Chris Winkle
Chris is the founder and editor-in-chief of Mythcreants. On the side she also designs, codes, and writes stories. When she manages to escape from chronic workaholism, she likes to drink tea, wear funny hats, pet kitties, and crush her enemies at the game table.
You’ve turned in your 50,000 words, watched the congratulatory video, and taken a great sigh of relief. You may now rest on your laurels, content that you have defeated the blank page. Haha. NaNoWriMo may be over, but your work is not. Read more »
Podcast
Oren, Mike and Chris discuss the difficulty in recreating popular storytelling tropes like main characters, mentors, and prophecies in roleplaying. They highlight TV shows with tropes that make them feel like tabletop campaigns, and swap stories about how resourceful and willful players can be. Read more »
Storytelling
Storytellers want to have their cake and eat it too, even if the cake is absolute perfection, and the eating is relatable flaws. The inevitable result of trying to have it both ways is a character that defies human nature. These characters have traits that … read more »
Writing
The beginning of your story can do many things, but one is more important than any other: capturing the reader’s interest. If they don’t keep reading, any other purpose – setting the tone, hinting at central themes, or whatever else – becomes pointless. As a … read more »
Podcast
Oren, Mike and Chris philosophize on the origins and meaning of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative fiction genres. They discuss stories that cross genres, and sow confusion about the definition of “punk” and “orthogonal.” Read more »
Storytelling
What if you make up 20 pages of backstory, and your character still doesn’t feel “strong”? How can you even tell? I’m going to turn the subjective quality of “strength” into clear benchmarks by detailing six traits that strong characters have in common. Read more »
Storytelling
You wouldn’t want your friends to cry when they ate your cooking. You wouldn’t want to give them a prank call that made them feel they were in danger. But if they told you they cried or felt afraid while reading a story you wrote, you’d probably take that as a compliment. Read more »
Podcast
The Mythcreants discuss their favorite and least favorite characters, episodes, and romances in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They compare the show to its spinoff, Angel, and complain about oversights in the Buffyverse. Read more »
Commentary
The Mythcreants had a great weekend at GeekGirlCon in Seattle. I want to share my favorite quotes and a few comments on the panels I attended. Also included are some pics I got by nervously asking cosplayers to take their picture. Next time I’ll do … read more »
Commentary
Here I’ll explore the philosophical paradigm that overlays our understanding of how synergistic behaviors are maintained in an ethical society. Just kidding. This is about fans, known as shippers, that really want non-existent people to get it on. Read more »
