In the whole “show don't tell” thing that is the holy grail of ‘good storytelling’ (yes but not always, this is for a newspost of another time) what they usually don't tell you is that behavioral patterns are your friend.

To show rather than tell, you need to ...

Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.

If ...