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Even in the lightest, most upbeat of stories, heroes shouldn’t succeed every time. Failure is really important, both for keeping the plot unpredictable and for maintaining tension. If the protagonist never fails, then it’s likely to be a dull story indeed. However, failure also carries … read more »
Even though a character arc works much like any other plot arc, when subjective character feelings and motivation are added to the mix, storytellers often have trouble. To help you evaluate and improve such issues, let’s go over the four basic requirements of a character … read more »
Stories need problems to solve and heroes to solve them, which sounds simple enough at first. But then you realize that in most settings, there are authorities whose job is to stop these problems. They might be police officers, teachers at a magic school, or … read more »
Minions are a mainstay of speculative fiction, to the point that they are sometimes as well-known as their named overlords. What would Saruman be without his Uruk-hai, or the Dominion without its Jem’Hadar? And yet, minions are often plagued with problems. They’re too easy to … read more »
Many stories put their main characters through an uncomfortable period of disempowerment so the audience can watch them overcome it. But when creating these sequences, storytellers can struggle with character agency. After all, if the character is making choices that affect the plot, doesn’t that … read more »
Mythcreants frequently uses movies and shows to discuss storytelling techniques. However, videos and books are different mediums that come with their own storytelling trade-offs, not to mention different technical implementation. Let’s go over six important differences. Read more »
The latest Star Wars trilogy is what happens when two directors get in a slap fight and the production company does nothing to stop them. Left with nowhere to take the last movie, J.J. Abrams strung together a plot that’s best described as “let’s make … read more »
Stories are great for taking us to extraordinary places, showing us compelling characters, and teaching important lessons. But what about stories within those stories? After all, it would only make sense that the characters would want their own tales of extraordinary places and important lessons. … read more »
One of the phrases that’s been popularized in online storytelling discussions in recent years is the “sexy lamp test.”* This test is applied to a female character to judge whether the storyteller has given her an adequate presence in the story. A character fails the … read more »
Additional viewpoints are a valuable tool for storytelling, but they are drastically overused. Careless use of multiple viewpoints is so common that most writers would do better by using only one. However, since it’s obvious that writers won’t stop using extra viewpoints anytime soon, let’s … read more »