Advice — pamela jaye smith

Myths are the stories we tell ourselves to explain the worlds around us and within us. Is your story mythic? Well, it should be. And it can be, if you tap into the timeless and powerful tools of storytelling that make some tales so universal yet so personal that they stand the test of time and become classics. It's said that every "real" myth is true on at least seven levels. So, no matter your genre or your style, more than likely some aspect of your story is directly related to a myth. The more you play that up -...

There’s MAGIC in the air, whether from Harry Potter’s wands or the wizards of Lord of the Rings. Ancient MYTHS come to life in modern forms from the Mayan calendar and Roland Emmerich’s 2012 to Slumdog Millionaire’s version of Orpheus and Eurydice.The principles of METAPHYSICS are all the rage in our personal lives from those Laws of Attraction promoted in The Secret to secrets of the gods and the afterlife as explored in Battlestar Gallactica. These three categories overlap, and each is a rich source of story material because they are some of the most enduring and popular ways we...

Film, TV, games, YouTube, graphic novels, manga, comic books, murals ... it's all visual art and depends on engaging the eyes in order to engage the hearts and minds of your audience, as well as their loyalty and their purchasing power. In this article, we'll look at a specific type of story, theme, subplot, scene, incident, attitude, and inference—those involving sex, love, and/or romance. The conscious use of specific symbols, imagery, colors, and shapes can heighten the impact and influence of your ideas, characters, and story. In order to better use this cinematic tool, we'll first briefly explore some of...