What is a character? A miserable little pile of traits! Except no, there is more to a character than a collection of likes and dislikes. There are varying opinions on the importance of character versus plot, with some authors viewing all characters as a mere tool to drive plot forward ...

Have you ever noticed that among the dead webcomics, a preponderance of them have “Hiatus” on their tombstone? That tombstone being, of course, the final page posted years and years ago with a promise they will be “right back” after a “short break”. There are of course a number of ...

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We mined Tantz's Saturday newspost for our discussion topic: Strong characters and how to write GOOD ones!
What is a strong character? Well ...

Stereotypes permeate our every day lives. Whether we like it or not, our brains are wired for making quick estimations and judgments based on patterns and pattern recognition.

This very pattern we're looking for to identify at a glance is what a stereotype is. And it's very useful ...

In today's fast-paced world, you need to immediately catch an audience's attention with your story, your movie, your webcomic or your graphic novel. You get two lines in a text, a page or two in a comic, 20-30 seconds to a minute for a movie or a series ...

Over the last twenty-four hours, the latest story about UK street artist, Banksy, has shown up on my social media newsfeed, in passing conversations, and in text messages. My friends immersed in the art world are talking about as well as my best friend since childhood and my own sister ...

There's nothing more intense than subverting the audience's expectations: The righteous character that always says the truth says a lie. The character that values all life ends up murdering someone. The bad sort, the punk that's always terrible ends up saving the day or doing something decent ...

A story can be strengthened by coordinating the first and final images in some way.

It's not a hard and fast rule; it's not a rule at all. But it can be worth trying out in your writing!

The movie Halloween (there it is! I had to start ...

In the latest issue of Game Informer, a magazine produced by GameStop in North America, there was an entire article about a new game being released called “Night in the Woods” featuring anthropomorphic animals that exhibit mental health characteristics such as depression and bipolar disorder. This article struck a chord ...

As we gear up for the holiday season, we take this time to reflect on the year and decide on the inevitable New Year’s resolutions that follow. Whilst most will add, “Take better care of the plants”, “Do more exercise,” and “Finally get my life together,” to the list ...