What does Google mean to a person in the 1900s? What does Snapchat mean to a king in the 14th century? What does "Financial trade" mean to an early caveman?Language's evolution is contingent on our cultures and other important factors. In this episode,...

Stories serve a purpose beyond escaping reality and enjoying a fantasy world. One of the most important purposes is its survival, which means someone has to keep consuming the story. Open resolution is a way to do that. But that's not where it stops.In...

Happily ever after is an awesome ending but in the end, it's still not an illusion. In the end, what happily ever after sells is an expected ending and nothing more. On the other side of the "happy illusion" is the struggle of a lot of people who,...

Moving into the 3rd pillar of storytelling - resolution. No matter how interesting a story is, it has to end someday. So, how do you go about ending your stories?In this episode, Surya T talks about Positive resolution, or ending things in a happily...

At the end of each episode, I talk about a Patreon page where I talk about becoming a patron and getting access to additional benefits. So, why do I have a bonus track in the first place? This was a question that came up and I decided to answer it. The...

A common theme I see across podcasts is the usage of a personal anecdote or narrating a personal story that somehow leads to the topic at hand. This happens between a number of hosts and is a common practice across most podcasts. However, that is not...

In the last episode, we talked about the issues that make a story experience bad, from a conflict perspective. So, to have a change of pace - in this episode he talks about a story, Harry Potter, which has a conflict that is amazing and something he has...

When you see an ant kill an elephant, the first thought in your head - how is it possible? When someone who is very weak goes into a fist-fight and then they win against a trained fighter, it feels really weird when you read that story. These sort of...

Stakes are really important for a story. Without stakes, stories mean nothing. Stakes are what drives the story. Stakes are to be personal for your character. Each character has their own stakes - external and internal. While the general focus is on the...

Technology has been a defining aspect when we talk about generations and it has been rightly represented in stories as well. While we all talk about movies such as The Matrix Trilogy, Wall-E, 2001: A Space Odyssey - the conflict isn't just limited to...