I Was Wrong - The Character Arc

Last time I was here I talked about “The Old Warrior”. It's one of my favorite character types and story elements.

This time I'm going to go into another trope/theme that almost always works for me: The realization of a character ...

Mr Frolik is detective with issues. He has dark looks, a long dark coat and he smokes as he pontificates and ruminates on love, life and serial killers, much like Bill Hicks or Lenny Bruce, but a little more wry. His love life is seriously bad and he doesn't ...

I am half way complete with my journey across the United States and I have spent the last week in the small town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This is an area of the world that many great creative artists, musicians, and writers that I greatly admire have lived and found ...

Kanji’s home life is pretty normal. He has a sister who likes to livestream video games all night long to adoring fans and a mother who oversleeps, which forces Kanji to exhibit a fair amount of independence at his age. However, a part of Kanji is different from his ...

I have come across many awe-inspiring sights Along my Summer travels across the Eastern Coast of the United States. I have walked inside grand mansions decorated with Victorian-era Second Empire, French Rococo Revival, and Aesthetic movements on Newport, Rhode Island; I touched a replica of the Caves of Lascaux in ...

Make it So Again

There are certain story templates that we see played out over and over throughout the years, decades and centuries.

One of my favorites is the one where the Old Warrior or the Old Master is called out of retirement to rejoin the fight for one last ...

Recently I saw a performance of the Muppets' band “The Electric Mayhem” from 2009. Pretty great!

It occurred to me how many years have passed since the heyday of the Muppet Show in the late 1970's. The fact that this young-ish audience was so excited about this show said ...

Inspiration is a flighty and whimsical thing. We don't know when we'll get it and sometimes we never do when we need it. Even others, we get it when we least need it, or when we can't use it. Or when we're sleeping, and lose it ...

The Mysterious Stranger


This is about ‘the mysterious stranger’ in fiction. Well, one of the variations of that, at least. I'm not talking about the mysterious stranger who becomes the MC's lover in a romance novel, or the mysterious stranger who knocks on the door or gets into ...

So by now, anyone who is on Twitter (and possibly other social media I dare not touch) is aware of this whole kerfuffle over the newest Disney live action remake, which happens to be The Little Mermaid. It has been announced that Ariel will be played by an actress who ...