I've compared “Avengers Infinity War” to the classic movie cliffhanger in The Empire Strikes Back.

But the Marvel Cinematic Universe actually pulled off an almost-“Empire”-level story a couple years before that, in Captain America: Civil War.

The MCU started off with multiple movies setting up Iron Man ...

We've all been told how in story telling, showing is a lot better than telling.

Showing gets hard if your main character is a loner that interacts with nobody. Even harder if he/she is a stoic that emotes very little. The audience will have no way of knowing ...

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This is the time of year you typically spend your money on other people… but we wanted to talk about what we spend our money on when ...

I’ve been getting back into reading epic fantasy novels. Grand worlds, exotic locations and, of course, an ever increasing cast of characters. As I am one to never stop taking notes, even when I’m trying to chill, here are some things I noticed about introducing new characters that ...

I've never seen this movie, but does he have a bevy of dead girlfriends?
always seemed like an odd concept for a lighthearted romantic comedy. “Matthew
and Jennifer! Learning the power of love! Piles of dead bodies!”


Talking to the Dead - Sort of

How many times have you had ...

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Emma Clare posted about avoiding burnout on Friday and we thought we'd steal that subject to chat about it. Burnout is something that can affect all ...

Sitting back on a Friday evening, remote control in hand, I decided to watch one of the latest Pixar Animated short films. To me a short film is the perfect length of time (six to nine minutes) to tell a story with an exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. They ...

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What happens to characters after the big action scene or climactic moment? This could be anywhere in the story but it's usually close to the end ...

I've already written a bunch of articles on writing mental illness, so I figured I should write about writing therapists as well!

Oh, the woes for therapist representation in narrative works! All the stereotypes are there: from the shrink that is actually a little (or a lot) loopy and ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...