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 ...

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Evil superheroes are a stupid fad, that's my contention. My opinion. They've been around for a long time but now they're so popular it ...

Some characters are the heroes.

Some characters are the villains.

And some characters are just punchable. But not actually bad, or even antagonists- though sometimes they can be towards specific characters rather than the general plot goals.

Every time this type of character opens their mouth to say something, our ...

The villain is a counter balance to the protagonist and it is their role to push the protagonist into action and, with any luck, do it in an entertaining way. If there is one type of character that knows how to hold an audience’s attention is a villain you ...

Unless they are an old-timey Disney villain or similarly classic cartoon villain, nobody wants to be evil or bad starting off. Nobody's ambition is to be the villain in their own story. (note I say ‘villain’ and not ‘antagonist’)

Everyone is out to be the hero.

So why aren ...

We grin and support John Wick as he ploughs through dozens of people per minute in his revenge quest over his murdered dog and ruined car, but we gasp with shock when the Wicked Witch of the East pursues a single person to take revenge for killing her sister with ...

There are the mustache-twirling villains, that enjoy being evil. They're deliciously fun!

Then there are the nutjob villains. Those that are basket cases one way or the other, psychopaths or antisocial, unfettered madmen with a logic of their own that wreaks havoc upon the world. They're also very ...

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Certain tropes or stylistic ways of telling a story can get really, really popular and trendy very quickly and it seems like they're everywhere! Suddenly many ...

So, last week we talked about theme, and how it is generally expressed through the Protagonist in a given story, as they struggle through whatever type of conflict is appropriate to that tale. We had a few common examples of themes:

-Love conquers all

-The strongest or most determined will ...

Rules are meant to be bent, or broken.

Of course they are- if it's a one time thing. If it happens all the time, the stakes collapse, the story comes apart, and the experience is ruined. I'm talking about stories, of course…

As we've talked about time ...