With more time spent at home, I have been able to dive into some of my favorite past-times that I used to do when I was middle school aged. One of them being playing video games. Growing up, Squaresoft and the Final Fantasy video game series completely shaped my identity ...

The idea of genre is somewhat obvious, and somewhat murky. It can be rigid for some fans, and irrelevant to others.

I was reading some thoughts from readers of various niches that were very particular about what belongs in them and what doesn't. There were some complaints there about ...

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In this strange time of global pandemic it'd be crazy NOT to acknowledge what we're all experiencing together, so that's what we're talking ...

The amazing Emma Clare got to it first and already has shared with us a set of pretty useful and even life-saving tips on how to manage and protect our mental health, especially in times of stress. If you haven't already, I urge you to read it!

In this ...

One could say that it is a very trendy thing in writing, be it for movies or for graphic novels, to subvert expectations. Often, unfairly, a plot that subverts expectations is equated with ‘good, quality writing’. Tons of essays and articles have been written to refute this association, including here ...

(What an udder failure.)

Do you like puns?

I love puns.

I once entered a pun contest and I wrote ten different puns, but at the end, none of them won.

That is correct. No pun, in ten, did.

In complete honesty, puns are one of my weaknesses. I love ...

The Prologue of Invasive Species opens up in a setting very similar to a role-playing game complete with character avatars and text boxes. It is as if the narrator is immersed in this digital land as he goes in and out of consciousness with reality. The main character goes by ...

Sitting back on a Friday evening, remote control in hand, I decided to watch one of the latest Pixar Animated short films. To me a short film is the perfect length of time (six to nine minutes) to tell a story with an exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. They ...

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What happens to characters after the big action scene or climactic moment? This could be anywhere in the story but it's usually close to the end ...

A key aspect to creating a story, be it a modern day slice-of-life, an epic space opera or a high fantasy saga, is the world in which the characters inhabit. Now there are lots of aspects to consider when building your story and, this week, we’ll be going into ...