the earth is round
The content varies with the storyline
But overall things look more interesting with these details
Like so, please add any interesting points in your loglines
Topic Sentence First
An interesting logline often has its topic sentence in the beginning
Meaning that you have your conclusion first and its supporting details at the back
Here, I mean by referring to the core point first
You begin with the core point and deliver it faster
A logline already is a summary
But by doing so, you will make the logline's message be delivered even faster
Here's an example of the topic sentence coming first
I died, and somehow I rose back up again
10 minutes before my death
How did I die, who killed me?
I track down my own death
Or, someone asked me out
And that's my bias idol?
Work or love?
I choose to give up love for my bias
Or, Past Life Agency finds your past-life lover!
The director of the agency who tracks multiple past-life lovers
Finally gets to find his own love
Do these sound interesting enough for you?
Notice how some reveals their ending
And some omits details
You do not need to put everything
You just need to follow the purpose
The purpose of a logline for Webtoon, which is
To appeal for or describe about my work
To the readers and the production company
Therefore, if this is for the readers
You can omit some information
And if this is for the production company, you can include everything
There is no right answer
But there is a more useful method
Because a logline appeals for and describes about
The topic sentence coming in first is more useful
Therefore, use appropriate bits of methods for your own circumstance
To write your own logline
For a long, descriptive title, because it replaces your logline
You can implement all these for your title
Webtoon Ideas and Brainstorming
Let's not move on from logline to finding ideas
Idea, before coming up with an idea
Where do you start when you write a story?
I have asked some of the fellow authors before this lecture
Just in case they have a different opinion
And everyone had the same answer
Which is, the more input, the better
Read a lot
You cannot create something out of nothing
A creation is always
An plus something of a myriad of other creations
That had been created before
Therefore, the more you know, the more you can make
The more you've done your research, the more you can write about
If you write something out of nothing, the readers can tell that you don't know
Therefore, it is crucial for you to know your own story
And to experience and learn a lot in order to expand your thoughts
People usually say that readers are always smarter than writers
Which is a given
We put in our effort for our works
But within that amount of time, of all the readers
Someone must've worked that hard in one field
Meaning, at least more than one reader
Is an expert of the field you're dealing with
What if I create all the settings for my fantasy-genre work?
You may ask that but
This doesn't necessarily only apply to professional writing or comic production
I said, you can't create something out of nothing
Even your own fantasy world
Is something you create out of your own knowledge
And the expert of that field will exist somewehre in this world
Even if it's about a hero battling a dark lord
Some expert in Western swordsmanship
May see that the hand position of holding the sword is wrong
Or someone may notice that a particular architectural style
Cannot exist in such a climate
Meaning, if you try to fake out of something you don't know
Someone will notice that
Therefore, if you're new to story making
I advise that you start from your own thoughts or something about you
Even if your life isn't too different from the other's
There are as many stories as there are different people in the world
So start with something about you
Of course, you cannot be immersed in yourself
As I already talked about earlier
You may only describe everything but the core content
You need to be mindful not to draw away the readers
Comic is a medium
So you have to focus on delivering your message
If the story is only about you and finding yourself
The readers may have trouble relating to it
You know how some dreams have such vivid images
That make you want to explain them to others
But when you do, people do not relate to your story too much
Or be as amazed as you were with your own dream
You may remember every bits of that dream
The visuals, the sounds, the touches
But that's something others don't know about
Therefore, tell a familiar story that's not just about you
That's a summary of that
Let's say that you have your inputs
Where and how do you get your experiences?
Here is my answer to that
1. Brainstorming from a message
2. Brainstorming from a concept
3. Brainstorming from a scene
4. Brainstorming from the genre
5. Brainstorming from your experiences
6. Rearranging something that already exists
Brainstorming from a Message
Every work has a theme
Or a message
I mentioned before how comics is a medium of communication
This means that you have to have a story to tell
What purpose does that story serve?
What message would you like to deliver?
If you start with the core message
That helps with your research or brainstorming
This message does not have to be grand or serious
It can be something light and simple
It does not have to deal with some social issues
There simply needs a purpose of the work
It can be an introduction of what you like
Or an acclaim of a common value
Something like how amazing love is
Or how a good deed yields a good karma
It can be something familiar like these
Or you can simply aim to make people laugh
Or have people feel nice
Those are great messages too
Once you have a topic and brainstorm based on that
You get to branch out from an idea to a story
For example, a love story
Who is this love story about, what's the situation?
