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 ...

World building is a cornerstone of any story. From your neighbourhood slice-of-life to an out-of-this world space opera the world in which the characters inhabit draws the reader and keeps them invested in the character’s struggles. Here are some questions to consider when constructing your new universe.

What is ...

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What is the worth of human life in your stories?
This isn't something people often consider, we just tend to have a fairly accurate guess based ...

So the other day I watched a very interesting video about the new Mulan movie. It was by a Chinese person, explaining why several things were done in a way that is inherently alien to the Chinese culture.

I also recall that the original Mulan was not a hit in ...

There is a reason why in fanfiction archives there's a whole category of stories called “hurt/comfort”, where one of the main characters of a specific IP is injured, and others (usually an unlikely person or whoever the author is shipping with the injured one) have to take care ...

First off, Happy 4th of July to all USA Duckers!

Recently I listened to Lindsey Ellis' excellently made video essay on so-called ‘woke Disney’: the company's attempt to remake or edit or outright hide past works because they are now judged to be problematic in some way or other ...

We're all aware of the classic tennet for writers and creators of all stories- write what you know in order for the story to be good.

We've explored before what it means to write what you know, and where this rule should be adhered to: at the core ...

Classic X-men reprinted the Chris Claremont stories and included new Claremont stories A+

Chris Claremont is one of the all-time greats in comic book writing, and probably my favorite comics writer.

He's most famous for working on the Uncanny X-Men series from the 1970's to the early 1990 ...

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The nature of online communities and making connections with people you meet in them is quite different from what happens with “social media”. The connections are ...

Last week, I went into the basics of building your fictional worlds. We’re continuing on with our second instalment where we’ll dive a bit deeper into the nitty gritty of world building. Without further ado…

What’s your world’s system of government?
Politics plays a large role ...