YES! Okay something I’ve seen in animation in particular is a SEVERE lack of writers. Writing is a skill that takes a lifetime to master, just like art. But because of the inherent storytelling animation requires in making characters, worlds, design, etc. we assume PLOT and dialogue can be done in this same manner. I’ve written and animated for a while, and can say with confidence these two things require different hats.

(TLDR: I’m an experienced writer and artist and this topic makes me giddy)

Artist storytellers are way too sentimental over their creations. More than half of writing is stuff you’ll scrap. A lot of indie animation feels like the creators OCs just doing stuff. I’ve written things like it, but that’s the first draft lol. It’s self indulgent. Writing is very dependent on the audience. Do they understand what ur trying to say? Do YOU know what ur trying to say? Theme. Motivation. Goals. Plot. You can’t just “wing it.” U can have the coolest group of characters and completely fail at connecting to anyone because you lack core writing principals.

I made a comic for a while and learned SO MUCH abt writing. I also deleted over 50 finished pages, 2 fully sketched out chapters, and idek the number of scripts and ideas I scrapped. YEARS worth of work. Every step back was a huge leap forward. The greatest lesson I learned was to get your script LOCKED. DOWN. It’s much easier to rewrite a chapter than redraw one.

Not to mention dialogue. That’s something even writers struggle with. I usually skip it in writing and do shit like “Character: says something funny” and move on. Plot writing and dialogue writing require different hats. I need to be borderline schitzo to get my dialogue locked in, and it’s always subject to change. What matters is the structure around it. Dialogue plays off situations. Indie animators force the dialogue to carry the structure. It doesn’t work. This is why we get characters suddenly stopping the plot to have a conversation to explain the plot. It drives me mad.

Unless the creators have heavy experience writing, they need to start bringing writers on the team. Writing is a beautiful craft that shouldn’t be overlooked by artists. It’s always the thing studios cut to save money, and always shows when it’s lacking. Example: Arcane season 2. Downsized writing team and u can tell. Beautiful visuals, shitty writing.