There's generally a tennet about character building for a villain in a story or webcomic that urges the creator to humanize them by giving them a backstory that “fleshes them out”. Often, “humanization” of a villain is taken to mean that they come across as more sympathetic or appealing ...

I have a handful of hobbies that mean a lot to me - from an early age, reading, and music (drums at first), and drawing were all important pastimes.

The other day I found an old workbook dated from when I was eight years old. It was an A to Z ...

One of my favorite tropes (at least I think it's a trope. Not sure how common it is) is the “unknown hero”.

It's when a character who's known to us, the audience, maybe very well, and is at least somewhat important to us.

The character dies and ...

Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.

If ...

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Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of ...

I'm a big fan of story structure. It can be a big help to figuring out how to put a story together in a way that works. Not that structure needs to be followed in a slavish way, or that one structure applies to every story.
But it can ...

Another site redesign update
Alexey continues working and coding this stuff up towards a full working front page. Thanks for all your support (especially on Patreon and with ads, it helps a lot), and comments and feedback, we really try to incorporate them and keep them in mind when we ...

Poem Nr. 11: Nine Lives


Nine. I see the light burning to darkness.
All so swiftly. All so blindly.
Eight. I hear the alarm screaming to deafness.
All so widely. All so loudly.
Seven. I taste the medicine spoiling to sickness.
All so queasily. All so badly.
Six. I sense ...

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We are talking about the trope of the Cad, AKA the Player. F***boys are their little scrappydoo kid-brothers, we call them “fun” boys for obvious reasons ...

Blank is having a tough time. New to the school year and already they've forgotten everything… why they hate themself, their gender, and even their own name! Luckily the school loses their identity so they can give them-self a new one, which is Blank Lastname. A fine start! It ...