If you are setting a story in the past it can often be hard to get everything from the little things to the big picture right, especially if it's a period you haven't lived through yourself. Even then, your memory can play tricks on you.

It doesn't ...

I generally avoid using current events in my articles about webcomics, but this time I can't help it. Signalgate has been living rent free in my mind ever since the editor in chief of the Atlantic broke the story.

There are many reasons for that, most of them not ...

No matter what the characters in your story might be doing–fighting crime, resisting alien invasion, surviving in a harsh radioactive wasteland, or just working in an office–sometimes it's fun to remove them from their ‘regular’ activities and place them somewhere different and out of their social comfort ...

Time is something that affects us all and as we age we become more aware of it because it seems to speed up, things become less permanent, and we become aware of our own mortality and mortality in general. Humans are a very long lived species as things go but ...

There was a recent article in the Guardian about how playing Dungeons and Dragons had helped siblings bond and cope with the death of their father. It got me thinking about the role that role-playing has played (now there's a phrase) in my own life.

For me role-playing began ...

In designing a good villain character there's a wide range of paths one can follow. From the grandiose villains that want to take over the world and live in volcano islands, waiting for the hero to fall into their elaborate death trap to humanized villains with complex backstories that ...

I love a character in an ensemble cast that runs counter to the rest of the people around them.

Really, it's the best way to make a character stand out. The one who has some kind of contrast to everyone else, in terms of their priorities, or beliefs, or ...

So you might have a character that's generally very calm or stoic. They may appear weak, or just not intimidating. They may be the right gender, class, age, or any other parameter for their peers to assume they are easy pickings and thus a great target for harassment. Initially ...

Every year our family are gifted a very nice calendar from one of our relatives. However, it often arrives a couple of months into the year. So, I'm usually tasked with whipping up a temporary couple of months to pin to the door to use until it arrives.

This ...

One of the best ways to absolutely nail the climax of your comic arc is by using foreshadowing. It’s like planting little breadcrumbs for your readers—tiny hints or clues scattered throughout your story that point to future events or a character’s big moment. When done well, foreshadowing ...