You’ve got your amazing idea down for a story but how do you begin? You want to make your first chapter amazing! En medias res means opening in the midst of the plot. This way, exposition is bypassed, allowing you to fill it in more gradually, either through dialogue ...

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Happy 2021 everybody!!!!! For this fun first of year Quackcast We do a commentary and reaction to the Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta classic sword and sorcery ...

So we've talked often about how letting a character die in a story is something that should be used very frugally, because once death occurs, it should be permanent. In most settings, death shouldn't be something that is reversible. If not, it will lose its impact, and the ...

Spoilers for recent Star Wars, eg the Mandalorian.
It went unspoken in my year of Newsposts, but 2020 is the 40th Anniversary the release of The Empire Strikes Back.

that's not true! That's impossible!
No, man! Search your feelings! you know it's true! Forty damn years!


Though ...

A terrible disaster has befallen all of the earth! A lowly algebra teacher, Dork Scahawgian, and his evil sentient computer, Vidi82, have somehow managed to scorch the entire planet and a good portion of the population including himself. Thankfully many were transported away to safety and in the process they ...

When a character the story's cast and audience identify and are familiar with dies, the effect is, or should be, monumental.

Not only because that effectively ends that character's journey (and arc), but also because as an event it has immediate ramifications for all the surviving characters.

First ...

I’ve been getting back into reading epic fantasy novels. Grand worlds, exotic locations and, of course, an ever increasing cast of characters. As I am one to never stop taking notes, even when I’m trying to chill, here are some things I noticed about introducing new characters that ...

Lord Ziot is about to have a bad day… actually, and extremely bad day! He's come down to earth looking for a very powerful helmet that increases the wearer's intelligence and abilities as well as allowing them control of all sorts of alien hi-tech stuff, but before he ...

A few months back, I was playing my favorite Open-World simulation video game and I noticed I was missing one of the most expensive vehicles in my garage. To my amusement, I received a confession that my car had been replaced by a much more affordable and lackluster vehicle earlier ...

What is real, really?

Can we trust our senses that what information they are giving us is objective? There are many thinkers and philosophers that posit we cannot. That as long as the messages get to our brains, it feels real even if it isn't.

If we can't ...