These can give you the background and character settings
Something like a king and a queen's love story in a fantasy world
Or an office romance
Or falling in love with your secret archenemy
These are all things you can do with a simple theme of love
A story with a social message
What social message would you like to talk about?
From what background did that message arise?
To who do you want to deliver it?
By researching these
your message gets to have a depth
A real incident or an era
Or a fantasy world based on that reality
You could start with these various themes
That share such social messages
If the story is about saving the environment
What environmental issues are there?
What are some possible solutions for them?
In order to deliver these to people
what metaphor or narrative to give
whether to convey it directly
or metaphorically and indirectly
These are some choices you can think about
Brainstorming from a message
is like having a blueprint
It may sound too distant at first
But this will definitely help you power through
and eventually finish your story
If you remember where you were going
you get to stay on track
Brainstorming from a Concept
If you have a unique concept
You could start researching from that concept
Comics delivering professional knowledge or particular jobs
Such about unique ideas belong in this category
For such professional information in comics
You can do your own research, get some interviews
Or, if there is any, you can refer to some journal articles
Or, by interviewing those in the field
You get to have some real bits of hint from the actual field
If the story is about an idea, in order to materialize it
You can research more on other works regarding this idea
Experimental comics usually belong in this category
Such as breaking the cut boundaries or applying things like VR
Then, you can think about what stories, platforms or methods
You could implement in order to
Have your idea shine through
Let's take an example
Say, this comic is about court
Then you can interview someone who works there
and the court
Or, if you want to draw some maglev train
You can do your own research about it
But for these, the concepts themselves may not be too interesting
Stories about some professional information
Becomes something familiar once presented
And the idea will become something familiar
Or even something boring
Therefore, when you are trying out something new
I advise that you mix it with other interesting aspects
Let's take another example
Here's how you could mix things
Say, this comic has a doctor as a main character
But this doctor is a murderer
Or, it's a comic about a sommelier
But, this sommelier catches murderers with this ability
Or, say that it's a comic about a maglev train
And what about making it a sports comic about racing?
Brainstorming from a Scene
Sometimes students tell me
That it is very difficult to make a comic
That it is very hard to write out the story from beginning to end
And even if they do, they aren't sure whether it's good enough
If this is the case, you could start from a scene
Oh, this sounds good
Then you can start from that
When I worked on my debut work OH MY GOD!
I wanted a fight scene of handsome middle-aged men in suits with wings
That's the scene I started with
Many other authors whom I respect
They often say that they simply
Wanted to see this scene
And this is a very powerful motivation
If you have a cool scene, start there
For example, a cool fight scene where the character uses the special skill
What skill is that? What kind of person is the main character?
In order to make the scene cool
What hardships should the character have gone through?
Let's talk about the details
The main character is draped in bright light
and catches a sword coming down from the sky to finish the enemy
Good
What sword is this?
Let's say it's a god-given sword
Why does the main character shine?
Because the sword is given from the god
So, let's say the chosen ones shine
Now who are the enemies?
Are these the rebellious ones against the god?
Are they humans or monsters?
Are they servants of an evil god?
I would like the light to look very dramatic
So the background should be a bit dark
Then, let's say that this world used to be run by a god
But it has fallen into darkness due to some evil beings
How is this?
Should we try another one?
I want a falling-in-love moment
So who are the lovers?
What is the background?
What love is this?
Let's add more details
I would like this to be an impossible romance between school peers
Meaning, a contemporary setting
So why is this love impossible?
What is the hindrance to this love?
Let's say that there's a class difference
So one person is very rich
And another, very poor
So each family will be against this romance
Let's do just one more
This scene is about overcoming pain and choosing the right thing
So what pain?
Why could this character overcome this pain?
What is this right choice?
Who is the one choosing, in what situation?
Let's say that this character is sacrificing for others despite the threat upon their own life
So why the threat?
Let's set this in a post-apocalyptic world
Say, 90% of the humanity has died out
I would like this scene of sacrifice a plot twist
So let's set this main character as someone really selfish
So what made them turn to the sacrifice?
How does this sound?
Can you see how you can develop a story from a concept?
