The Man to Trust When the World Falls Apart
Here’s what I don’t understand. If someone majorly screws up, why does anyone trust that same someone to correct the massive error? You may be as… Read More »The Man to Trust When the World Falls Apart
December 2015
The Right Template for the Job
The perfect pupil for a mentor/pupil relationship, if literary tradition is any indication, fits the following template: Male Well-meaning “Ordinary” looks And it doesn’t hurt… Read More »The Right Template for the Job
How to Recruit a Proper Pupil
I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any mentor characters who go from place to place looking for a pupil. Most mentors… Read More »How to Recruit a Proper Pupil
When Someone Has an Axe to Grind
We find one of the longest battles in English linguistic history in that simple, problematic word “ask.” You wouldn’t think that three small letters… Read More »When Someone Has an Axe to Grind
When Resistance Really Is Futile
True story: “its” as a pronoun didn’t come around until Early Modern English. Up until the late sixteenth century, the 3rd-person gender-neutral possessive pronoun… Read More »When Resistance Really Is Futile
Disobedience: A Protagonist’s One True Birthright
So. The “Oops! I did exactly what you told me not to do!” plot device. It’s a fairly common catalyst to start a story moving:… Read More »Disobedience: A Protagonist’s One True Birthright
The Three Sworn Duties of an Epic Mentor
Sometimes the Mentor-Pupil relationship comes across more as trolling than education. Don’t get me wrong: I loves me some character manipulation. There should always be a… Read More »The Three Sworn Duties of an Epic Mentor