Writing what you know is one of those old canards that show up in writing advice, though it's not up there with things like “show, don't tell” and “this is supposed to be a literary essay - do not doodle in the margins”.

Or is that last one just ...

As we embark on the start of week eight in quarantine, I wonder how many people out here in Drunk Duck Land have begun learning new facts about our planet (Interesting aside: Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard were the first two explorers to reach the deepest part of the Ocean ...

A key aspect to creating a strong story is having believable characters. They are, after all, a key backbone to your narrative. So here are three tips that can help you put together a well rounded character.

1. Create a backstory
If you’re naming a character then you got ...

It has taken me twenty-five years to watch the entire film of “Bridges of Madison County” starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood. It tells the story of an Italian War bride living in rural Iowa who meets the Worldly National Geographic photographer who has come to her small town to ...

It's all fine and exciting when using lore and myth to create new stories. Especially when it comes to modern genres like urban fantasy, it can yield pretty alluring and impressive results! From ancient Greek mythology to all kinds of Asian myths and legends, to Norse mythology and Egyptian ...

Classic X-men reprinted the Chris Claremont stories and included new Claremont stories A+

Chris Claremont is one of the all-time greats in comic book writing, and probably my favorite comics writer.

He's most famous for working on the Uncanny X-Men series from the 1970's to the early 1990 ...

“Asymmetric threats” is a military term. It is defined as “an unequal balance or when thinking about threats, an unfair advantage to the perpetrator. Phillips, A (2012) provided an excellent overview of what an asymmetric threat is. He described attacks of this nature to be undetectable, and once occurred, impossible ...

A breaking point for a character is when they hit their lowest point in the story. It’s purpose is to upset the reader, either making them angry and/or devastated the main character or they’ll be angry/devastated at the main character. Every story, in every genre has ...

And so we have arrived to the juicy stuff- Evil Psychologists!

You'd be surprised, but there have been a LOT of those in real life. It's the reason that the ethics code and penalization if that code is broken is so severe for professionals in the mental health ...

Therapists are the type of character whose occupation can easily seep into their ‘off the clock’ life. It's not something that can often be helped. Psychologists don't ‘turn off’ their perception of behavioral patterns and personality analyses, the same way you can't ‘unsee’ the rabbits after you ...