So we love our clever villains, our smooth criminals, the conniving sly characters that use their brains to thwart the heroes and be a real menace. Like the riskiest game of chess, the hero has to match that kind of villain in strategy and smarts as well as determination, prowess ...

Ok yes. Plot armor in general is considered a mistake. With good reason. Enough plot armor and there are no stakes left in your plot, and the audience isn't worried your plot-armored characters may not make it. And if there's no suspense, there's no engagement or the ...

In the whole “show don't tell” thing that is the holy grail of ‘good storytelling’ (yes but not always, this is for a newspost of another time) what they usually don't tell you is that behavioral patterns are your friend.

To show rather than tell, you need to ...

It’s been quite a bit since I last made a character deep dive, but since I got a bit more time on my hands, here we are! Today’s Character Analysis is about Levana from Vampire Girl by Marie Kerns and J_Scarbrough!

So, first things first! Vampire Girl is ...

This character can be insufferably annoying.

No, this character is insufferably annoying, but it's up to you whether that's to the other characters or the audience. When written correctly, the prattler can be comedy gold or a swift ticket to the most delicious kind of schadenfreude: watching the ...

Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.

If ...

One of the most frequent ways to make characters stand out in fiction or myth is to give them a staggering, amazingly powerful ability. Something that mere talent doesn't give you. Something miraculous, larger than the largest life, unique and insurmountable:

Like a dude that can part an entire ...

So for us Orthodox Christians it's Good Friday today and it'll be Resurrection Day (Good Saturday) by the time you're reading this. In the neighborhood where I live, a new (boisterous and with many members) family has moved in, who brought a live rooster a few days ...

Entitlement. Privilege. Obnoxiousness.

We all deal with these things every day, whether we want to or not. It comes in all shapes and sizes. From the kid that throws a tantrum if they can't take some other random kid's toy to the adult that is pissed they stole ...

Photo: “Casual Group Photo (Right Side)”. 2022 Drunk Duck Awards Community Project. (2022)

Niccea has spoken—The planning for the 2023 Drunk Duck Awards began last Friday, March 31, 2023. The two categories currently accepting volunteer sign-ups and art submissions in April 2023: Planning Committee and For Your Consideration (FYC ...