Short Stories The Salt Worms: Part Sixteen 15 Dec 202115 Dec 2021 "Why do you get to decide everyone else's fate?" Manuel Carrillo's hands shook with rage. "What gives you the right?" "It...doesn't matter," Nathan let his hand wander towards his holster.…
Lessons A Deadly Entitlement 13 Dec 202116 Jun 2022 One Layer) The villain in the James Bond novel and film Goldfinger is pretty easy to understand. Mr. Goldfinger loves gold, and all of his schemes are to inflate the…
Lessons The Grand Reveal 6 Dec 2021 Front and Center) When Star Wars burst onto the scene in 1977, audiences were almost immediately exposed to the imposing figure of Darth Vader. The film has its famous title…
Lessons I Am Your Aggravator 8 Nov 2021 The Indisposed Villain) Who is the one, great source of opposition in The Lord of the Rings? Of course the answer is Sauron. It is his will that compels every…
Lessons Who Even Are You? 11 Oct 202110 Nov 2021 The Mysterious Man) The 1941 Alfred Hitchcock film Suspicion was a bit of a surprise to its audiences. Its main star, Cary Grant, was known for always playing a heroic…
Lessons Good Guys Don’t Shoot in the Back 5 Apr 202128 Dec 2021 The Impotent Domination) The final act of a story is where the hero has been truly converted to their guiding philosophy, and now they will trust in it to overcome…
Lessons That’s So Cliché 11 Jan 202123 Dec 2021 Let's Make a Bad Guy) Most stories have a villain, which is a character who embodies the opposition to the protagonist. The protagonist must overcome this opposition, which means the…
Lessons Bad, but Not Too Bad 30 Dec 201923 Nov 2021 On Thursday I shared the middle chapter of my latest story. In it, our main character has discovered an object that will create for him anything that he imagines. He…
Short Stories The Toymaker: Part Two 7 Nov 201920 Nov 2021 But a terrible fear was starting to rise inside of the drummer. What if he couldn't catch up? What if he couldn't find her? Did such questions even matter? He…