Might as well get it out of the way: if you're a mentor in a story, chances are you're going on a boatride over the river Styx at some point.

When a mentor dies it's often the signal that the main character, the one being mentored, is ...

(I'm writing this after a very long and hard day of mental and physical work so if it sounds ranty or convoluted…. eh, you've been warned :P )

Humans are competitive by nature. Somehow we have to rank everything- all things, from the most concrete to the most abstract ...

Given that it was Valentine's Day yesterday, and that is associated with a lot of special moments between couples, I thought we could talk about the Day After! What do you do on the Day After? Do you run to buy a pill or do you roll over and ...

While binge watching Schitt’s Creek, I started to see the emerging love story between Alexis Rose, Mutt the bad-boy, and Ted the veterinarian. That was when I wanted to discuss one of my favorite comic tropes of the alpha male versus the beta male.

In Spiderman, Harry Osbourne is ...

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Inspired by Emma Clare's Friday newspost about supporting characters, today we're discussing sidekicks! Sidekicks are a useful character type that are used in so many ...

I've talked about villains before and how they can be very nuanced in their motivations (without those motivations being redeeming) but today, thanks to Emma Clare's Friday post, I became inspired to talk about abject, absolute, abominable villainy! The twirling mustache type, the one that is so pure ...

Lately there has been this pattern that I've noticed in both social media and mainstream comics/cartoons outlets that is very saddening: the use of denigration and belittlement as a promotional tactic, or as an argument.

More and more I seem to notice that new series, reboots, retellings or ...

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What makes bad guy intimidating? Tantz Aerine made a great newspost about the question, carefully outlining various key bad-guy properties like confidence, composure, efficiency, and amorality. Banes, Pitface, Tantz and I stomp ALL over that, traipsing about like drunken, muddy rugby players, as we blather on about our opinions ...

Every hero goes up against a villain. Every protagonist against an antagonist. This is the main clash that drives your story, any story, forward be it slice of life or epic drama.

One of the elements that can make this driving force compelling, that will make the clash interesting and ...

For this week, I wanted to begin a new series of articles inspired by the most recent podcast “JUST DO IT!”. Part way through our discussion, the topic of creating stories came up and I, quite clumsily, tried to explain the theory of narrative circles and arcs as told by ...