I've mentioned before in other articles how Twitter, and often comics/art Twitter especially, can be a total dumpster fire with flame wars erupting every two hours or so.

There have been many analyses on why this is happening, from efforts of established comic creators to gatekeep the field ...

what? we're over?


The show Supernatural is ending its run at season 15, which starts up sometime this year.

It's a really impressive length of time for a live action TV show - but when I heard about the finale, I had the same sort of vague surprise - the ...

The Sleeping Satyr, the Barberini Faun

Last night, a distressed friend contacted me after a rather dreadful experience. She had just been on the most awkward dinner date with a man she thought was a gentleman based on his good looks and charm, but he turned out to be the ...

Writing Timeclocks


Timeclocks are one of those elements of fiction that usually shows up in the middle or just before the final act, to give things a little boost in the adrenaline department, and make the drama more urgent. Not only are your characters facing big problems, but suddenly their ...

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At the beginning of a story how do you grab and KEEP your readers? This comes from the Friday newspost by Emma Clare. Her advice was pretty ...

Last week, I was in a classroom and the plans on the desk were to show a DVD. “Oh good, Zootopia it is!” I said as I happily loaded the disc into the computer. I had already seen the movie three years ago when it came out in theaters, so ...

You’ve got your amazing idea down for a story but how do you begin? You want to make your first chapter amazing! This is where you need to lay down some concrete foundations to get your audience main character and why they care about what is happening to them ...

When do you bail on a series, movie or story?

We had a pretty fine conversation on the Quackcast last week that wandered into the category of “endings” and when they're set up well vs badly and such. I had a similar convo today with someone about various series ...

If you want to design a memorable character it doesn’t just stop at their looks. How they speak, write and use body language is integral to who they are as a person as well as how other character’s may react to them. When you read a comic or ...

Didn't Do Nothin'

During the making of the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks and the screenwriter were developing the story, and
it was going well - other than the ending. In the end, the character was rescued.

Robert Zemeckis, the eventual director of the movie told them that the character ...