I continue to be an occasional fan of true scary stories found online. The “realistic” ones are cautionary tales, and might even give an important reminder to be on guard and keep one's eyes open…and the more unusual/“unexplained” stories are pretty darned entertaining and addictive!

Anyway, I ...

LISTEN!
Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead movie poster

Separating the art from the artist, the message from the messenger… Can you do this?
You know, when you find out an actor, musician, comic artist or whatever is an arsehole or says things you disagree with or is a criminal, can ...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince (2015)

When I was very young, my mom had placed a series of book collections on the headboard of my bed before I learned how to read or developed any interest in books. Among the titles, nestled between C.S. Lewis' Narnia series ...

In the early 60's, shortly after the beginning of Marvel Comics with the Fantastic Four, a second series was released: The Incredible Hulk.

As the Marvel Universe took shape with Spider Man, The Avengers, The X-Men and Daredevil titles, The Hulk stood apart from all the other Super Heroes ...

A character starts in one state of being, and ends in a very different state of being.

The Character Arc in a nutshell!

Every time the subject of character arcs comes up around the site or on the Quackcast, one of the first examples that comes to my mind is ...

I have been feeling inspired lately. It is not to be confused with the same wave of inspiration that usually happens when I listen to Bon Iver while driving down a highway at night (even though that also works). It is the type of inspiration where a story begins to ...

Pickled is the tale of three unlikely friendly companions. First, there is Spudston, a devious potato that enjoys lurking in a kiddie pool all day and believes that one day he will emerge as a shark. Then there is Corn Doug, a rather positive and friendly corn dog that wears ...

The years following my college graduation, the most frequent questions asked by my peers and older adults were: “What did you major in?” and “What do you do?” Initially, the questions would bother me because I could not give a direct answer to the second question without feeling inadequate. What ...

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 ...

Cast of an obscure 1970's science fiction flick. Current whereabouts unknown

One of the challenges…and maybe one of the greatest pleasures…of creating a series is populating it with a cast of heroes. I know I spend many weeks or months tinkering with characters and deciding who they ...