I'm a former assistant editor with advice about how to write novels, comic books and graphic novels. Most of my content applies to fiction-writing in general, but I also provide articles specifically about superhero stories.

ATTN: SOCIAL JUSTICE LEAGUE

It has come to our attention that you have continued to violate our intellectual property rights. Continuing to infringe on copyrighted terms and concepts, including but not limited to the following, will force us to pursue alternate methods of defending our legal rights.

1. “superhero”
2. “superpowers”
3. The concept of superpowered individuals concealing their identities with masks and capes.
4. Accusations of lurid conspiracies by government personnel against the public interest

We eagerly anticipate your cooperation in this matter.

–Wonder Comics

ATTN: WONDER COMICS

It has come to our attention that you are attempting to restrict our linguistic rights for your selfish profit. Please refer your legal staff to the following concepts in US-American jurisprudence.

1. “Common usage”
2. Lawyers/media vs. police/military. Who do you think we have on staff?
3. Billionaire playboys: you’ve either got them or you don’t.

We eagerly anticipate your lawsuit.

–The Social Justice League

About the Author: Hola, I’m Ragged Boy, a strikingly handsome and constantly imagining artist here at SN. Anyone that knows me could tell you I’m one of the most random and crazy people they’ve met. I take that as a good thing. I’m interested in things like acting, modeling, drawing, writing, and anything that’s considered artsy. I’m always down to review your work, give creative input, and take your criticism. I love to interact with people and learn interesting ways to manipulate befriend them. I pride myself on being a Weapon of Mass Creation and you should too! 

“Showtime” Series Synopsis: San Libre is home to movie stars, gangs, and most recently, aliens intent on enslaving all life. With the help of a batty alien chemist, an offbeat teen actor has to put away his Hollywood fantasies and get real to save humanity.

My target audience: 16-25 male comic book readers. I wouldn’t mind appealing to more African-Americans as well. I’d like for their to be more black superheroe which is why a majority of my character’s are African-American.

How thick is my skin?: I want to get published at all costs. Spare nothing. Offer creative advice. ”Nothing you say can hurt me, I’m invincible!”

Comparable works: I just realized that the newer Blue Beetle is heavily comparable with my work. Both star a young, impoverished protaganist who is affected by the doings of aliens. Also, Aqualad/Garth and Showtime share similar water manipulation capabilities. And, to an extent, Green Lantern is also comparable.

What I want in a critique: I want your unabridged, uncensored opinion. Like I said before I’m ready for anything you can throw at me. If your going to bash my work I’d prefer you actually put something I can improve into it as opposed to a blatant “You and your work sucks!” I’d also love your creative input as to how I cam improve. When volatile artistic minds combine they explode into a burning star of ingenuity.

First Five Pages of Showtime: 

Page One: Ten panels. None of these panels are that big, but emphasize color. They to make these as gripping as possible. The dialogue does not have to be exactly on the panels, but should be generally close to those that the aliens are commenting on. Alternating colors in their text will help to differentiate whose speaking.

Panel One: Two shadowed fingers, one with a feminine figure, with what appears to be horns on her head (think ram horns, spiraling to the sides). The other with a manly one, although tall and lanky, having long antenna-like extensions for where his ears should be. They’re standing in front of a large monitor; the images on it are separated, showing an array of different events. The monitor is actually larger than what is shown, so maybe you’d like to add little tidbits of other images.

(Male)Alien 1: These are the last of our most, unaware, candidates.

(Female)Alien 2: 30,000 clinks worth of fuel, wasted on this.

Panel Two: A shot of a man at a poker table from behind, he’s hiding a cards behind his back.

Panel Three: A woman doing a flip off the nose of a whale

Panel Four: A boxer throwing a haymaker at his opponent, you could play this up by showing the victim’s black-eyed, bloody nose, spit flying face.

Alien 1(Off): Humans display impressive physical potential

Alien 1(Off): The council will most definitely be interested in physical aptitude.

Panel Five: A scientist brilliantly smiling hold a vial of glowing liquid in the air. Use lots of colors in this panel.

Alien 2 (Off): For such a weird-looking race, they’re quite intelligent.

Panel Six: A person in a ski-mask holding a gun to a crying woman’s head, his other arm around her neck, like a hostage human shield.

Alien 2(Off): If not hostile and completely selfish.

Panel Seven: A woman rushing through a burning hallway, a baby wrapped in blankets in her arms. She has a strong expression, determined to get out of the building.

Alien 1(Off): I disagree, they’re quite compassionate, just look.

Panel Eight: A police officer holding a gun at someone off panel. Demanding expression, like he’s yelling.

Alien 2(Off): Sure, if compassion is being able to kill on cue.

Computerized Voice: Destination Achieved, Landing Pending.

