The Power of Tropes
As we have seen in How Stories Really Work , there are four basic genres, each growing out of the kind of effect a writer wants to...
The Ups and Downs of Characters
If we go back to mythology and folklore, the hero of a story can have superhuman qualities and is often semi-divine in origin - in...
Three Embarrassing Realisations as a Fiction Writer
It seems that there are two broad breeds of fiction writer: those who write, and those who think about being a writer and perhaps...
Northrop Frye: A Form of Words
Canadian Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was one of the most influential literary critics and theorists of the...
Symbolism in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
It's a little known fact to most school students who have to read To Kill a Mockingbird  that Harper Lee submitted her manuscript to the...
The Sorrowful State of the Villain
Purely virtuous heroes are hard for us to feel much affinity for. What’s interesting, though, is that as we move away from the complete...
The Magic Behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has master-minded the apparently unstoppable behemoth which we all know as the Marvel Cinematic...
The Spectrum of Fiction
From How Stories Really Work : Any work of fiction lies somewhere on this scale, which we can call the Spectrum of Fiction: ...