Welcome back, gang! Er, can I call y'all “gang”? Is that too informal or too assumptive about your willingness for complicity in my extra curricular activities? Eh, too bad. Once you're in the gang, there's only one way out. Now, while you're letting that sink in ...

ACT 2 - The Premise

It's about a guy who…

When we try to decide with our friends about seeing a movie, or surf Netflix for something to watch, or try to sell people on a movie/book/story we want them to experience, that's what we have to ...

Huh. You're still here? I'll be damned.

Well then. Let's just go ahead and pick up where we left off last week, which if I recollect, was the beginning. Or at least, that's where you stepped into my world. Now, how you think about beginnings has ...

It’s something so often encountered and/or mentioned in stories (be they comics or novels or film) that it’s becoming in itself a cliché: Heroes aren’t interesting because they’re straight arrows. Villains are fun because they’re the ‘bad boys’, the ones that can do all ...

The Hated, part two: Heroes we hate

Last week I blathered on a bit about villain Protagonists. These are evil, or “bad” characters who get to be Protagonists!

But what about more traditional heroes, or supporting characters are written to be the “moral compass” or “voice of reason”, or just ...

LISTEN!

Jerky, jerk, jerks! Let's talk about this type of character…
This topic is based on Banes' newspost from Thursday, he based it on characters like Reggie from the Archie comics. Jerks can be pretty good characters in their own right. They can be villains, heroes, antagonists or protagonists ...

art by Sandy Jarrell


The Hated, Part One - Villain Heroes

I've picked up all the “new” versions of the Archie universe and enjoyed them to different degrees for the most part. Sometimes there are a few laughs. Or some nice artwork. Or just the fun of seeing the characters ...

Witness the birth of Salamander, a super-heroine granted powers by a fire salamander.

Erin is a fairly average 22 year old working in a pet store until the store is hit by an arson attack,
when her life is in danger things take a dramatic change.

Salamander is shaping up ...

LISTEN!

What defines evil in fiction?
I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless.
That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones
I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...