Mischievous and chaotic, the trickster is a character archetype that recurs throughout mythology, folklore, literature and pop culture. This is, in part, thanks to its boundless flexibility: tricksters can be good, evil or amoral; hero or villain; help or hindrance; spiteful or angelic; comic-relief, obstacle, gatekeeper, sidekick and/or henchperson. Despite this ambiguity of role, essayist Paul
Exposition is one of those horrible parts of writing that you have to get exactly right. Too much or too little and the reader will notice straightaway, rolling their eyes at your inability to explain things directly. It’s an unfair reaction, especially when there are so many things to explain. ‘Exposition’ is the part of
A MacGuffin (or McGuffin, or Maguffin) is a plot device common to some of the most successful stories ever written. Your characters will obsess over how to find it, search jungles and alien worlds to get their hands on it, and kill to keep it, and yet many people will tell you it has no
A Christmas Carol, The Catcher in the Rye, Heart of Darkness. Other than stellar writing and compelling characters, what makes a story stand the test of time? How do certain novels achieve the lofty ‘classic’ status while others fade into relative obscurity? The answer is all in the subtext. Authors like Charles Dickens, J.D Salinger and
Have any questions? We are always open to talk about your writing, publishing projects, creative opportunities and how we can help you.
