Pacing

See the whole story as one curve

The top half of the pacing screen is called “Season arc”. Across the screen, each episode is one point. The height of the point shows how tense that episode is. There are five levels, from low to high:

Transition · Setup · Progress · Turn · Peak

Connect these points, and you can see the rise and fall of the whole comic: where it relaxes, where it tightens, and which episode the climax lands in, all at a glance.

Change intensity and reorder episodes

• Change intensity: Press and drag a point up or down. While you drag, that episode lights up. A small label next to the point shows the level name, and the old curve stays as a dashed line for comparison. When you let go, the point snaps to the nearest level.
• If the intensity is not set yet, the point is hollow and starts at the average height of the other episodes.
• Reorder episodes: Hover over the episode title. A small handle appears above it. Press and drag sideways to move it. A tiny drag does not count. If you only click, it opens that episode.

Under the curve, each episode has a small card with its number, episode title, intensity, and a few beats. If it has no intensity and no beats, it shows an amber “Not planned” label.

Episode details

Click an episode to open its details in the center of the screen:

• Left is a read-only synopsis preview for this episode;
• Right has three things: “Episode title”, “Intensity” (click one of the five levels directly, no dragging needed), and “Beat pin”;
• Bottom left “Delete this episode”: This also deletes the beat pins for this episode, and you can undo within 5 seconds;
• Bottom right “Make this episode ›”: Go straight to production and open this episode.

The “Add” button in the upper-right corner adds a new episode at the end and opens its details right away.

What does deleting an episode delete? Not just one point in the pacing: the beat pins for this episode, this episode’s synopsis, and the pages, panels, and images for this episode in production are all deleted too (the images stay in the image library). So check carefully before deleting. If you delete by mistake, click “Undo” within 5 seconds.

Beat pins

The lower half is called “Beat design”. It is a pinboard with one column per episode. Click a blank spot in a column to pin one beat to that episode.

Each beat has two parts:

• Beat name: Say what this beat is in one sentence;
• Beat details: What happens, who is there, and where the image lands.

A pin with no details has an amber glow around it to remind you it is not finished. Hover over a pin to see its title.

Click a pin to edit it; “Unpin” deletes that beat right away, with no undo. Pins cannot be dragged to another episode here. If you want to move one to another episode, tell the assistant.

In production, each episode’s beat pins appear in that episode’s pacing, then are assigned to specific pages.

How the assistant paces the story

When setting up planning, the assistant creates each episode from the “Episode split” section in the synopsis, sets an intensity for each episode, and adds beat pins. It follows a few rules:

• Every episode has an intensity and at least one beat;
• It will not make three episodes in a row all “Peak”.

Why not keep everything at the top? If the intensity is always at the highest level, readers cannot feel where the climax is. You need rises and releases to make the peak feel high.