Page Two:

Panel One: The monitor is now shown to be larger than it was. It shows a large image of Earth. Magnificent blue, green, and white with a blue glow around it. The two figures are much smaller now, standing in front the huge screen.

Alien 1: This is Earth? Magnificent

Alien 2: Perfect disguise for such a hellacious place.

Panel Two: We finally see the aliens for what they are, Aliens. Waist up. They are lit by the light of the screen. They are looking very slightly above us. The man, Jimelly, is a medium shade of aqua, his blue is darker around the outline of his body. His eyes are large, black, and shiny.

The woman, Lae’Trell, is a salmon color. She does have spiraling horns to the side. Her pinkish hair is in a short Mohawk. She is wearing a black skin suit and has a thicker, but not fat, physique.

Both look generally friendly and harmless, they’re the good guys.

Lae’ Trell stands with her arms crossed looking annoyed, while Jimelly looks excited.    

Jimelly: Don’t be such a pessimist, Lae’ Trell.

Lae’ Trell: If you insist. Suit up, were set to land in Santa Libra City.

Jimelly: Sounds most interesting.

Page 3: Splash with two inserts. Top right cormer and bottom left corner.

Panel One/Splash: A huge helicopter shot at Santa Libra High School in all its wretchedness. The building is dull and deteriorated. There are lots of people outside roaming the crowded campus. The school is three stories tall. There is a well visible sign outside with “Santa Libra High School” on it, many letters are missing but the name is still legible. The area surrounding the school is just as worn out as the school. Focus on the wretchedness of the area and the cold feel of winter.

Caption: Welcome to Hell’s Harbor High School.

Caption: Fights, drugs, baby mammas, we’ve got it all.

Caption: I’m into a different type of DRAMA, though.

Insert One: A shot of a large rowdy fight in the hallway.

Insert Two: A shot a person being dragged off by two cops.

Arrestee: Man, fuck you!

Page 4: Six Panels. Panels 1 and 2 take up the top third of the page. Panel 3 takes the middle. 4, 5, and 6 take the bottom third.

Panel One: A shot of a relatively empty hallway in the school, there are a pair of doubles doors visible and a small gold sign next to them. The sign is illegible from this angle. The cold winter light pours into the hallway giving the hallway a cold tint. Peaceful. We see a boy in a bright orange hoody pressing his hand against the door, that’s Adrian.

Adrian: Time to show them what a real actor can do.

Panel Two: A tight shot on the gold sign, it reads “Santa Libra High School Auditorium-Backstage Entrance.”

Panel Three: Looking down at the wide stage, as if sitting on a balcony in the middle of the auditorium. A couple of rows of seats are visible. There are a few people sitting, scattered across the rows . There’s a person on stage walking around, gesturing dramatically.

Adrian (Narration): This is my second home, not the school, but the theatre.

Panel Four: Backstage, there’s a small row of chairs. Adrian, the main character sits here, along with a few other people although they aren’t near him. He is a black student wearing a fitted orange hoody, dark blue fitted jeans, and orange converse with blue laces. It is dimly lit back stage, but lit enough to be able to read.

Panel Five: A tight shot on Adrian’s face, he reading a sheet of paper diligently. He is holding it with one hand. He has headphones in his ears and is smirking, making a confident expression.

Adrian (Thought): I’m going to nail this part.

Panel Six: A close up on Adrian’s other hand rising off the cover of his notebook, it reads “Adrian K. Gaines: Don’t steal this!”

Page 5: Five panels

Panel One: A long vertical shot on Adrian, he is standing and stretching, his full body is visible. His fitted clothes show his thin figure. He is stretching with a triumphant look of his face.

Adrian (Thought): I’ve got it, this is my part. I can see it now.

Panel Two: A tight shot on Adrian’s eyes, dark brown with a tiny twinkle of gold in the center.

Adrian: Yup, I can see it now.

Panel Three: A shot of Adrian’s full body, the same size as panel one. This is one depicts Adrian as way more muscular and defined. He’s wearing gold swim trunks and sunglasses. His brown skin is shiny in the sun. He stands in a dignified pose.

Caption: Sexiest Man Alive, Adrian Gaines.

Panel Three: Adrian in the same pose, but now women in bikinis are swooning around him.

Narration: The President decides as payment for your last blockbuster he’s giving a blank check to the national treasury. You’re a bajillionaire

Caption: Adrian, Best Everything!

Panel Four: Same as before, but now two giant moneybags overflowing with money are behind him. A messy stack of Oscars lay by his feet.

Adrian: I love my life.

Panel Five: Waist up on Adrian, back to reality, he’s still standing in the same position, stretching with a blank stare and dopey smile, drooling.

Eric (Off panel, onstage): “The drugs are gone and the cops are on my ass.”

