In the words of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka: “Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three. Come with me. And you'll be. In a world of. Pure Imagination.”

Imagine a world where everyone woke up one day and fully committed to doing the right thing. Blood donation ...

It was early morning on a Thursday, and I had just prepped the classroom for the day before I headed outside to wait for the children to line up after the bell. I was knitting a scarf when a little girl named Angeline walked up to me and started up ...

Recently I wrote a throwaway character for my comic based on a real-life friend of mine. In short, he’s a loveable misanthrope. And because he’s based on a real human being, I felt like I owed the character something: he won’t grow, or change, or become a ...

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Sorry for the lack of picture! Computer is not cooperating. I'll add one today if I can!
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You may already know of Alfred Hitchcock's take on surprise and suspense. Here it is:

“There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” and yet many pictures continually confuse the ...

Hi, all! I’m back from my adventure in Japan – thank you so much to PitFace and Ironscarf for writing amazing guest newsposts while I was away. It’s so lovely being part of a site where someone’s always willing to jump in and help out (and you two ...

-Art by Edvard Munch (cover for Hunger by Knut Hamsun)

It is a common phrase that has been repeated time and time again: “(The love of) money is the root of all evil”. At least for me, it was one of the few words to live by that my Latin ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...

Rather than write about something I'm good at I thought I write about something I'm struggling with, and my attempts to resolve it. Writing characters with distinct voices.

Comics are usually conversations between characters. Speech bubbles are the preferred way to tell comic stories, as opposed to large ...

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 ...

Endings are hard. We all know that. We have to tie up all the loose ends, answer all the questions, and pay off all the characters. We have to give a resolution that hopefully leaves our readers satisfied.

I know of a couple ways to deconstruct a story, and to ...