I was fishing for smelts the other day and scooped up an old bottle, with a rolled-up paper inside. It contained the following:

In older literature I think it was common to have a story told by a narrator who was never a part of the action. Someone who may ...

Wake up Little Critter! It is an early morning on Cap’s MeeMee farm and the enormous Rakka (a.k.a. the Local Bully) is tearing up the place and all the cute MeeMees. It is up to Lil’ Critter to show the Rakka whose boss. Welcome to Lullaby Town ...

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No, not surgical masks, this is about the kind superheros wear, also gimps, masquerades, villains and robbers! Inspired by Pitface and her deep and abiding love of ...

The 31 May 2021 article related to “Color Theory as a Rewind Machine” mentioned how colors could be used intentionally as a way to transport the reader to different time periods. At the end, I posed the question whether anyone had ever used a specific decade’s color palette in ...

Hello ducklings! I’m back with another interview, and this time we’ve got our wonderful sea captain Miranda! So, Captain Miranda, please introduce yourself!!

Miranda: Hello ducklings! I'm Miranda! I'm a full time computer engineer and in my spare time I enjoy baking, doing puzzles, playing video ...

Sometimes the arch villain of the story is the one pulling all the strings in the background, and the protagonists don't know about them until the endgame.

And other times, the arch villain gets to clash with a protagonist (or an opposing character) that is also a mastermind pulling ...

Designing memorable characters doesn’t just stop at their appearance. The manner in which they speak and use body language is integral to building a full picture of who they are as a character as well as how others react to them. Here are some tips on how to make ...

Reverse-Engineering Conflict in a Story
part one

Conflict is the basic material of a scene, and of a story. I've talked a lot over the years about structure and genre, and how all that stuff can work.

Another way to create a new story, and new characters, is to ...

Waiting to meet at the arranged time for a date is such an awkward feeling: aprension, anxiety, and boredom all wrapped up together! That's what Erin feels as she waits for the time to go and meet Rick in the shuttle bay of their spaceship, the “Carnivorous Pigeon”. They ...

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On Friday the 16th the site was down for a while. Nasty, but we fixed that and chatted to our programmer Alexey about starting the update program ...