Quotes from USMC Drill Instructor Oliver Ryan.

Dammit, maggot, if I wanted your opinion I’d give it to you!

Movies are big on “be yourself.” That’s a bunch of crap! When you’re ready to be more than just yourself, you too might make the Marines.

Goddamn… you’re drinking like someone in a Stanley Kubrick film.

I am not a “drill sergeant”, maggot!

I’m Drill Instructor Ryan. Today might be the longest day of your life… but it’ll probably be the shortest.

You can’t spell party without P-T! [author's note: PT = physical training]

Exclamation marks make life more interesting!

The International Society of Supervillains has the dirt on “superheroes” that are really tools. Reed Richards, Namor and Superman take the cake.

—————————————————————————————-

Alexander Tafari had to be very careful around his neighbors. He had to be careful because half-elves were not well liked by humans. Alex was of ordinary height and his brown skin was forgettable, but he was nevertheless marked. His ears were pointed, and his curly black hair had a slight red sheen. If his ears raised suspicion, having an odd hair color removed any doubt.
Mora, Alex’s hometown, was a city of gates. When Alex passed these gates, he was greeted, or not greeted rather, in different ways. When he passed the gate to Mora’s wealthy community, he received glares of contempt. When he passed the gate of the poor, he often met fearful eyes, if anyone was brave enough to come out and look at him at all. But the poor children seemed to regard him as a curiosity and an amusement. Alex smiled at them and sometimes tossed them an apple or a piece of candy.

–I’m still not sure about the smoothness here, but OK.  Moving on…

In the marketplace the sea of people parted before Alex, and he could move through the crowd fairly easily. The good townspeople wholeheartedly believed that anyone within a five foot radius of a half-elf would die, and painfully. Also, they weren’t drunk enough to make an attempt at stoning. The cabbage merchant glared at him from the corner of his eyes, though never daring direct eye contact. He was watching him closely, as if he expected something worse than robbery. He put on a tough face, but his body reeked of fear.

–I’d recommend a comma after marketplace.

–It may be possible to replace “he could move through the crowd fairly easily”  by using a verb that implies how easily he moved through the crowd.  For example, what would you think about “he cut through the crowd”?

“I don’t sell to the likes of you.” His voice trembled.

“That’s just too bad,” Alex said with a sigh, slowly approaching. “Well, if you’re smart, you will sell to me, or you might not sell to anyone else.” Alex gave the man a left-sided smirk.

“Look, I said I don’t sell to your kind. Now just leave me alone or–”

“Or what?”

The man gulped, but maintained a scowl. “I’ll call the guards. They’ll know how to deal with your kind.”

It wasn’t an idle threat. Alex had been in altercations with the town guards before, such as the instance when he had been falsely accused of putting a curse on Farmer Dunkel’s wheat. The arrest attempt did not end well. Today, Alex had noticed some of same guards shadowing him from a distance, or stiffening when he came near. He really didn’t want a repeat of the wheat crop incident.

–”The arrest attempt did not end well.”  This is a bit vague.  I think that we’d be better off if we knew what sort of parameters were limiting Alex in this town.  What would you think about throwing in a reference to the Knights here?

–”Alex had been in altercations…” is a bit passive.  What would you think about “Last year, the guards roughed him up after he had been falsely accused of cursing Farmer Dunkel’s wheat”?

“Really, is that so?” Alex bent down and scooped a handful of dust from the street. He then locked eyes with the man, letting the sand slip through his fingers. “I seem to recall the last merchant who wouldn’t sell to ‘my kind’ disintegrated into a thousand tiny pieces. A half-elf without cabbage is a half-elf without patience, and an impatient half-elf is bound to make your other potential customers really nervous. They just might, I don’t know, leave. And who could blame them.” It wouldn’t be the first time this tactic had worked.

Sweat poured down the merchant’s face as his eyes darted back and forth in frustration. Not so much because of the threat, but because he couldn’t afford to lose customers. “You can’t threaten me, boy. I’ll call the guards! You know how many of you have tried this little stunt? I’ll have you arrested!”

“Call them, call them now! They’re useless!” Alex pulled out a knife and cut across his left palm, allowing the blood to flow down his hand and drip onto the counter of merchant’s booth. “Watch this,” he said. After a few seconds the blood flow stopped and the cut healed, leaving no trace. Alex smiled. It was time to stretch the truth.

–Explaining why his blood stops flowing in 5-10 words may help.

“Last time, I regrew both arms and a leg before the guards gave up,” he said. Truthfully, after the wheat crop incident, he had been too busy running to do anything of the sort, even if he could have. “And that’s not all.”

–I like “he had been too busy running to do anything of the sort, even if he could have.”  I think that stylishly introduces us to the character and his powers, and also clarifies that he’s bluffing here.

