The Hated, part two: Heroes we hate

Last week I blathered on a bit about villain Protagonists. These are evil, or “bad” characters who get to be Protagonists!

But what about more traditional heroes, or supporting characters are written to be the “moral compass” or “voice of reason”, or just ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...

In a story, a Protagonist wants something, and some kind of obstacle is in the way. When the Protagonist makes a choice, good or bad, to take them to that goal, we're off and running!

But what happens if they don't get what they want? What happens if ...

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Art by Ozoneocean

For THIS particular DD Quackcast we were inspired by clever and incisive newsposts made by Pitface and Kawaii. Kawaii made a great post about the idea of going for your dreams before it's too late, using the Paradise Falls trip from the movie UP as ...

*Colin and Betty from Pinky TA

When you write a big long story that goes over many chapters and arcs, things tend to evolve, grow and expand quite a bit outside of what you originally envisaged. What I'm talking about here are side characters- These are people that may ...

“Well, are they?”

Gary Numan (and Tubeway Army) posed that question in 1979. These days it has more relevance that ever before.

“It's cold outside, and the paint's peeling offa my walls.”

As winter approaches in the Southern Hemisphere (winter is coming) my thoughts naturally turn a little ...

We all loved Breaking Bad, right? Or maybe you didn't. Or you didn't see it. But happily, the second season of the prequel series, Better Call Saul, started up last week! So far it's fantastic!

Featuring a lot of the same behind-camera talent and some returning actors ...

Accents, patterns of speech and the like can be a useful tool in introducing characters. In a film or tv show, a character's accent can immediately reveal the character's nationality or social background. And of course, we've all been conditioned by Hollywood movies to identify the bad ...

Last time, solo heroes, teams of two, and trios were the order of the day. Today let's talk quartets, quintets, sextets, septuplets, octets, and…uh…neuf-tets…?
More possibilities for self-contained drama/comedy/conflict exist with groups of four or five. There are several ways to begin building such a ...

In the movie Annie Hall, the main character writes a play and uses it to give his failed relationship a happy ending.
There are countless stories where awkward, nervous protagonists…perhaps courtesy of awkward, nervous writers…win the battle, defeat the villains and get the gorgeous girl.

An unknown number ...