Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...

In a nutshell, exposition is a big ole mound of information that the author wants the reader to know before they move on in the plot. It often gets a bad rap but that is usually due to it being used incorrectly. There is definitely a place for exposition so ...

But and Therefore

I'm a fan of user-friendly, practical advice on things, especially writing. It's why I dig the Banes Method (it's not my method; it's just named after me).

Anyway, I came upon some dandy advice from Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park ...

Last week, we looked at ways to prevent the middle of your story from sagging. One of those suggestions was using a subplot or two to help flesh out both the world and characters of your story.

For those of you who are a bit confused as to what a ...

So if vampires are a hot mess and haters are at the gates what can YOU learn from vampires? Well, a lot, vampires are not the only over extended sub-genre out there. Let's explore another genre that is trying to avoid ending up in a similar space, superheroes, specifically ...

If there is one thing about your comic you will want to nail it is the manner in which the character’s speak to one another. When it comes to creating good and effective conversation you have to keep in mind two things.

1) Does the dialogue progress the story ...

Last week there was a post about smaller regular casts in a series - The Loner series, the Duo, and the Trio. Here's that post:

https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/aug/01/casting-characters-in-comics-123/

With a larger cast, things start to get more complicated - but with more possibilities for different ...

Creating a Cast - in 1-2-3

One of the challenges…and maybe one of the greatest pleasures…of creating a series is populating it with a cast of heroes. I know I spend many weeks or months tinkering with characters and deciding who they're going to be. …And how many ...

I spent the weekend doing something I have wanted to do for quite sometime: having a midnight pizza party while watching the early 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies with the Jim Henson turtle costumes. Yes, the turtles were a thing when Vanilla Ice was still household name, but what ...

A narrative theme is, in essence, the meaning behind your story. It also serves to tell your audience what your story is about. Establishing it’s core early on enables you to keep it grounded and focused as you begin to unfold your characters and plots.

Despite a longer piece ...