Alex set his knife on the counter and covered it with a scrap of cloth that he carried for just such occasions. He waved his hands over the veiled knife, speaking some indiscernible words in Duenda, the elven tongue. He then slammed his fist on top of it. When Alex removed the cloth, there was nothing on the counter except dust. It was an old illusion his father had taught him. Alex then waved the cloth before the merchant’s face, and produced the knife in his hand with a flourish.

“I can use my power to destroy weapons far larger than this knife. I can also produce them out of thin air. These are only a small sample of my abilities. I don’t think you want to see more.” When bluffing didn’t work, sleight of hand usually did.

The vendor was quivering as he spoke. “Alright, alright! T-take the cabbage and leave me alone. This shop is closed.” The man swore viciously under his breath, but Alex only caught one word, “Halfling!”

Alex collected what he wanted and left, convulsing. The familiar, ever-present scourge: halfling. But that was what Alex was, fathered by a human, born of an elven mother. A child of two worlds, citizen of none.

Once his anger dissipated, Alex wondered for a moment whether or not he should have felt guilty for bullying the cabbage merchant. He immediately dismissed the idea. Guilt was out of the question.

Humans had a reason to be suspicious of half-elves. The half-elven, in fact, half-anythings, were notorious for exhibiting powers believed to be beyond their control. Everyone in town just knew that Alex’s “kind” were all as volatile as blasting oil, just waiting to destroy everything in sight. Then he remembered that not all people were like that. He shrugged. Maybe not all of them, but enough to justify my tactics. But then he thought, Would Father approve?

–Depending on his relationship with his father and his maturity, “would Father approve?” might work.  What would you think about a slightly younger-sounding expression like “what would Dad say?”  (Alternatively, you could replace say with do, if his dad is more of a role model than a judge).

If anyone talked about Alex’s father, Xavier, it was behind closed doors with hushed tones. Xavier never spoke threats, he only gave warnings, and those never in vain. He was quite highly regarded, despite having married an elf. He also was known for being short on patience and long on retribution. Like father, like son. Well, except that Alex was a bluffer when necessary.

–I’d recommend replacing the phrase “was a bluffer” with “bluffed.”

The humans of Mora prided themselves on their normality, and to them, having an oddity like Alex around was a scourge on their very way of life. To them, Mora was supposed to be a charming town on the banks of the Nuba River, where the beautiful landscape was already tinged with the beginning of the harvest season. The green trees began to turn shades of gold, red, and orange in the month of August, dropping their leaves on the rolling hills. A fiery harbinger of the fruits of nature to come. A place where the people were friendly, welcomed you to visit, and encouraged you to return. The presence of a halfling destroyed this image. They feared him, they hated him, and once a mob even got up the courage to attempt to stone him. Oh, Mora was charming alright. Charming like a wolverine.

As he walked, crunching the fall leaves and kicking at a rock in his path, Alex saw a girl out of the corner of his eye. He instantly recognized her, and walked faster. Karen. She saw him and walked in his direction. Alex had failed to avoid her. I really don’t want to deal with her right now, Alex thought. Karen was his cousin, but she was also very skilled at irritating him. Alex could not tolerate her.

–”I really don’t want to deal with her right now.”  I’d recommend having this get narrated as something like “He really didn’t want to deal with her right now.”

Everyone liked Karen, though she was also half-elven. Maybe it was something about her long, straight silvery-white hair. Maybe it was her musical voice. The humans were always talking about how wonderful she was. But Alex knew the truth. To him, Karen was nothing but deviousness and trickery. They had been rivals as long as Alex could remember.

–I like this description of her silvery hair and voice.  “The humans” is also an excellent phrase that, I think, makes Alex feel realistic.  Ironically, I think that makes me like him more even though he’s using a slightly chilly expression to refer to humans as a whole.  (It’s not as nasty as “your kind,” though, so I don’t think we’ll think of him as a human-hater).

The battle for supremacy would have to wait. Right now, all Alex wanted was to get the groceries home intact. If Karen made him angry again, that would be nearly impossible.
“Hey, Alex!” Karen shouted.

Alex pretended that he could not hear her over the commotion in the street and walked faster. He took refuge among the braying donkeys, bleating sheep, and lowing oxen. He sought sanction among the noise of carts and hagglers. He thought to disguise himself among the masses. All the while he pictured the blue sandstone house where he lived, his destination. He would not let anything distract him, not even Karen. He moved quickly, so that no one could make out his half-elven features.

–”He thought to disguise himself…”  I’d recommend replacing this with an action (what he does to disguise himself) and something to show us how much it annoys him that he has to disguise himself, but he would do anything to best Karen, etc.

