Who doesn't love a good intrigue, some scheming in the shadows, some low chuckling behind a curtain?

The author.

It's the author that doesn't love it. Or rather, the sheer background work that needs to go into writing a good scheming plot, counter plot, and the whole ...

Some of my earliest memories are playing with Star Wars toys - my awareness of the first film and the toys are muddled together, but I clearly remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back, and vividly recall the couple-years-long wait after that, before Return of the Jedi would come and resolve the ...

Photo: Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter during a Cold Open for San Diego Comic-Con International (2016)

Seven years ago, on November 17, 2014, I wrote a Monday article on the Duck following the final taping of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It was around that time that ...

One of the latest twitter dramas seem to be around artistic shortcuts, and how consumers of comics and webcomics (often non-artists) tend to scoff at any artist that dares admit they use them.

Comic shortcuts could include pre-rendered backgrounds, using 3D programs to arrange spaces or make sure perspective is ...

Backstories. We all have ‘em. After all, we wouldn’t be here today if we didn’t. Without our memories, we are like a blank slate waiting to be drawn on. Trust me, I’ve had amnesia. It’s not fun to have to rebuild your life brick by brick ...

I read some writing…advice? Or commentary? Or something like that years ago that pointed out how often amateur writers will create Protagonists who are writers. If I'm remembering correctly, this was expressed as a bad thing, probably because it's overdone. On the one hand, they say write ...

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There was ALL sorts of kerfuffle on the internet centred around the phrase “Heroes don't do that”.
It began with an interview of two people involved ...

Protagonists are always in need of antagonists.

Usually, those are visible, concrete, specific: the protagonists are up against someone or someones who are obstructing their way to attaining their goal. Some are even so powerfully clashing against each other that they are nemeses. Superman and Lex Luthor, Batman and the ...

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Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/adarunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
(Image: By Pitface, abandoned antimissle site in ND)

Taking on more than you can handle - i.e. James Cameron and JJ Abrams are good directors and writers ...

There's nothing more satisfying than writing a twist villain. The person that everyone trusts or nobody suspects, who ends up being the mastermind for all the evil stuff that happened all along.

The person that everyone defers to for advice, that leans on for support, that is there to ...