Here is the scene:

It is pitch black, sitting in a movie theater, the lights go out and the feature film is only minutes away from beginning. The trailers begin playing and the first one is half way memorable. Then the next trailer comes on and I see a man ...

As it has been seen very painfully lately in TV, the best story, with the most excellent buildup and most powerful cast of characters will just collapse if the ending isn't good enough.

A technically happy ending that isn't good enough is not going to cut it- again ...

The Death of the Method?


In the past, I've been a proponent of the Banes Method - really, the Save the Cat Method - of story construction and story improvement.

The method became all the rage in film production in Hollywood apparently - and has received some criticism as well, for being ...

In an ancient civilization on Earth, humans had a stronger connection to insects, especially the giant butterfly, and nature. Two competing clans, the Ture and the Rahase, came from two separate regions, but were constantly at odds. An ancient ritual is about to begin after a hasty altercation between a ...

There is a very important relationship between humor and horror.

Bill Hader credits sixteen-year-old, Finn Wolfhard, for his meeting with the casting director in the latest installment of the Killer Clown franchise featuring Pennywise, It: Chapter Two. If that was not enough, he has joked in several interviews how he ...

We've all had periods like this- everything that needs to be done yesterday just keeps piling up and up, demanding your time and your energy and focus, and you only wish you could clone yourself to get it all done in time.

Especially when it so happens that you ...

When my writing partner and I were penning the beginnings of issue 0 of The Constellation Chronicle we designed two characters Marcel and Wainwright. We wanted to introduce the looming threat that was barreling towards the main cast and the most convenient way to do that was through these two ...

Unreliable

Last week we talked a little pov basics.

This time, how about we talk the fascinating device called the Unreliable Narrator. For anyone who doesn't know, this type of narration (usually first person in prose, but not necessarily) tells the story in question…but is not necessarily giving ...

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Cooperation Vs Competition. For decades the mantra was competition is good: it produces progress and makes things better… Well that's actually false. Competition is what you ...

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Today we compare and contrast two ways of making characters: starting with a pure archetype and building it with tropes, or creating a character organically through circumstance ...