I had an idea for an upcoming story in my comic. It came from real life, in a way. I've noticed that I'm really, really good at rock, scissors, paper. Like, I almost never lose. So a tale in the near future will feature one of my characters ...

We all loved Breaking Bad, right? Or maybe you didn't. Or you didn't see it. But happily, the second season of the prequel series, Better Call Saul, started up last week! So far it's fantastic!

Featuring a lot of the same behind-camera talent and some returning actors ...

I read that a great ending should be “surprising but inevitable”. That's a tall order! To have the whole story leading to that inevitable conclusion, but not be predictable. Wow!

However, I've seen (and read…ah, let's be honest; mostly it's “seen”) several great endings that ...

Last time, solo heroes, teams of two, and trios were the order of the day. Today let's talk quartets, quintets, sextets, septuplets, octets, and…uh…neuf-tets…?
More possibilities for self-contained drama/comedy/conflict exist with groups of four or five. There are several ways to begin building such a ...

In the movie Annie Hall, the main character writes a play and uses it to give his failed relationship a happy ending.
There are countless stories where awkward, nervous protagonists…perhaps courtesy of awkward, nervous writers…win the battle, defeat the villains and get the gorgeous girl.

An unknown number ...

Since comic characters usually aren't too concerned with Halloween costumes, let's talk about how you dress your characters normally!

A character's outfit can convey the character's personality as well as the world they live in, and even their occupation in some cases. As a bare minimum ...

I recently watched a concert of Ed Sheeran singing “Thinking Out Loud” when the camera panned to the person playing the piano and it turned out to be Chris Martin from Coldplay and the song finished with a duet. I sat there thinking, “Wow, that really worked.” Collaborating with another ...

LISTEN!

Here we go again, back to formulas! This time we got some external input. Fellow DDers had a say about their idea about the utility of formulas and how they use them in their writing and comics. It's important to understand formulas in writing so you know what ...

LISTEN!

We've talked about formulas before, but mostly in the context of escaping formulas and reinventing them.
NOW however we're talking about using existing formulas to create a story, or creating new formulas and sticking to them to come up with your stories.
Formulas can be a good ...

Image by Banes

Conflict
If you're anything like me (you poor soul), you may have learned about conflict in English or Creative Writing classes, and they told you that stories could either be

Man vs. Himself,
Man vs. Man, or
Man vs. Nature.

So a character would be either ...