If you’re looking to open your comic by establishing the scene, theme and/or tone of the rest of the narrative then you might consider using “the prologue”. Derived from the Greek term, prologos, meaning, “before word”, the prologue serves as a mini story that is set before the ...

Bookending your start - The prologue
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, May 7, 2021Handling info dumps
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Feb. 19, 2021
Exposition is information that the author wants the reader to know before they move on in the plot. It is delivered in one chunk, in the form of a conversation, a diary or an explanation from the view of the narrator. Despite its bad reputation, there is a place for ...
En media res
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Jan. 8, 2021
You’ve got your amazing idea down for a story but how do you begin? You want to make your first chapter amazing! En medias res means opening in the midst of the plot. This way, exposition is bypassed, allowing you to fill it in more gradually, either through dialogue ...
How Little and How Much?
Banes at 12:00AM, July 16, 2020
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I started updating my comic more. Shortly after that, I took two weeks off work and went even harder.
I was updating furiously, at least in comparison to what I'd been doing for a year or two previous. In fact, after about ...
Pixar’s Loop Will Send You on a Loop of Your Own
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Feb. 24, 2020
Sitting back on a Friday evening, remote control in hand, I decided to watch one of the latest Pixar Animated short films. To me a short film is the perfect length of time (six to nine minutes) to tell a story with an exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. They ...
QUACKCAST 463 - Sexposition is not a new thing
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 28, 2020 LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
Sexpostion is sex plus exposition, it's exposition with sex on the screen. Tantz Aerine addressed the topic of sexposition in an article last year, but what ...
QUACKCAST 461 - Top Comic making 5 tips!
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 14, 2020 LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
You can also listen to it on Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/DrunkDuckcomics/posts/2921504494550602
Today Banes and I chat about our top tips for doing ...
Reflection Characters
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 2, 2020
Reflection Characters
When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...
Sexposition (Do NOT Google That)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Dec. 21, 2019
The word for ‘porn’ in Greek is unsurprisingly ‘porn’. But its vernacular synonym is a word that in reality means ‘tack-on’ or ‘added scrap’. It signifies the common (or at least until recently common) assumption that scenes with explicit sexual activity were there to pad the runtime for a movie ...
QUACKCAST 426 - Sidekicking
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, May 14, 2019 LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
Inspired by Emma Clare's Friday newspost about supporting characters, today we're discussing sidekicks! Sidekicks are a useful character type that are used in so many ...