It may just be my impression, but usually when a story is set in a dystopian setting, the dystopia is played straight. However, when the characters encounter or start off in a utopian setting, they almost always will end up realizing that the utopia is actually a mirage, and in ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com.au/podcasts/24f85853-5d63-44ac-885f-da23db0a53ad/the-quackcast

Happy Easter! Well that was Sunday, but happy Easter anyway. In honour of that yearly and ancient ritual holiday that has its roots in the rebirth of spring in the northern hemisphere our Quackcast is ...

It's Resurrection Saturday today! What better occasion then than this to talk about the resurrection trope?

Usually, cancelling out a character's death is not a good thing to do in a story. It undermines the weight of the stakes involved and/or the sacrifice or seriousness of the ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com.au/podcasts/24f85853-5d63-44ac-885f-da23db0a53ad/the-quackcast

When love turns to hate… It's a common trope in fiction: partners split up and their once loving relationship turns to one of bitter acrimony! We see hate turning to love frequently too, that ...

No matter what the characters in your story might be doing–fighting crime, resisting alien invasion, surviving in a harsh radioactive wasteland, or just working in an office–sometimes it's fun to remove them from their ‘regular’ activities and place them somewhere different and out of their social comfort ...

So you might have a character that's generally very calm or stoic. They may appear weak, or just not intimidating. They may be the right gender, class, age, or any other parameter for their peers to assume they are easy pickings and thus a great target for harassment. Initially ...

We are finally back with interviews, and who better to kick it off than with Genejoke, one of the most prolific, helpful, and active creators in the Duck!

Genejoke is invaluable in many group projects, including our top event, the Drunk Duck Awards, and its side event the Red Carpet ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Is there a culture of plutocratic classism in the USA? I'm inspired by Trump's America and how people think that people like Elon Musk and him are above the law because they're rich, while ...

There's nothing more frustrating when a character dies from a situation that had no reason occuring except perhaps that the writers wanted to be edgy and make the story have more gravitas with a random death that's forced into the plot.

I've talked often over the years ...

So this is just a purely rant article on my part.

I'm generally not a huge fan of romance… BUT, if it's done well, I am not a (complete) snow queen. I can melt accordingly and love it in a story. I even have some romance in my ...