You can start with the scene you'd like to see
And then set the right settings and synopsis around it
So that all the scenes exist for this one scene
Or, you can start with a vague concept
That the story would have a plot twist
Or that the story will proceed without much drama
You can be as abstract as this
Or, you can refer back to some other work you've seen
You can start with this as well
I'd like to use this method
I'd liek to use this kind of color
These are all fine, you can start with what you like
Brainstorming from a Genre
If you have a favorite genre, you can start with that
If you are a mystery-detective genre fan, you can start with works of this genre
Or romance, or bildungsroman: any work of such genres
There, analyze the trends in that genre
And if you have an idea that has never been used in that genre
You can be brave and try it out
Or, you can combine multiple genres
Which is a common thing nowadays
Such as romance-thriller, as done in Cheese in the Trap
Or SF-action, sports-mystery
There are so many possible combinations
So feel free to choose your favorites and combine them
Brainstorming from your Experience
I've already mentioned how it's good to tell a story you know
That the experts are always the readers, not the authors
If you can find a theme from a story you know about
You will be the expert of that story
Therefore you can start with your own story
Stories from your school, your family
Something from your own experience
You can start with such small things
If you have a fun story that is probably worth
Sending to a radio station, that's perfect
You can start with a small story
And develop into something bigger
For example, you have had a very bad day
Your heel broke, you missed your bus
You spilled Ramyun on your percious laptop
You even fell down coming into your own house
Let's say this is your experience
What if, for all these moments
Someone had been controling your life?
Let's say each person has a luck count
As un-luck count accumulates, you get to enjoy one big luck
As disasters roll over to become blessings
Then, after all these unlucky moments
What is the luck to come?
You could expand it like this
Or, at the end of this very unlucky day
Let's say you've had your significant other waiting for you
Someone you wouldn't have met
If not for so many bad things
The love story with this person
This sounds fun as well
Should we try another one?
Say, it was my birthday today
And all my friends gave me the same present
Let's say this is your experience
What if this was a prank
Planned in advance by my friends?
Or what if this world is like The Truman Show
Run by a giant advertiser company
And that this present is the product I'm supposed to promote for
That is why, despite the unnaturalness
My friends had to give me that present
This could be one way of doing it
Or, say that I was really drunk once
And told everyone that I want that as my present
This way, this could be a lighthearted
Comical scene
How is it? Simple, right?
It is quite fun to start with your own stories
Rearranging something that already exists
Examples include reinterpreting fairytales or other great works
Because there is an original
Which allows everyone to share an affect
Which is considered as natural
And an innovative rearrangement of that
Is a good way to be interesting
If the work is so popular that it can be parodied
It means that there are many fans
Which makes it easier to connect with them
Types of rearrangement: new ending
New main character
New storyline, new message, reinterpreting in a contemporary setting
Changing the background or the era is an example of this
These are all the ways you could do this
Even if you proceed as the original
It could be meaningful if the medium changes
The real story into a movie, a novel into a comic
Or a TV series into a game
However, make sure to choose a work famous enough
For the readers to easily notice this rearrangement
Which is a weakness of this method
If you try out with a work that not many people know about
No one may be able to recognize it
Also, copyright is an important part
You cannot simply reuse parts of a work
Saying it is an act of homage
You should first check with the copyright issues
And then proceed with using that part
When you are dealing with an original, you are either respectful
Or critical of it
Which may incur an accusation that you have not fully understood the original
Therefore you should study the original carefully
I've been talking about many things
Have you noticed a commonality?
Yes, all these are a repeating process of starting with an idea
To a big whole story
Present clearly what you'd like to share
And branch out from it with more details and a bigger scale
This is the basics of writing a story
This applies to everything
Including writing loglines or finding ideas
Do not restrain yourself
And be free to imagine
This will make you write a great story and a logline
So, that was about writing a logline
And finding ideas
How was it?
Do you now understand more about loglines and getting ideas?
Let's quickly summarize
Logline is a one-line summary of my work
Logline should explain any unfamiliar concepts
Though not too verbosely
Of course, anything interesting must be included
You can only write by reading
Experience a lot of things
You can get your idea from many things
Get your theme and genre, something you like
And then branch out the story
I will end the lecture about logline and ideas
Thank you for following along
Summary Definition and How-to: Loglines Definition of Logline One-line summary of the core content of the work Purpose of Logline To appeal to the readers or the production company of my work
Inappropriate Logline Not explaining any unfamiliar concepts Too verbose Only focuses on hooking or omits the core of the story
How to Write a Logline The Textbook Method Add any interesting point Topic sentence comes first
Webtoon Ideas and How to Brainstorm for One Webtoon Ideas They can't arise from nothing: many experiences are required Tell a story you know, but do not immerse into yourself too much
You should have a story you want to tell Decide on a theme and brainstorm to expand from idea to story
How-to: Brainstorming for Ideas From a message From a concept From a scene you'd like to see From a genre From your own experience Rearranging something that already exits