With another year coming to a close and we venture forth into 2020, it’s a good time to not just catch up on some no doubt much needed rest, but also to take a moment to make some goals for the coming year. Some time ago I wrote about ...

Generally nowadays, perhaps because of the nature of today's media and ways of consuming stories, a fast-paced, rapid-fire approach is favored for telling stories. It's with good reason. With so many options available to a finite audience, there is a high competition for grabbing the audience's attention ...

Peter Quill is an earthling living and working in space

In an interview about SNL creatives, it was said that actors who write prefer Strange characters in a normal world. While writers will write pieces about Regular people in a bizarre world. I have no idea how true that is ...

It's a sad day for Smack Jeeves and independent webcomics comics in general.
In case you haven't heard Smack Jeeves was acquired by a Korean mobile content company NHN. They've proceeded to minimise the community there and hijack the platform to promote a selection of sleek, generic ...

City Mouse and Country Mouse


In an Aesop's Fable, the Country Mouse offers a big-city Mouse a simple meal, which the City Mouse scoffs at. The two go to the big city for a much more fancy repast, and then are chased by a cat, whereupon the Country Mouse ...

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming to a close and Christmas not being far away, now is a good time to take a step back and consider the past year. For my writing partner and I, we had high hopes for the year coupled with a mountain of plans. However, those ...

It so happens that as I write these lines, I have a terrible headache. So I can't gather my thoughts enough for the third installment of my discussion of motivations and ideologies and actions, but I think I'm good to write what I'd promised- my review of ...

A flashback is when the story is interrupted or placed on hold to present an event that occurred prior to the events of the narrative. They are used to explain a character’s history with another character or explore a particular relationship with a place and/or object. Using a ...

Nowhere to Hyde

Last time we talked about characters who are not what they seem. Folks who are introduced one way but are revealed to have a secret nature, or hidden depths, or a hidden agenda.

Another type of “hidden side” I enjoy is a little less universal, but can ...

edward norton in “primal fear”

One of the things I like in fiction is characters who are not what they seem.

Like all things, this sort of thing can be done well, or badly, or somewhere in between. It can be fascinating and surprising, or cliche and predictable. It can ...