You’ve got your amazing idea down for a story but how do you begin? You want to make your first chapter amazing! This is where you need to lay down some concrete foundations to get your audience main character and why they care about what is happening to them ...

When do you bail on a series, movie or story?

We had a pretty fine conversation on the Quackcast last week that wandered into the category of “endings” and when they're set up well vs badly and such. I had a similar convo today with someone about various series ...

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This Quackcast was inspired by the fan reaction to Game of Thrones, a series that I haven't watched but Tantz and Banes have! Specifically it's ...

Happy June 1st everyone!

I have been youtube-crawling today around the cinema pop-culture side. And as I was watching assorted comments and commentary on a whole lot of YA (i.e. Young Adult) and children's books and TV/film/animation series, from Harry Potter to The Last Airbender to ...

Didn't Do Nothin'

During the making of the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks and the screenwriter were developing the story, and
it was going well - other than the ending. In the end, the character was rescued.

Robert Zemeckis, the eventual director of the movie told them that the character ...

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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 ...

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Inspired by Emma Clare's Friday newspost about supporting characters, today we're discussing sidekicks! Sidekicks are a useful character type that are used in so many ...

I’ve been ill for two weeks now with the flu. This has meant that progress on our comics has slowed as I try and get back on my feet again (got a couple of pages drawn for the buffer but progress is a snails pace right now). In between ...

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 ...