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Doing stories that start with the climax, then flash back, tell what happened to get there: the old narrative style of switching the first few chapters around to make a more interesting story.
Sometimes it works GREAT because it throws you right into the middle of things and you ...

Apparently the difference between “terror” and “horror” was first expressed by writer Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), who said that Terror is the dread and apprehension about something happening, while Horror is the actual encountering the frightening thing.
Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about “suspense” vs. “horror”. Have ...

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For Quackcast 237 we asked people about the songs that inspire them when they do their comics, which songs go with which parts of their comics, what would be the ideal comic movie theme, what songs or music get you in the MOOD to do your comic, and finally ...

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Pitface joins Ozone and Banes again for the second and last part of the climax cast! It's the climax of the climax casts!! We discuss what people think about climaxes in stories, their own and those they watch or read. It's hard to write up to climaxes ...

After a long comic-making hiatus, I’ve had several ideas for comics in the last little while. Working on the first one, though, I’ve realized that unless I get a heck of a lot faster at drawing it's unlikely that all of my ideas will ever come to ...

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What's best? One big climax, multiple small ones, early, or delayed? How much should you work UP to a climax? What about anticlmactic events, how important are they?
Climaxes are really important in stories. Often you work up to them over the course of a whole series, but ...

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Here we go again, back to formulas! This time we got some external input. Fellow DDers had a say about their idea about the utility of formulas and how they use them in their writing and comics. It's important to understand formulas in writing so you know what ...

It seems that I get into a very opinionated argument whenever the topic of discussion veers toward Neon Genesis Evangelion. Usually it is about how the Evangelion movies are awesome and how the main character is not so awesome. That being said, it has been twenty years since the mid-1990s ...

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We've talked about formulas before, but mostly in the context of escaping formulas and reinventing them.
NOW however we're talking about using existing formulas to create a story, or creating new formulas and sticking to them to come up with your stories.
Formulas can be a good ...

-LA Union Station taken by kawaiidaigakusei

“The next and final stop on this line is Los Angeles. Please collect all personal belongings and use the handrail when using the stairs. Please keep all hands and arms away from the automatic train doors.”

It had been a while. I needed a ...