As a 90’s kid, I watched Robocop when I was a teenager. This is the story of a police officer who was injured and was rebuilt into an indestructible killing machine (or disarming machine in the later PG-rated TV series). The Six Million Dollar Man was a similar idea, except he was originally an astronaut….
Tag: characters
Muse on Monday – August 31, 2026
When we think of family, for good or bad, we usually think of an immediate family: parents, siblings, spouses, children. However, beyond those people there are varying layers of extended family. Words like “great-uncle”, “third cousin”, and “second cousin once removed” might connect in your brain with a person, but often these are more shadowy…
Writing Corner: Writing Other Languages
Writing Other Languages Whenever you write a story that involves more than one country or culture (or world), there is the possibility that people will speak different languages. How you deal with this, as the writer, is up to you, partially based on your own interests but also what kind of story it is. Sometimes…
Muse on Monday – March 23, 2026
If you’ve ever lain in bed trying to get to sleep, you know the battle that this can be. It’s also a vicious cycle of not being asleep, then being frustrated you’re not asleep, which wakes you up more. On the other hand, there are times when you are fighting not to fall asleep (such…
Muse on Monday – March 16, 2026
Human interaction makes up a huge part of the conflict in stories. After all, as humans, we are the most interesting subject for our stories. This conflict could come from having different values, misunderstandings from language and culture, competition for resources or lots of other reasons. It’s hard enough to negotiate with someone in good…
Muse on Monday – November 24, 2025
Sometimes I like to write a story that is all dialogue. It’s very in-the-moment, but obviously it can be challenging since there is no exposition or description to help explain things. And you can’t have more than two characters or you’ll lose track of who is speaking. Another interesting challenge is to write a story…
Muse on Monday – November 10, 2025
I’ve always loved detailed models and have had a fascination with stories like The Borrowers, where tiny people live inside the walls of a normal-sized house. Part of the fun is seeing how they overcome obstacles that are easy for us (getting up onto the table is like climbing a mountain, for example), but the…
Writing Corner: The Noob
The Noob There are times in a story where you need to explain things to your readers. It all depends on the type of story you are writing. If you are writing a story about middle school students in daily life, you can assume that your reader will already understand most things in the story…
Muse on Monday – March 31, 2025
The duel: it is a staple of action movies, like the standoff in a western movie. At the climax of the story or movie, the hero and villain face off, one on one. Of course this doesn’t have to be a physical confrontation. It could be a debate or a chess game or even two…
Muse on Monday – March 17, 2025
Have you ever read or written a story around one word? I don’t mean as a theme, but literally using the same word multiple times in the story. Sometimes this technique can be used ironically when a word has more than one meaning or it can just be done for fun. I can’t think of…
The Green-Walled Treehouse 