Westin Lee does not exist.
A short user guide-diving game.
David Pumpkins is funny because of a fake out.
The comedy world is losing its mind (justifiably) for a SNL sketch from this past Saturday. Watch it, if you haven't. And then, bask in the fawning web words it has called forth. Here's the thing - the sketch works because it has fake outs. You hear that line Keenan Thompson says right at the end? "He's in 73 out of 100 rooms. Look, it's a hundred floors of terror. They can't ALL be winners." His character is the most important thing in the sketch - it's his job to lead us into thinking that the joke is that David S. Pumpkins sucks. He's playing into our [...]
Hey Darth Vader, Justify Your Plot Twist
io9 did a prompt, and I liked my response enough to repost it. It's taken years, but I think I'm finally forming a coherent ability to talk about Empire Strikes Back's great thematic integrity. There's so much zeitgeist around Star Wars that the reasons Empire is super compelling (and the reason the Dark Side is so interesting) get lost in the mass simplification of the lore. There is only one good justification for a plot twist: it serves the story. The best plot twists aren't plot twists at all. They're just the next bit, dashed with irony. This, as opposed to the plot twist [...]
Guardians of the Galaxy: Pop-Culture Han Solos
Guardians of the Galaxy is good, right? I thought so. Seen it twice. Rocket's my favorite part. So sad and angry and...oddly sweet. Peter Quill reminds me of John Crichton from Farscape, and for good reason: they're both pop-culture spewing, Han Solo types. Crichton isn't a man-child, and Quill isn't as put-upon, but yeah, same type of character. It's a method of getting an audience into an inherently unrelatable world. I had a couple of observations from these two executions on that type of character that you may find useful in your writing adventures. 1. In a Long Enough Timeline, Peter Quill Becomes a Studio Executive [...]