When I was growing up in the 80s, stories that were marketed as ‘children’s' were occasionally brutal.
Characters got maimed or killed, tortured or traumatized, met with horrid ends in worlds that were anything but rosy. And this was a pattern that wasn't limited to, say, English literature ...
Children's Stories
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 18, 2021Rooting for the bad guy
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 11, 2021
Normally in stories there is the hero vs the villain or the protagonist vs the antagonist. As the audience, we generally expect to root for the hero or the protagonist and hope for the villain's or antagonist's comeuppance.
But there come those times when we find ourselves rooting ...
QUACKCAST 547 - Franchise fail
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Sept. 7, 2021 LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
There seemed to be a lull for a while after the 1990s and the massive sequel craze of the 80s, but nowadays we're back in full ...
When your readers guess correctly
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 28, 2021
So you have uploaded your latest page, and it's one of your best.
The story is at a point where the suspense is cranking up to eleven. The plot thickens. Everyone wonders what is going to happen next…
…and then that one fan GETS IT RIGHT. Right there in ...
The Torture of Watching
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 7, 2021
Greece is burning, as I'm writing these lines.
There is fire everywhere, and it's only getting worse. It's probably going to extinguish itself in the sea, when it gets there, in all areas, from central Greece to Attica to Euboia. The ecological disaster is enormous. The consequences ...
Mind Games
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 24, 2021
Sometimes the arch villain of the story is the one pulling all the strings in the background, and the protagonists don't know about them until the endgame.
And other times, the arch villain gets to clash with a protagonist (or an opposing character) that is also a mastermind pulling ...
Struggling Together
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 17, 2021
So this is a trope that unfortunately is very true in life as well. TV tropes calls it “We ARE Struggling Together” and I call it ‘the divided front’.
When the Big Bad is so bad that everyone agrees to set aside their differences to fight it off, then usually ...
The Test of Character
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 10, 2021
If you are in a fairy tale and encounter an Old Woman… never take that meeting lightly. It's usually a test of character: the manner in which you respond to her will be a measure of how kind, decisive, clever, obliging, evil, rude, crass, abusive, or idiotic you are ...
Intrigue and Scheming
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 3, 2021
Who doesn't love a good intrigue, some scheming in the shadows, some low chuckling behind a curtain?
The author.
It's the author that doesn't love it. Or rather, the sheer background work that needs to go into writing a good scheming plot, counter plot, and the whole ...
Above Suspicion
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, June 5, 2021
There's nothing more satisfying than writing a twist villain. The person that everyone trusts or nobody suspects, who ends up being the mastermind for all the evil stuff that happened all along.
The person that everyone defers to for advice, that leans on for support, that is there to ...