I remember when I was younger and looking to improve my skills, I was often met with “Just practice,”. Although the intentions behind the adage were well meaning, that did not help me improve. As I’ve gotten older, I found myself at times, usually when I was tired myself ...

In the middle of a Cosmic Civil War, the unfavorable emperor’s youngest daughter is injected with a shot of a chemical cocktail that would result in a cryogenic sleep. Only a single frigate ship was able to escape after the Rebels attacked the Imperial army. The inhabitants of that ...

I just started the Netflix series called “The Hanting of Bly Manor”.

It's hard to say how it's going to turn out in the end, since I'm just at the beginning. But overall so far, I'm enjoying the thing. There are many unanswered questions already, and ...

It is hard to predict when new content for television shows and the big screen will start rolling out. I jokingly once thought that we might all turn back the clocks and bring back old fashion radio shows where candy wrappers were used to imitate crackling fires and beans in ...

(Fish Being Chased Down by Prehistoric Beast drawn by the Wondrous and Glorious, El Cid, 2015)

I have experienced times in my life where I am scrambling to make ends meet, working hard to get my basic needs met, trying desperately trying to connect point A to point B. There ...

I have this gig where I make summaries for new books that come out- a shortcut, if you like, for those who want to appear bookish without actually reading the damn thing. Or perhaps they are just looking to see if the actual book is worth their time.

This book ...

I've watched Mr. Plinkett's reviews of the Star Wars Prequels 3 times. Saw the movies once.

An obscure horror movie was recommended to me and I hunted it down to watch it - it was a great hidden gem for a horror fan like me. A few really effective ...

We've had some interesting discussions on various Newsposts, in the Forum and elsewhere on theduckwebcomics about knowing your ending, knowing your genre, planning ahead and outlining vs. ‘pantsing’ or ‘Discovery writing’, which is writing without knowing where you're going.

Though up to now I've mostly been a ...

Baneset Jones' Diary


We Three: Love Triangles

On the ‘terrible writing advice’ youtube channel, one of the running jokes is the over-reliance and overemphasis on love triangles in bad fiction.

Are they automatically bad, though?

They can be. If a character's main problem, regardless of genre, is having to ...

Sitting back on a Friday evening, remote control in hand, I decided to watch one of the latest Pixar Animated short films. To me a short film is the perfect length of time (six to nine minutes) to tell a story with an exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. They ...