We've all seen the cringy dialogue. The weirdly stereotypical and awkward situations. The sheer effort of the script writer, the novelist, or the comic book writer to write someone they don't know: a woman, or a man.


Too often the problem is very stark when comparing character designs ...

I was fishing for smelts the other day and scooped up an old bottle, with a rolled-up paper inside. It contained the following:

In older literature I think it was common to have a story told by a narrator who was never a part of the action. Someone who may ...

Hello ducklings! I’m back with another interview, and this time we’ve got our wonderful sea captain Miranda! So, Captain Miranda, please introduce yourself!!

Miranda: Hello ducklings! I'm Miranda! I'm a full time computer engineer and in my spare time I enjoy baking, doing puzzles, playing video ...

Sometimes the arch villain of the story is the one pulling all the strings in the background, and the protagonists don't know about them until the endgame.

And other times, the arch villain gets to clash with a protagonist (or an opposing character) that is also a mastermind pulling ...

Reverse-Engineering Conflict in a Story
part one

Conflict is the basic material of a scene, and of a story. I've talked a lot over the years about structure and genre, and how all that stuff can work.

Another way to create a new story, and new characters, is to ...

So this is a trope that unfortunately is very true in life as well. TV tropes calls it “We ARE Struggling Together” and I call it ‘the divided front’.

When the Big Bad is so bad that everyone agrees to set aside their differences to fight it off, then usually ...

There are many steps involved in creating comics. From planning to plotting, writing, scripting, sketching, pencils, inks or colour, not to mention everything in between! With so many balls in the air, it’s important to take a step back and make time to review. At each stage, where possible ...

In the early parts of the story, it helps the quality of the thing and the experience of the audience to layer in the details that will come into play later.

These are little character and world details that will come into play later - the sword that falls off the ...

A few new generation consoles were released at the end of last year, yet the need to replace or update any gaming systems currently plugged into the television never came up. Chalk it up to old fashioned, old school preferences. However, a dusty box stacked with several original Playstation and ...

If you are in a fairy tale and encounter an Old Woman… never take that meeting lightly. It's usually a test of character: the manner in which you respond to her will be a measure of how kind, decisive, clever, obliging, evil, rude, crass, abusive, or idiotic you are ...