Karen would not be denied. “Alex! Yes, I’m talking to you, horntoad!”

Alex growled to himself through clenched teeth. He would deal with Karen later. He made a sharp turn and ran towards the town square, hoping to lose her in the crowd. Who could pick out one fourteen-year-old boy among the hundreds who gathered in the square? Certainly not a fifteen-year-old girl. Alex plunged into the crowd, taking several twists and turns he was sure would disorient his adversary. After this, he emerged and continued on his path, only to find Karen blocking the way.

“Nice try, Alex. Next time you want to hide in a crowd, be sure to find a large group of people who have pointed ears and red-black hair,” Karen said with a smug look on her face. “If you weren’t so brazen and stubborn, you might learn to wear a hood.”

Alex narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the groceries. He had been forced to engage his adversary. “How did you catch up to me?”

“You’re not the only one with elven blood. I’m just as fast as you are, even faster. There’s no way in the heavens that you could have escaped me.”

Alex swallowed a hostile statement and furrowed his brow in the sheer effort it took for him to keep his composure. “What do you want Karen? As you can see, I have groceries to deliver.”

–comma in between “want Karen”, I think.

Just then, a burly man with a scraggly beard swaggered over. He brandished a sword at Alex. “Miss, is this ‘ere ‘alflin’ botherin’ you?”

–The phrase “just then” may be unnecessary.  What do you think?

Then Alex realized that Karen hid her ears under her long hair. She looked like a human. A platinum blonde human.

“No. He couldn’t threaten me on his best day. If he tries, they’ll have nothing but a corpse for the hanging.”

The man walked away, laughing. Alex fumed. “Karen, I’m going to–”

“To what? In case you’ve forgotten, attacking a human is a hanging crime, halfling.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you’re not one of them.” Alex dropped the groceries and lunged toward Karen, knocking her to the ground. “I have had it up to here with you, ‘cousin’! When I finish, all of Aunt Kayla’s medicine won’t be able to heal your wounds.” Alex had Karen pinned. He looked into her eyes as she realized that she was trapped. There was only one way she could win, and he was forcing her to take it. “Do it,” he whispered. “Do it now, in full view of everyone here. Do it so they will all know the truth.” Alex could see sweat gathering on her forehead. “Or are you too scared of being branded a half-elf, like me.” He had her.

–I think your rewrite of this paragraph is quite good.  I like it a lot.

–If there are people in this scene, I would recommend having them walk around as the kids are sparring.  It’s just a regular day in Mora, I suppose.  (Then they freak out when the kids start letting lose the lightning and fire).

“Lumis,” she whispered. Immediately a bolt of light shot out from her body, driving Alex to the ground several feet away.

Alex was sore, but he smiled. He had gotten exactly the reaction he had wanted. Now she is exposed for what she truly is. Unfortunately, that blast was only half of her full power, he thought. As he stood to challenge Karen, he assumed the wolf fighting stance and whispered, “Vaichar ”. Balls of fire engulfed his hands as he assumed a fighting stance. “Ladies first,” he called.

–I think that “he had gotten the reaction he had wanted.  Now she is exposed for what she truly is” is a bit redundant with the paragraph where he has her pinned.  I think it’s sufficient that he smiles when she blasts him.  It may help to focus on the bystanders here.  As soon as things go crazy here, I’d recommend having people run for their lives, etc.  If people are afraid of half-elves, this is probably your best chance to show that.

Karen flipped her hair out of her face and fired another light beam towards Alex. He dodged the blow, inadvertently causing a nearby fruit stand to explode.

So much for the groceries, Alex thought. This was exactly what he had wanted to avoid, but he found himself enjoying it anyway. He would win this time. Even if he didn’t, no one would ever mistake Karen for a human after today. He tossed a flaming watermelon while dodging another light beam, all the while edging closer. He weaved towards Karen, tossing burning fruit as he ran. Once he got close enough, he threw a punch. Karen blocked it and returned a blow. As they fought, Alex’s attacks were quick and savage, while Karen’s attacks were strong and deliberate.
Soon they were in a deadlock. Karen threw Alex back and looked up to discover that they both were surrounded by guards. “Halt! Hands above your head. Now.”

–If you italicize so much for the groceries, I think the pacing of the sentence would be a bit better if you removed “Alex thought.”

–”This was exactly what he had wanted to avoid” is not completely consistent with him goading her into revealing what she was, but OK.

The kids swiftly complied. Alex was nervous, and from the look of it, so was Karen. They could die at any moment. {In retrospect, not a great idea. How am I going to get out of this one?} This time, bluffing was not an option. “Is there a problem, officers?” Alex snapped in a low voice.

–”How am I going to get out this one?“  You could probably turn this into an action by having him look for possible escapes and finding none.

