Character Motivation
One thing I appreciate in well written stories is the hidden motivations of characters. Well written characters, just like real people, have contradictions to them. Desires and needs that are sometimes in conflict with each other.
Story structure tells us that a character has to WANT something. The ...

The Guy in the Hat Killed the Other Guy in the Hat
Banes at 12:00AM, May 12, 20222022 DD Awards are Underway; Space Daddy Adventures Completes its First Volume
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, April 4, 2022
Niccea has an Awards Announcement:
Whew! Here we go again. I'm going to get everything moving now.
I'm going to open up the awards for For Your Consideration pages now. The rules are simple: keep the page rated PG or so and use the theme in your page ...
QUACKCAST 566 - feeling the vibe!
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2022 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/
Let's talk about total immersion… When consuming media rather than creating it, if you're lucky you become immersed: the struggles and fears of the character ...
The Message in Stories
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 15, 2022
There is no story without a theme. Even when written without anything prepared in terms of a message, a story will always give people things to think about and messages drawn from how the story was set up and how it was resolved (if at all).
So I don't ...
The Magical Adventures of Kirke Ketterley by Hushicho Reaches Milestone, Secret Santa 2021 Comes to Completion
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Dec. 27, 2021
Photo: (clockwise from upper left) nightmarelunatic’s gift for Andreas_Helixfinger; sleeping_gorilla’s for Tantz_Aerine; lothar’s gift for usedbooks; kawaiidaigakusei’s gift for davidxolukoga; and Tantz_Aerine’s gift for hushicho.
A huge Thank You goes out to all the participants of this year’s Secret Santa gift art exchange! Everyone ...
QUACKCAST 562 - the plots the themes - The space between
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Dec. 21, 2021 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/
Merry Christmas and whatever you celebrate :)
Interesting topic from Banes! It's his idea that sometimes the literal elements of a story (the plot etc.) are simply ...
Above and Below the Surface
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 16, 2021
There are a couple of movies I've seen - only a couple that come to mind - with a very specific issue
that makes them not work for me.
It's when the THEME or below-the-surface meaning of the story holds together but the actual plot suffers for it.
Spoiler for ...
Children's Stories
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 18, 2021
When I was growing up in the 80s, stories that were marketed as ‘children’s' were occasionally brutal.
Characters got maimed or killed, tortured or traumatized, met with horrid ends in worlds that were anything but rosy. And this was a pattern that wasn't limited to, say, English literature ...
More Than Human
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 12, 2021
Ideas both big and deep can - and has - been explored in Sci Fi. Some themes that have resonated with me include ‘What it Means to be Human’. This could be said to be the point of ALL fiction in a way I suppose. But to explore humanity through the lens ...