Backstories. We all have ‘em. After all, we wouldn’t be here today if we didn’t. Without our memories, we are like a blank slate waiting to be drawn on. Trust me, I’ve had amnesia. It’s not fun to have to rebuild your life brick by brick ...

Everyday Joes and the Best of the Best

Star Wars and Star Trek are long-running siblings in science fiction pop culture. I don't know if there's really a “rivalry” between the two; SW has always been more popular I think, and the two are very different.

One big ...

Spoilers for recent Star Wars, eg the Mandalorian.
It went unspoken in my year of Newsposts, but 2020 is the 40th Anniversary the release of The Empire Strikes Back.

that's not true! That's impossible!
No, man! Search your feelings! you know it's true! Forty damn years!


Though ...

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The Mandalorian on Disney Plus is a very popular series, it's particularly known at the moment because of the “fanservice”, i.e. fan rewards in the ...

I was surprised and saddened to learn just the other day that Rene Auberjonois passed away at the end of last year. Even before the upheaval of the pandemic hit us, I think life was busy and a bit chaotic, and I just missed it.

I'd been a fan ...

I've talked many times about story structure. Even with a structural approach, there are a lot of questions to be answered, struggles to be had, and hard thinking to be done to make a story work.

One big moment that I like thinking about early in the writing is ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...

I know you are probably rolling your eyes right now, thinking I'm about to rant about the Star Wars sequels again. I'm not.

Ok, I might a little, but not in the typical manner. And I'm inviting you to hear me out because this isn't a ...

I promise, this is not going to be another opportunity for me to take a shot at Game of Thrones.

In fact, this time I'm seeking to use the example to illustrate another way to approach suspense and intensify the engagement of your audience with the story and the ...

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Today we cover the interesting trope of the “old warrior”. This was based upon a newspost Banes came up with last week. He was thinking of Captain ...