Fiction and Fantasy

Category: Advice

  • On Nostalgia

    People say 90’s kids are obsessed with nostalgia. Studios make reboots, sequels, and adaptations to cater specifically to nostalgic 20- and 30-somethings. Nostalgia is often seen as a bad thing. Either your nostalgia is being manipulated (to get you to buy a ticket to that remake of Robocop) or your nostalgia is manipulating you (and…

  • Parentage and Family History: Bane or Boon?

    This post will contain spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi You have been warned. YouTube 2018 Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the first new Star Wars film in a decade, so it came as little surprise when fans began feverishly theorizing about every question the film raised. Thousands of Star Wars theories flooded…

  • In Defense of “Evil for Evil’s Sake” Villains

    Writer’s Note (10-10-18): Corrected some typos I noticed too embarrassingly late. My apologies. In the words of Spec Fic writer Janine Ippolito, they really do breed. Writer’s Note (8-4-22): Replaced pictures that went missing. Oops, pardon my mess! They’re back now. 🙂 — “Don’t make any ‘Mwahaha I’m so evil’ bad guys,” any so-called writing…

  • Popularity and Art Quality

    You’re driving in your car listening to the radio, and that new pop song sensation comes on… for the five-hundredth time this week. And while everyone else seems to start tapping their feet to the beat, this song makes you want to rip off your ears. Awful. You get to class and your teacher tells…

  • How (NOT) to Kill Off Characters

    You’ve seen it coming a mile away. They’ve hinted at it for the past thirteen episodes. Your favorite character has kept throwing themselves into the heat of the fray. He’s gotten some bumps and bruises, but he’s always come out okay. He tries to hide how badly the injuries are affecting him, but you know.…

  • Why Do Things Suffer from “Sequelitis”?

    I recently finished reading The Books of Mortals series by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee. The series grabbed me right away with its fascinating premise: far in our future, humanity discovers the genes that control human emotions. In the name of creating world peace, one group bio-engineers a virus that infects the entire human race.…

Browse posts by TYPE…:

…or browse posts by TOPIC: