Sam Sanders, known as Virtus when dressed in an interestingly masked costume, protects the city of Sala, Sweden. In a time where art education funding has taken a nosedive, a group of culture warriors set out on a mission—all in the name of culture. Virtus has special abilities, such ...

A blood soaked boy collapses in the pouring rain rain and lies in the street, dying… No one helps him. A passer by is shocked and rushes to his side. Seemingly recognizing the boy he's galvanized to action and carries him home to care for him, for some reason ...

Character Motivation

One thing I appreciate in well written stories is the hidden motivations of characters. Well written characters, just like real people, have contradictions to them. Desires and needs that are sometimes in conflict with each other.

Story structure tells us that a character has to WANT something. The ...

I'm wounded but you can't see it!


A lot of stories involve a wounded and/or flawed character. It's a staple of strong storytelling; a character has some kind of pain or wound to overcome, and that's the inner journey they take along with whatever outward ...

So, I found a horror movie recently and even though it’s not serial killer horror or Halloween type of horror, it’s definitely scary.

The movie I will be talking about today: “The Ruins” (2008) – there will be spoilers, so please be warned. The following movie is for mature ...

Welcome to my Underground Layers

-Banes, your pop culture references are as on point as ever!



I've talked about story structure here many times, normally in similar ways.
A different approach to character and story, one I haven't used much personally, is what we could call the “onion ...

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 ...

Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. It's an emotion, it's a state of mind, it's a process.

It's a process that takes at least two parties to even begin to happen.

The problem is that in life and in fiction, this is often misconstrued as something that ...

When it comes to characters and their arcs, their relationships, or more specifically, their chemistry, has a large role to play in how they develop. From day to day we absorb and reflect the behaviours, views and values of those we interact with, be that at work or school or ...

In this nouveau religious retelling of a time when demons rise and destruct, a group of bow and sword wielding heroes confront a wicked creature that possibly came from the other side. After one of the members is marked, a steady recovery and a pot of soup proves her wounds ...