One common story formula involves a character receiving a magical gift…or magical ‘curse’…and being forced to deal with the chaos that the magic causes.

In Liar Liar, the slick, dishonest attorney is compelled to only speak the truth.
In Groundhog Day, the main character repeats the same day ...

So, ladies and gents, friends and furries, yes, 13 Ghosts is the movie that haunted me as a child and to a point, still haunts me. I’ll never look at bathtubs the same.

BUT BEFORE I GET INTO THE MOVIE REVIEW, if you are reading this, and I kind ...

So maybe the verb ‘hate’ is excessive, but there are some tropes that can really throw me off a story. Or perhaps, what throws me is the way they are used. I firmly believe that any trope can be part of a solid, enjoyable story, even the ones I hate ...

How many of you write serious/drama filled stories? Or even characters that truly suffer consequences?

I think it’s often that we, as creators and almost like parents, don’t want our kids/creations to suffer terrible consequences, but I think that’s one of the reasons that makes ...

Normally in stories there is the hero vs the villain or the protagonist vs the antagonist. As the audience, we generally expect to root for the hero or the protagonist and hope for the villain's or antagonist's comeuppance.

But there come those times when we find ourselves rooting ...

LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Why aren't there more prettyboy bad-ass characters? Pretty girl bad-asses too! This character type is often a hall-mark of Japanese and Korean fiction more than anything ...

I think a lot of us have dreams of growing up and changing the world. Impacting it in some great way. Or if you’re villain type, maybe in a bad way.

Anyway, now that I got your attention with changing the world.
I’m not talking about changing “our ...

Greece is burning, as I'm writing these lines.

There is fire everywhere, and it's only getting worse. It's probably going to extinguish itself in the sea, when it gets there, in all areas, from central Greece to Attica to Euboia. The ecological disaster is enormous. The consequences ...

LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

No, not surgical masks, this is about the kind superheros wear, also gimps, masquerades, villains and robbers! Inspired by Pitface and her deep and abiding love of ...

Sometimes the arch villain of the story is the one pulling all the strings in the background, and the protagonists don't know about them until the endgame.

And other times, the arch villain gets to clash with a protagonist (or an opposing character) that is also a mastermind pulling ...