Wise men are like valuable spice for a story. They are also a wonderful plot device, or an extremely cheesy one, depending on how the character is used and written.

Wise men (and women) are often the moral compass to the main characters, or hold some kind of answer to ...

A great way to get eyes on your work is to form collaborations with other creators. Collaborations are not only an effective way to promote your comic to new readers, but they also help build a sense of community amongst other comic creators. Here are some examples of collaborations to ...

A few Newsposts from our contributors have mentioned plotting or planning vs the pantsing or ‘discovery’ approach to writing.

Plotting, which is obviously building some kind of plan or outline, is an approach many writers swear by, at least to some degree. It might be a vague plan, with a ...

Greetings, citizens!

Superpowers coming from magical abilities or fantastic technology are essential to many stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. They can show up in other genres, too, like horror and of course, superhero stories (are they science fiction stories? Science-Fantasy? Heroic Fantasy? Whatever - most of those folks ...

It's very easy for us creators to get wrapped up in our own art and stories that sometimes we begin to feel stagnant. It’s important to take a step back and look at what others are doing as it might go on to serve as inspiration for your ...

MacGuffin comin' through!


MacGuffins

I'm not sure if everyone knows this already, but a MacGuffin is a term that was made popular by Alfred Hitchcock, and is now widely used in writing and storytelling circles.

It is an item or event (or possibly even a character) that exists only ...

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Today Banes and I chat about our top tips for doing ...

I like mentor characters.

This is not just me of course; the mentor and protagonist relationship is powerful. Some of the best moments in many stories are the first encounter with the mentor, the training and sense of discovery for the protagonist, and the eventual loss of the mentor character ...

Brisco and Rudy are two specialised vigilantes that working together as a team. They work together using their complimentary skills and talents to foil criminals. Their abilities are tested right away in the very first chapter when their harmless trip to the museum is rudely interrupted by a gang of ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...