A soldier walked forward and knocked Alex to the ground with the butt of his spear, holding him down with his foot. Another walked over to Karen and punched her. As soon as he made contact, a pulse of light sent him to the ground. Alex turned his head to see Karen standing in a trancelike state with glowing eyes and hair. She then emitted another, brighter pulse, blinding the guards. Alex then saw her drop, unconscious.

Throwing off his blind would-be captor, Alex rushed over to Karen. He didn’t like her, in fact at times he hated her, but he would have to explain everything when he got home, and it sure would help if she was alive. {She has a pulse.} Alex breathed a sigh of relief. But his relief was short lived. Now, not the regular city guard, but the Royal Guard had arrived. They carried broader shields, longer spears, and even their horses wore armor. If that wasn’t enough, Alex spotted a wicked assortment of maces, flails, swords, javelins, crossbows, and throwing blades. Great. Just great. I’m tired, I failed to get the groceries home, my cousin is unconscious, and now I have to fight Princepia’s finest! As he knelt there, a small voice in the back of his head suggested that he surrender, but his willfulness crowded it out. If he fought, he couldn’t win, but at least he might escape, and any chance was looking good right now.

–I’d recommend taking out the italicized phrase here.  It’s already pretty self-explanatory that he’s having a bad day, and I think that the detail about fighting Princepia’s finest may mislead readers about what is about to happen.

The captain rode forward on his mount. He asked a nearby man, “Is this the one?”

The man shouted, “That’s him, cap’n. He threatened to kill me, so he did. Watch him, he can vaporize your men, and pull weapons from the thin air!”

Alex was now regretting his run-in with the cabbage merchant.

The soldiers, captain included, laughed at the latter accusation. “Halfling child, by the authority of His Majesty, the great and mighty Cyrus, Lord of Acropolis and King of the Princepian Empire, you are hereby charged with the threatening of a human…”

Guilty, Alex thought.

“Disturbing the peace…”

Guilty, Alex thought.

“And committing high treason by the unauthorized use of sorcery.”

At this, Alex snapped to attention. “What the heck? I’m no sorcerer!”

–This may confuse readers.  His fire-based powers would probably seem more like magic/sorcery to readers than anything else at this point.  If there’s an important difference between what he just did and sorcery, I’d recommend having him respond indignantly with something like “I’m a half-elf, not a sorcerer.”

“Surrender now, or face His Majesty’s wrath.”

“Um, somehow I think I’ll face His Majesty’s wrath even if I do surrender. I’d rather take my chances.” Alex wiped away a bead of sweat. He fought to keep his voice steady despite his violently throbbing heart.

“So be it.” The captain turned, motioning to his men. He said coldly, “Kill them.” Thirty spears were now leveled at Alex and his cousin, who was beginning to awaken.

“Wait, Captain,” his lieutenant whispered. “These half-elf children are surely Telessars. If we slaughter them now, the Knights will see it as an act of war, a direct threat and an intrusion on their jurisdiction.”

“Lieutenant Grader, the Knights have no jurisdiction. They operate outside the laws of man…and nature!”

“Perhaps Captain, but they do have His Majesty’s sanction to operate within his realms. If we violate such a sacred trust we may not only incur the wrath of the Knights, but the King himself! Let us wait, and allow the Knights to punish these urchins. Or better yet, hold them in prison. The Knights will surely come for them, and then we may charge them, and the Knights as well, with treason, threatening His Majesty’s sovereignty, jailbreaking, and whatever else you like, sir. It would be prudent.”

–I like this paragraph a lot better.  The phrase “whatever else you like” does a great job of characterizing the captain, the legal system and the charges brought against the kids.

“Hmmm. You make an excellent point, Lieutenant Grader. Very well. Men, take the prisoners to the Watchtower of Nezar.”

A royal guardsman prodded Alex with the butt of his spear. “Come on then. Move it!” Both Alex and Karen were shackled and led away by armed guards.
———————————-

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ARCHIVED BRETT REVIEWS

Brett Review 1 (Archived on Dec 1 2008)

Brett Review 2 (Archived on Dec 5 2008)

Brett Review 3 (Archived on Dec 7 2008)

Agent Orange: I just had a dream that the villain was the sentient White House.

Captain Carnage: You weren’t dreaming.

Agent Orange …

Agent Orange: I’m going back to sleep.

ABC did a story called Why Black Superheroes Succeed– and Fail. That’s interesting for whites writing black characters (or vice versa) or those wondering why some characters are popular and others aren’t.

I think black superheroes tend to fail because they get typecast as persecuted heroes. Even the article confuses two very separate ideas.

