We’ve all been there: When you open the Write Post page, the void looks also into you.

Here is the quick and dirty version of how to feed your blog on a majah scale: with EPICS! Who doesn’t like epics? They’re epic! Epically epic!

First: you need a setting. Rip one off from an existing epic and call it une hommage. We’ve got BiblicalBabylonianCarolingianArthurianGangsterianBeat Generationianand Space Operaamong others. Look at your (comic)bookshelf and pick one.

I’ve got The Book of Murderso Chicago in the Twenties, here I come!

Now you’ll need characters, several of them. Just try to write an epic without any character! We call that a Livejournal.

‘Nuff said.

Now, if you get both the characters and the setting from the same epic, what you’ve got is a retelling (we call it “retelling” or “reworking of the archetype,” we do not call it a “ripoff” for that makes our lawyers quite defensive and we just can’t deal with that right now). And we’re not writing How To Write A Retelling here, are we? We’re talking about writing a brand-new epic! So you’ve got to steal your setting and your characters from, and this is the key, different epics, or even one epic and one Symbolist poem or one epic and an old radio drama or something. That could be good. They had the best hair on those old radio dramas.

If you still can’t find any characters you like, we recommend stealing them from this handy-dandy Characters for an Epic Tale chart from Tom Gauld (via Edenborough).

As for plot, just use one of these ready-made plot generators. Don’t say we never did nuthin for ya.

• romance plot generator
• Steven Seagal movie plot generator, and what is a Steven Seagal movie if not epic? Eh?
• Dan Brown plot generator for those who aspire to best-sellerdom
• Late night cable movie generator
• villainous plot generator
• plot twist generator
• the utterly random plot generator, which I swear the gods are using on my life right this moment

If you find your well running dry even so, just have a man come through the door with a gun OR add bo stick wielding flying cephalopod ninjas. Everyone loves the big squids! After that, who cares how you wind it up as long as the hero ends up with the girl and the villain escapes to cause sequels another day?

And, most importantly, it is a truth universally acknowledged that in the online world, every epic blog post must contain a direct link to http://raincoaster.com.

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