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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 ...

Inspiration is a flighty and whimsical thing. We don't know when we'll get it and sometimes we never do when we need it. Even others, we get it when we least need it, or when we can't use it. Or when we're sleeping, and lose it ...

Sometimes you aim for a target and you miss– but you end up with a hit anyway in an unexpected place.

When starting a new project usually the target audience is clear, people like ourselves. After all, an author usually likes their own work and has a target reader similar ...

Writing good romance is hard- it has so many pitfalls to avoid, so many tropes to grapple with and principles to keep in mind, that experience is necessary.

Writing actual platonic friendships between a male and female character is even harder.

The basic reason why it is harder is because ...

I read webcomics backwards, and maybe you should too. You might be aghast about spoilers, but trust me– almost every reader who happens upon your comic does this too.

I should specify–I don't read the entire archive backwards. It depends on the comic but typically I read back ...

Last weekend we discussed that strange phenomenon of independent creation, where there's more than a passing resemblance to another work but it's not a case of plagiarism. Interestingly, not long after I posted that I saw not one but two instances of independent creation being brought up (though ...

There are no bad ideas, just poor execution…..terrible, awful execution.

You may have seen those games that go around on social media, such as “Describe a classic movie/video game/novel in the worst way possible”, it shows how easy it is to make any concept seem like the ...

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This Quackcast was based on an idea from Banes. We chat about designing a group of characters with complementary temperaments. In Banes' own words:
“I like the idea of the line between a logical, left brained person and a creative, right brained person, crossed with a spectrum of a ...

One of the toughest tropes in any kind of narrative work, from novels to comics to movies is the Sacrificial Lion - but not for what might be an obvious reason: having to axe a top tier character. It's because the trope is something that will affect and carry through ...

You’ve gone through the arduous process of fleshing out your world, the themes and the lore and you’re standing back looking at your shining new playground; but there is a blight standing right in the centre that you can no longer ignore. You hate your characters. Maybe it ...