Characters want something - this is a basic building block of storytelling. Identifying what a main character wants is a big step in defining that character. Figure out how they go about trying to get it - that's the beginning of a story. Figure out what's stopping them from getting ...

I've started a few webcomics at this point, and all of them are ongoing…well, at least in theory.

There's always the question of where to start. What's page one gonna be?

With my first comic, Typical Strange, I LABORED over that decision for years.

Kind of ...

So your villain has just made a heel-face turn and is now one of the good guys. Yay!



…not so fast!

The moment where an antagonist turns on their own side and joins that of the protagonists is extremely powerful. But unless it is part of the overall story's ...

Hex, Nemo, and Warren find themselves in a palace suspended in mid-air with little recollection of their former lives or previous identities. Greeted by the whimsical Mr. Orion, dressed in the finest mint green suit while floating down with a handful of balloons, the trio is offered employment by the ...

Humans can be scary, fascinating, mysterious creatures. Humanity is capable of the most amazing feats of compassion and the most debased acts of cruelty. And not necessarily at opposing ends of the spectrum. The same person can be compassionate in one context and appallingly cruel in another. They may not ...

One story structure, that ozoneocean and I talked about many years ago on the Quackcast, was the Lone Protagonist as drifter.

In Pulp Fiction, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) says talks about leaving the life of crime to walk the Earth. “Like Kane in Kung Fu. Help people, get in adventures ...

Colour is amazingly powerful to humans, despite the fact we see so little of its spectrum. The impact of colour on our daily lives is tremendous but unfortunately not very well researched. What we do know from research is that it can affect one's mental, emotional and even physical ...

There are always lots of issues with trying to work out what will happen in the future based on current events and current tech, this is why very little SciFi is predictive of the future, unless it's about social trends or politics and even then it's a lucky ...

I first heard the phrase “an itch to scratch” from the creators/writers of Better Call Saul. When they were expanding and deepening the “Saul” character from Breaking Bad, they needed to change a comedic side character into a fully rounded lead character. And Vince Giligan said that an early ...

Damaged Heroes


A well written, standard Protagonist will generally have some flaws, starting out as an underdog of some kind, with lessons to learn and improvements to make over the course of the story.

Granted, some heroes are, well, just heroes, who are pretty much who they need to be ...