When a dramatic actor gets a chance to perform a comedic role, I hear that sometimes they get excited to do something different but their first instinct is to play up the comedy. In an interview with a comedy writer/producer recently, he explained that these actors need the insight ...

Seriously?
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 11, 2022Your Character's Politics
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Nov. 20, 2021
So there's an art to writing characters with strong political agendas when you also happen to be a creator that has a strong political stance. I happen to be a person with very strong political views and ideology and ironically in my comic Without Moonlight absolutely nobody shares my ...
Archetypes Through a Psych Lens: Bringing it all together
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 24, 2021
It's finally done! We've gone through the basics of each psychology school of thought when it comes to personality theories. Each theory brings its own aspects of what makes human beings be the way they are. It could be described like each theory describes one facet of a ...
Who Are Your Characters?
damehelsing at 12:00AM, March 28, 2021
This might be a simple question, but I think it’s much deeper than most think.
Characters, whether they’re our own or not, have an origin, have traits, personalities, ideas, morals and goals. Each one is different and all of them share a similarity: their creator.
We can all ...
Dat MASK, tho
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 7, 2021
Masked, Unknown Characters
Fiction, certainly in the movie/TV/comics visual mediums, are full of characters whose identities are hidden by masks.
On The Mandalorian, the title character follows a strict creed that says he is not supposed to let another living being see his face, so he always wears ...
Gimme Strength
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 19, 2020
Plenty has been said about giving characters flaws - we've talked about it around the site, on the Quackcast and out loud, to ourselves, on the bus and in the park.
Characters gotta have flaws!
But something I've thought about more lately, in the years well after starting my ...
Not What They Seem
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 14, 2019
edward norton in “primal fear”
One of the things I like in fiction is characters who are not what they seem.
Like all things, this sort of thing can be done well, or badly, or somewhere in between. It can be fascinating and surprising, or cliche and predictable. It can ...
Passive Characters
Banes at 12:00AM, May 30, 2019
Didn't Do Nothin'
During the making of the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks and the screenwriter were developing the story, and
it was going well - other than the ending. In the end, the character was rescued.
Robert Zemeckis, the eventual director of the movie told them that the character ...
The Normal Ones
Banes at 12:00AM, May 2, 2019
There was an episode of the show ‘Supernatural’ a few years back where Dean met with the literal personification of Death. This Creature - one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful, would take human form once in awhile (or when some ancient agreement demanded it). He would sometimes ...
On Reviving an Era
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 6, 2019
I had a meeting the other day with a director, who asked me “how do you approach a historical era to keep true to it?” and “how do you keep from being biased?”
I fear that I eclipsed the poor guy with my soap box lectures, but that aside, I ...