art by Sandy Jarrell


The Hated, Part One - Villain Heroes

I've picked up all the “new” versions of the Archie universe and enjoyed them to different degrees for the most part. Sometimes there are a few laughs. Or some nice artwork. Or just the fun of seeing the characters ...

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Patriotism, flags, nationalism, religion, politics, national symbols hijacked by racists! These are some of the unique aspects of our cultural identity and national differences we chat about on this quackcast. I was inspired by HippieVan's newspost on Friday (about Cultural identity and how it defines our writing), to ...

Just the name inspires awe, a level of attention and gravity. Because it was a name before it became a noun: she was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge and retribution against those who committed any kind of hubris.

In stories though, a character that takes the position of nemesis ...

My city had a massive snowfall on Boxing Day this year – the day after Christmas, for you non-Canadians. Nothing too unusual for a Canadian winter, but even so the city always seems to grind to a halt when it happens. After having a neighbour help him get his car unstuck ...

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Chekhov's gun is the principal (as I understand it), that if you have some item, fact or piece of information introduced into your story that you draw specific attention to, then you'd better use it some how later on in your story. The simplest example is a ...

Last week, ozoneocean resurrected a forum post from a little more than eleven years ago by necroposting the “Tablet Recommendation?” topic on the General Discussion forum board. The post is definitely dated, yet it still holds up to the idea of allowing for time to pass before purchasing a big ...

To me this is one of the most fascinating elements of storytelling. The idea behind Chekhov’s Gun is to employ parsimony in the information comprising a plot and content: If something isn’t essential to the story, just don’t include it. Little by little, it became more “if ...

Sorry about last week’s missed newspost, everyone! Last week’s post happened to fall on “friend Christmas.” I’m the world’s worst adult, and spent the day eating so much holiday junk food that I got sick and had to go to bed rather than finish writing. I ...

Witch Natasha gathers her ingredients, makes all the right preparations, chants the dark magic words and… nothing. She tries again and then notices a perky young lady behind her. Young, happy-go-lucky, naive Giselle isn't quite the succubus Natasha had in mind when she decided to summon a demon! My ...

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What defines evil in fiction?
I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless.
That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones
I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work ...