Established fans of this series assured me it would happen — and it has. Slowly but surely, Al Swearengen has won me over.

Doing his best Bogart, Jean-Paul Belmondo is the epitome of cool in "Breathless," the 1960 icon of the French New Wave now celebrating its 50th anniversary with a glorious restored print.

Dr. Melvyn H. Schreiber reviews “Invisible,” by Paul Auster.

Amazing Spider-Man #642 isn't exactly the giant leap forward you'd expect from the title now that Joe Quesada is finally finished cleaning up the mess left over from One More Day . Kick-starting Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta's "Origin of Species" arc, the issue is a messy, uneven convergence of past plotlines that's meant to play like a climax to the last two years of Spider-Man stories, but ...

Can two words - or the absence of two words - make a difference? That's the question Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque have to answer in American Vampire #6, the first issue of a new arc - and the first issue without a back-up story by the legendary Stephen King.

Their relationship is a major plot contrivance in a story that otherwise unfolds fairly naturally, but Affleck and Hall sell the romance, particularly once ...

... out of the pack of arrested-development-buddy-story clichés. It would be great to say that this happened because of good acting and interesting plots. ...

Should it serve the meaning of the story? I plot more than I used to, but I still write a fair number of stories that begin with an opening scene or opening ...

... in the hands of Saudi authorities for months and had no role in the plot. That didn't stop myriad media outlets from picking up the inaccurate story. ...

These plots and counter-plots intersect thanks to the intergalactic race championship that the Tagmatians have recently dominated. As near as I can tell, ...

Knowing when to follow up a plot line or story element is incredibly important, but knowing when and how to end it quickly is also important. Let the character fire that plot gun and hit the target. With a feeling of satisfaction, ...

The Fate plot is seen in thousands of classic stories, from fairy tales to movies. Here are some elements of this particular story structure to draw upon.

Accounting for almost 60 percent of paperback sales, romance is everywhere. The classic Romance story structure is easy to develop and works like a charm.

Present in most mythologies, science fiction, and fantasy, the Journey story structure follows a character on a gauntlet of sorts, through his triumphs and failures.

Lights, camera, action! These ideas for are to help writers create convincing and engaging plot lines with the help of good characters, a suitable setting and action.