There is a general idea that cliches, when they surface in the narrative of a story, be it movie, tv or webcomics or anything else, is a sign of bad writing.

There is of course a good basis for this presumption, because usually a cliche is a plot device, or ...

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What are the different expectations for female and male audiences? This almost entirely a culture based thing, it changes depending on where and WHEN you are from ...

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Betrayal is an interesting thing to use in fiction. You can have betrayal of your nation, your organisation, friends, lovers, religion, beliefs, self. In stories it can ...

It was never supposed to be this way! The stupid, stinky, nasty wolverine steels the magical items from the moon-bunny and totally messes up the magical girl plan in the worst way possible… without feet, face hands or even a functioning brain how will the magical girl Seaman scout fulfil ...

There comes the time when you may have a scene that starts off quite innocuously. It might even start all fun and games. But sometime during it, the atmosphere changes drastically, and things escalate, seemingly out of nowhere.

What used to be a chill scene, now is suddenly a strife ...

What's in the Box?

An iconic part of the movie Pulp Fiction is the McGuffin that Jules and Vincent deliver to their boss, Marcallus Wallace. It's a briefcase that, when you open it, glows on the face of the person looking at it and absolutely astonishes them. Is ...

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In this Quackcast we chat about set-ups. pay-offs, and rip-offs. To make your climaxes and endings more satisfying you have pay-offs for audience expectations: set them up ...

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

I was amazed and surprised to see that I wasn't the only one that had an idea to talk about setup and payoff and Game of Thrones this week! The lovely Emma Clare did it ahead of me, and she ...

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On one side we have creators of content and on the other we have the consumers. The consumers number in their billions and they're voraciously hungry ...

Here on DD, your thumbnail is your first impression and as such you should take care with your thumbnail, as it is your first chance to make an impression with a reader. Full disclosure, I don't really like our thumbnails here on DD. These stamp style thumbnails are too ...