Writing what you know is one of those old canards that show up in writing advice, though it's not up there with things like “show, don't tell” and “this is supposed to be a literary essay - do not doodle in the margins”.

Or is that last one just ...

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 ...

Miriam and Karim make a pretty hot team. Miriam is a cyborg built for battle with the latest in military tech, Karim is a powerfully built man and a clever scientist to boot. The year is 2073 and the world isn't a safe place (is it ever?), high tech ...

Captain Nikita Kirchhoff has an important mission to undertake. An ancient satellite has crashed to earth, a relic containing precious high technology from earth's past. Whichever nation can recover it first will gain an enormous technological advantage over the others! Nikita is gathering his team… But they might find ...

The amazing Emma Clare got to it first and already has shared with us a set of pretty useful and even life-saving tips on how to manage and protect our mental health, especially in times of stress. If you haven't already, I urge you to read it!

In this ...

One could say that it is a very trendy thing in writing, be it for movies or for graphic novels, to subvert expectations. Often, unfairly, a plot that subverts expectations is equated with ‘good, quality writing’. Tons of essays and articles have been written to refute this association, including here ...

The suspension of disbelief happens automatically in readers and audiences if a story does its job.

Audiences WANT to believe in a story when they start reading or watching it.

I mean, you can' t count on everyone. I remember going to see the Benjamin Button movie and my friend ...

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 ...

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Storytelling styles change over time for various reasons: fashion, audience expectations, competition for audience attention due to increased choice and availability of media, technological limitations and abilities ...

Considering how many steps there are in creating comics, planning, plotting, writing, scripting, sketches, pencils, inks or colours and everything in between, it’s important to build in some time for review. Now this seems like a logical step. But when deadlines, self-imposed or otherwise, loom, this step is often ...