edward norton in “primal fear”

One of the things I like in fiction is characters who are not what they seem.

Like all things, this sort of thing can be done well, or badly, or somewhere in between. It can be fascinating and surprising, or cliche and predictable. It can ...

Metaphors in Horror



Horror is perfect for metaphor and allegory. In fact, a horror story is often allegorical by default, what with its bizarre landscapes and freaky beasties.

Here are some categories of horror and some thoughts on what they symbolize:

Reality Bites


psycho killer! Qu'est-ce que c'est ...

Points of View - part one

In literature, we know there are several points of view that can be used by the author. First person (everything is ‘I did this, I did that’), Third person limited (he does this, she does this, we can see the thoughts of only one character ...

I am half way complete with my journey across the United States and I have spent the last week in the small town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This is an area of the world that many great creative artists, musicians, and writers that I greatly admire have lived and found ...

Image credit: thelatestkate

Southern California based author and illustrator, Kate Alan, uploaded a mini online comic series last week titled “Let’s Get You Mentally Healthy”. The ten page comic series gives helpful tips on how to deal with negative thoughts that come from feelings of anxiety and sadness.

Alan ...

There may be times along this path of being a content creator, where you feel that you are moving backwards; that your work is not worth looking at and that you feel like a phony trying to even attempt it. “Real life” may be calling and you have no choice ...

Hello, guest author Frost Fox here this week so buckle up! (Amy lost the original article thanks to a keyboard-surfing cat, so I hope you will enjoy this guest article from her husband!)

Feedback is the life blood of a comic. Comments & Fan Work are about the only payment most ...

Kairo Takesihi is a damn good field agent and a double agent to boot but he's starting to have second thoughts about his divided loyalties… Evan and Kat are two super-mutant kids trying to keep their powers hidden and stay out of trouble but they may not have to ...

With Valentine's day just behind us and a lot of talk of love, I thought I'd take a look on the exact opposite of love and affection- how do we write and display hatred in characters? How do characters hate, and what's the difference from rage?

In ...

Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...