Have you ever read something and it gave you the “feels?” Something that was so intense that you couldn't help but feel the emotional truth of a fictional moment in time? In many ways that is the highest form of our art, and possibly any art; to communicate an ...

Emotional Impact
Amelius at 1:10PM, April 14, 2019An Unexpected Audience
Amelius at 12:52PM, March 10, 2019
Sometimes you aim for a target and you miss– but you end up with a hit anyway in an unexpected place.
When starting a new project usually the target audience is clear, people like ourselves. After all, an author usually likes their own work and has a target reader similar ...
Going Backwards
Amelius at 11:00AM, Feb. 17, 2019
I read webcomics backwards, and maybe you should too. You might be aghast about spoilers, but trust me– almost every reader who happens upon your comic does this too.
I should specify–I don't read the entire archive backwards. It depends on the comic but typically I read back ...
Recycling Ideas From The Trash
Amelius at 12:04PM, Nov. 18, 2018
There are no bad ideas, just poor execution…..terrible, awful execution.
You may have seen those games that go around on social media, such as “Describe a classic movie/video game/novel in the worst way possible”, it shows how easy it is to make any concept seem like the ...
Justifying the Tragic Backstory
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Sept. 21, 2018
Throughout literature and modern media, many faults and drives for leads, damsels and villians have often been motivated by a tragic backstory so much so, that to employ one for your story may appear trite or cliche. There is, however, a way to use a tragic backstory effectively and can ...
Character Arcs Revisited
Banes at 12:00AM, April 12, 2018
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 ...
Quackcast 358 - Damaged Characters
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 23, 2018 LISTEN!
This week we mine Banes's ideas about damaged protagonists. Does having physiologically damaged protagonists (as opposed to merely flawed), make them more realistic or relatable? I think we came to the conclusion that this isn't necessarily the case at all, in fact it can mean the opposite ...
Quackcast 332 - The trouble with immortality
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, July 18, 2017 LISTEN!
In this Quast we talk about immortality, which is a common trope in literature. Who seeks immortality in stories? It's usually bad guys, and it usually has some sort of extreme price,catch or dark side, so much so that people actually believe that if immortality WAS real ...
UHG I CAN'T EVEN
HyenaHell at 12:00AM, April 7, 2017
We've all been there: all of the sudden, the trajectory of your own life seems to thwart you from your ambitions! Maybe it's obligations to schoolwork or your day job; maybe your partner or family; maybe you wind up homeless or awkwardly crashing on a series of couches ...
Boring Heroes, Fun Villains
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Feb. 4, 2017
It’s something so often encountered and/or mentioned in stories (be they comics or novels or film) that it’s becoming in itself a cliché: Heroes aren’t interesting because they’re straight arrows. Villains are fun because they’re the ‘bad boys’, the ones that can do all ...