When it comes to characters and their arcs, their relationships, or more specifically, their chemistry, has a large role to play in how they develop. From day to day we absorb and reflect the behaviours, views and values of those we interact with, be that at work or school or ...

We've all been told how in story telling, showing is a lot better than telling.

Showing gets hard if your main character is a loner that interacts with nobody. Even harder if he/she is a stoic that emotes very little. The audience will have no way of knowing ...

The original quote from which the title is derived is attributed to Joseph Stalin. And while it can sound cynical and harsh, it is unfortunately true: the human mind boggles beyond a cut off point when it comes to grasping numbers tangibly, not theoretically. When the numbers become too high ...

Usually when building a character, we go for their general personality in terms of traits, the routine/general behavior they would display, the routine/general things that would interest them and so on.

If you are writing a slice of life story, or a sitcom style series, or anything that ...

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 ...

Retconning has a bad reputation.

Usually because it's done in big IPs and franchises when writers change and decide to drastically alter the development of a plotline, and do it by changing established canon about the characters or the history of the setting. Usually it's sloppily done, dealt ...

When constructing your world, be it in fantasy or within a realistic/historical/existing place, the names you pick are very important.

They are important for suspension of disbelief and immersion: how consistent the names are, how congruent with what reality the audience reasonably comes to expect within the framework ...

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 ...

Might as well get it out of the way: if you're a mentor in a story, chances are you're going on a boatride over the river Styx at some point.

When a mentor dies it's often the signal that the main character, the one being mentored, is ...