How do you make a clever character stupid?

You give them an infatuation. A fixation. Something that completely overrides their critical thinking and better judgment. Something that drives them nuts like a switch is thrown.

And when that happens, they're dumber than a bag of rocks. (And they're ...

I was watching The Dead Zone again the other week, and thought that Johnny Smith might be the perfect horror Protagonist.

This movie, and the Stephen King book it's based on, might be a little bit under the radar; I'm not sure how well known it is in ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Being right on the internet is Sooo important…
Being right in life and at all times is essential too! At least that's how a lot of us tend to think. Being told we're wrong, especially ...

We love a good revenge story.

The entire journey of a character from victimhood to avenger is one that almost guarantees audience engagement and their rooting for the character on the path of revenge.

The reasoning for that is easy: the character suffered a great grievance that is unlikely to ...

Yesterday a scammer on the phone tried to scam us out of around 3k euro by some silly pretense and a bait of around 250 euro supposedly they wanted to deposit on behalf of the government. Now, of course this didn't fly with me or my mom, but it ...

There was big Internet news the other day when Marvel revealed that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe…and that he'd be playing Doctor Doom (?)

The thrill of seeing RDJ on stage sent the audience into thunderous applause of course…we all love this guy ...

As I'm writing this I'm counting down the hours to the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024 which are taking place in Paris. The Olympics are the king of all sports competition, and even being able to participate requires for athletes to have been rigorously through very ...

Last time I wrote about villains making amends, after they decide to change their ways, flip sides, or generally become support to the protagonist, rather than the antagonist.

But for them to get there, there has to first come the realization that they are the villain of their story. And ...

So your villain has just made a heel-face turn and is now one of the good guys. Yay!



…not so fast!

The moment where an antagonist turns on their own side and joins that of the protagonists is extremely powerful. But unless it is part of the overall story's ...

Humans can be scary, fascinating, mysterious creatures. Humanity is capable of the most amazing feats of compassion and the most debased acts of cruelty. And not necessarily at opposing ends of the spectrum. The same person can be compassionate in one context and appallingly cruel in another. They may not ...