1. The article’s first sentence: “Would Spider-Man be the box-office juggernaut he is today if he had been created as an African-American character?” All other things being equal, would a successful hero become unsuccessful if he is made black?
2. The article’s second sentence: “What if Peter Parker had had to deal with the problems of being black in America in addition to adjusting to his powers when he was first introduced in 1962?” Would a successful hero become unsuccessful if white-on-black persecution were inserted into his plotline?

These two questions are very different!

The second implicitly assumes that a black hero has to face white-on-black persecution, which probably makes less sense now than it did in 1962. And, regardless of whether it is plausible that every black is persecuted by whites, persecution stories are usually depressing (particularly when the persecution is based on real-life events, rather than hating mutants or Muggles). Making the hero the victim of persecution changes the tone of the plot far more than just making him black.

Do black heroes have to be persecuted? I don’t think so. Most young people, especially, haven’t lived with the intense and visible racism of the 1960s, but the comics industry doesn’t seem to have caught on to that. Plot elements that were commonplace (or at least plausible) fifty years ago, like racial violence and particularly caustic racist remarks, often seem outlandishly cynical now.

If you do focus on racism, I recommend using elements of racism that are likelier to resonate with your readers circa 2007. People might step away in hallways and elevators or sit at different tables in cafeterias—I think that most readers would agree that’s how racism manifests right now rather than, say, burning crosses and even racial slurs. More provocatively, someone might suggest that a minority has gotten where he is because of affirmative action or that affirmative action hires as a whole are less qualified than other employees. Bank guards might get antsy. Etc. (For some more manifestations of modern racism, please see the footnotes).

The point is that modern racism has become subconscious—I suspect that most racists genuinely believe that they aren’t— and that portraying racism as in-your-face, 1960s slurs will likely feel out of touch and preachy to your readers.

When I watched Crash, I laughed so hard when a car crash caused people to immediately start screaming slurs. Wouldn’t you, uhh, want to get their insurance information first? NO CUZ KKKALIFORNIA IZ RACIST. Crash wants to Make A Point and comes off as totally cartoonish.

Freedom Writers portrays racial balkanization much more plausibly. I wonder how prevalent such racial balkanization is across the country. I’m inclined to say it’s pretty limited, but I live in a very white area so I don’t really know.

If you feel the need to include intense racism in your work—something that will seriously affect the tone and marketability of your piece—Freedom Writers offers a pretty good model. It treats racism more seriously.

1. FW is set in a school district with some really poor areas. Meeting basic, everyday needs is a struggle.
2. Gangs and ghettos form as an attempt to form communities to meet those needs.
3. Intense, Hobbesian struggles and racism arise as the communities clash.

FW suggests that racism arises from economics*. That offers FW’s world a sort of grim, perverse logic. FW’s world is deep—you see where the racism came from and why it is so damn hard to overcome. Readers understand economic motives and how much money matters, especially if you have very little. Readers won’t sympathize with race-based gangs, but they will appreciate that tolerance is a harder choice than they thought. That raises the stakes and makes the heroes larger-than-life.

In Crash, racism just sprouted from nowhere and persists despite economic concerns. Insulting someone rather than getting their insurance information is irrational. Furthermore, the story offers no explanation why the characters would think it’s rational. Why are characters intolerant? Because they’re emotional, maybe. That seems flimsy and unsatisfying. It also gives the story an arbitrary feel– the characters couldn’t overcome racism at the story’s start, so how are they able to at the end? It would feel much more logical if we knew why racism was a problem at the start.

Footnotes

*Although some sociologists do agree with Freedom Writers that racism is primarily rooted in economics, they’re in the minority. But that doesn’t matter– Freedom Writers feels coherent and plausible anyway.  99% of your audience has no idea what most sociologists think, so it’s the feeling that matters.

More modern racism

For the purposes of helping you write, I’ll broadly define racism as anything that might create discomfort or division along racial lines.

1) Affirmative action. I actually already mentioned this before, but I think it’s particularly useful because blacks and whites often strongly disagree not only about AA but about which statements/opinions about AA are socially acceptable. For example, in one class a white student discussing AA made the (not extremely controversial?) assertion that race influences faculty hiring decisions. This offended the black professor, who may have thought that the white was insinuating he was less qualified. The professor asked, “do you think I was hired because I’m black?” The white was taken aback by that point-black, personal question about what he probably perceived to be an impersonal, general statement. He said that he thinks that the professor’s being black was a factor.

As the author, you could paint this a few ways. Maybe the student is wrong to treat the issue impersonally, maybe the professor was being oversensitive, or that there’s just a gap in understanding between the white and the black that doesn’t suggest anything negative about either.

