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OMFG you sexist PIG! Heh… today we talk about trying to recognise sexism in your OWN work, what to do about it, and WHY. It turns out it can be very hard to do, and if you DO acknowledged it the instinct is to rationalise it away, justify it ...

Last week marked the loss of two actors who brought my favorite fantasy villains from childhood films to life.

I was only a baby when Jim Henson's musical fantasy film, Labyrinth, was released in theaters. The fact that there were once home videos of me singing along to “(Dance ...

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 ...

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 ...

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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 ...

If you want to decent job of it, creating and using weapons in fiction can be quite tricky. There are a lot of pitfalls that newbies and even long time veterans of creating fiction fall into.

1. Number one is simply copying what others have done without understanding it yourself ...

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And ...

Happy 2016, everyone!

I'm not big into New Year's resolutions generally, but I do have a few this year. I read 24 books in 2015 (not including partial books read for school) and would like to do the same in 2016. I'd like to improve my reading ...

Happy new year's eve 2015! How are you spending your new years' eve? Personally I'm racing to finish the latest page of Pinky TA Pinky TA for the year so I can have at least 4 updates in 2015! I'm so close…

So that's my crazy ...

I hope you will all forgive me for not putting together a proper newspost this week! I've just finished baking a ginger cake (to be served after dinner tomorrow with warm lemon sauce), and I'm about to settle down with my family to watch A Muppet Christmas Carol ...