The Bestest Evar: Revisiting Mary Sues -
And a Contest!
Way back in the day our friend and my grizzled old mentor HippieVan did a post discussing Mary Sues - and we followed it up with a Mary Sue “contest”.
Many of us comic creator and reader types have probably known the ...

The Bestest Evar
Banes at 12:00AM, April 8, 2021Handwaves, Explanations and Just-Go-With-Its
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 24, 2020
The long-running series Supernatural just came to an end and I enjoyed the last couple episodes. Even though I haven't seen the last few seasons and don't plan to, I knew the series fairly well from its first 6 or 7 years. I could say more about this ...
The Crime Genre
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 17, 2020
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 ...
QUACKCAST 505 - Character Trajectory!
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Nov. 17, 2020 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/
Character trajectories are really interesting- in terms of character alignment, like a good guy that slowly turns into a bad guy through a whole bunch of bad ...
Believing the Unbelievable
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 13, 2020The suspension of disbelief happens automatically in readers and audiences if a story does its job.
Audiences WANT to believe in a story when they start reading or watching it.
I mean, you can' t count on everyone. I remember going to see the Benjamin Button movie and my friend ...
Writing Wise Folk
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Feb. 1, 2020
Wise men are like valuable spice for a story. They are also a wonderful plot device, or an extremely cheesy one, depending on how the character is used and written.
Wise men (and women) are often the moral compass to the main characters, or hold some kind of answer to ...
Superpowers Magic and Technology
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 23, 2020
Greetings, citizens!
Superpowers coming from magical abilities or fantastic technology are essential to many stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. They can show up in other genres, too, like horror and of course, superhero stories (are they science fiction stories? Science-Fantasy? Heroic Fantasy? Whatever - most of those folks ...
Strangers and Strange Lands
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 12, 2019
Peter Quill is an earthling living and working in space
In an interview about SNL creatives, it was said that actors who write prefer Strange characters in a normal world. While writers will write pieces about Regular people in a bizarre world. I have no idea how true that is ...