Many of the conversations online that concern “genre fiction” generally mean sci/fi, fantasy and horror. This stuff is distinguished from “mainstream” genres like contemporary dramas and comedies, and period pieces that are…well, dramas and comedies. it also doesn't include big genres like romance and psychological thrillers.

The ...

Who doesn't love pirates?

Kids love to dress up as them in Halloween or during carnival season. There was whole a whole era of Hollywood where pirate movies were the blockbuster vein of gold. Pirates in fiction are charming, fun, dastardly, and the epitome of adventure.

Pirates in real ...

Hit Girlz: “It's like ‘Mean Girls’ meets ‘Pulp Fiction’!!!”

This is Darryl Hughes aka “TheDeeMan” and I have some DD news. Coydog and I have started a kickstarter for our comic “Hit Girlz”. As you may recall “Hit Girlz” ran on DD until 2018 and won the “best mystery ...

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Does a story always need an antagonist embodied in the form of an active character? I don't think they do! We chat about examples of stories ...

For better or for worse, we are creatures of categorizations. We love to label things, and to sort them into neat little boxes so that we are absolutely certain we know what to expect when dealing with each one. It is that sense of familiarity that we are looking for ...

So over here on Greek TV, there's this very popular drama series that happens to be set in a Greek mainland village in the 1950s, and sells itself as ‘authentically representing an era’. It started off very promising, as a crime drama + family drama kind of story where three ...

We've had some interesting discussions on various Newsposts, in the Forum and elsewhere on theduckwebcomics about knowing your ending, knowing your genre, planning ahead and outlining vs. ‘pantsing’ or ‘Discovery writing’, which is writing without knowing where you're going.

Though up to now I've mostly been a ...

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 ...

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Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
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There are a couple of approaches when it comes to making a big creative project: planing it all out or working things out as you go ie ...

It's 1995, the fall of the Soviet Union has gone hard for its former states, particularly Ukraine, which has partiallly collapsed into anrachy. This is the story of a young person with a shotgun struggling to survive the harsh winter alone in the snow, hiding from fellow humans in ...