LISTEN!
This week we talk about maintaining suspension of disbelief: the way you have to convince people of the world your story is set in and keep them there. Everything you do is done for that, to convince them your characters make sense and the world works. There's a ...

Quackcast 382 - Suspension of disbelief
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, July 10, 2018When Feedback Doesn't Come
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 7, 2018
A couple of days ago Banes gave us a wonderful article on the issue of who to please- yourself or the audience, and how that can go very right or very wrong.
So that got me thinking that we should also talk about the dreaded silence. You update a page ...
Your Javert's Options
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, June 2, 2018
So last time we had talked about the Javert trope, a category of character that is very compelling and makes for excellent drama, immense suspense and often gets their own following in fandom. (Just check out Saito Hajime's hero's journey as a prime example.)
The Javert character is ...
The Javert Effect
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 26, 2018
Javert is such a stellar and powerful character in Les Miserables that he has his very own trope.
He's the skilled, dogged, unwavering locomotive of a chaser that in the name of the law, the church, the state, the cause pursues and persecutes the hero of a story, and ...
How far can a Reboot go?
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 19, 2018
So I came across this new announcement of a reboot (?) due in 2019 of the nostalgic cartoon Thundercats that most of us grew up with (fine, ok, I'm only dating myself with this).
I have always been partial to Thundercats, but not overly possessive. I didn't mind the ...
The Character Journey of Iron Man revisited
Banes at 12:00AM, April 26, 2018
Iron Man and the multi film arc - revisited
There are spoilers below for the Iron Man and Avengers movies, Civil War, and Spiderman Homecoming
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been breaking new ground in movies with their various interconnected films for about ten years.
The MCU began with Iron Man ...
Love Spells and Love Potions
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 8, 2018
Love spells have been a part of literature for a long, long time. A Midsummer Night's Dream comes to mind, by that William Shakespeare fella, where a love triangle/quadrangle is made more complex when the wrong target is affected. The correction has only one dude under the spell ...
Creators vs. Readers
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 6, 2018
Creators and Readers are two groups that go hand in hand. In a very substantial way when it comes to art, one cannot exist without the other- Art is created to be seen, heard, felt and read or otherwise enjoyed (including eating it), even if the only one doing that ...