2) Whites saying “sup” to black peers. In terms of awkward hilarity, this is one of my favorites. Whites often feel pressured to act differently with blacks. You might chalk this up to insensitivity and/or oversensitivity. Saying “sup” probably isn’t sinister, but it may create tension because the black knows that the white is acting differently because he’s talking to a black. In a related example (one I can hopefully offer without making a political point), Hillary Clinton once adopted a painfully bad drawl when speaking before a black audience.

3) Subways, trains and buses. I’ve noticed that people (including nonwhites) strongly prefer to sit by people of the same race. Visual media, like comic books, have some fantastic opportunities for some grim humor by showing a black (or white?) sitting alone in a crowded bus like he has leprosy or something. I should add that I’ve never seen anyone change seats to specifically move away from someone of a different race.

4) The assumption that whites and blacks have substantially different skills, traits or tastes. Real life isn’t as bad as The Office, but I think that whites occasionally (implicitly) assume that blacks are hipper or predisposed to stereotypically black forms of entertainment. I was forced to witness a hilarious conversation between a white BET enthusiast and a black that has tastes somewhat more milquetoast than mine. White sups flew.

Journalist: Is it true that the government has systematically tried to conceal the truth so that the American people don’t know how threatened they are?

Mike, the head of the Office of Special Investigation’s RETCON unit:  We usually get accused of playing up the terrorist threat. At least you didn’t throw out the psychic amnesia theory.

Journalist: You didn’t answer my…

Journalist: …

Journalist: What was I saying?

Mike: Damned if I remember.

And you thought “Army of One” was bad…

“We’re not really black-ops assassins or conspiracy bagmen, but encryption and information assurance are sexy too!”– NSA

“Our acronym doesn’t really stand for ‘Systematically Eliminating Troublesome Information.’ Not officially, anyway.” — SETI

Strictly speaking, our mission generally entails tasks like garbage collection/inspection, bomb sweeps and surveillance, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have battle royales in the Oval Office. — Secret Service

“Package delivery anywhere in the world, any time. Special service to China available. What can Blue do for you?” — US Air Force

Striving to keep New York free of supercriminals, starting with the prisons. – NY Department of Corrections

• I thought of a related quote that I didn’t want to list separately. Agent Black: “The only place in NYC that’s free of supercriminals is Rikers.”

“Taking unconventional warfare to the next level.” — USAF-STRATCOM

“Have you ever killed anyone? Do you want to?” – CIA

I’ll recap some of my past observations about cover art.

1. Readers are extraordinarily sensitive to the quality of header art. In my four months running this site, nothing has been as important as my header art in determining how many people bounce from the site. The quality/quantity of my writing only began to influence readers after I added strong cover art.
2. Readers respond better to characters that look like they could be related to. This is somewhat different than the conventional wisdom that “readers respond better to characters that look like them.” Readers reacted reasonably poorly to a draft of the cover art that had Agent Orange, Jacob Mallow and Catastrophe (respectively the dragon, the bleached-out super villain and the Mewtwo parody). Most readers I’ve asked have responded warmly to the addition of Lash and Oliver Ryan. If readers wanted characters that looked like them, presumably white readers wouldn’t respond well to a black character and women wouldn’t respond well to male characters (no on both counts).
3. Nonhuman characters are not received particularly well, though it’s probably worked out better for Superhero Nation than might have been the case. For example, look at the British cover art for Soon I Will Be Invincible below. It focuses on Elphin (the fairy) and Feral (the conspicuously muscular tiger-man thing) at the expense of more relatable heroes, like Corefire and Fatale. I suspect my art makes Agent Orange look somewhat more relatable. His sunglasses, trenchcoat and badge suggest how the reader should interpret him. The only way to be more blatant was to give him an M-16 and a flag. Catastrophe has a labcoat (albeit one cut off by the logo). I don’t think he came off as well, but making a parody of a well-known cartoon character look relatable is damn hard.

Future experimentation on reader reaction to the header art

I can’t access my art materials right now, but I will remove Catastrophe from the header for a month or so.

Here are a few reasons I suspect that will be productive.

1. Nonhuman overload. Reader longevity improved drastically after I added Lash and Ryan to the header art. Removing Catastrophe, at least until I’ve actually written him in, will probably help.
2. Instinctive ripoff concerns. Readers that stay with the story will obviously pick up that he’s a parody of Mewtwo, but at first glance it might look like a poorly done ripoff or, worse, Pokemon fan fiction. *shudder*
3. Header claustrophia. It feels cramped. Removing Catastrophe should make it easier to enjoy.
4. Maybe having five characters feels overwhelming to new readers?
5. Showing Catastrophe in the header before he’s actually in the story seems like cruel teasing.
6. Character confusion. When my caption mentioned that one of the characters is a scientist-turned-hegemon, some readers assumed I meant Jacob Mallow (the only scientist introduced so far). I meant a different scientist, actually. Whoops! The picture heightens the confusion by placing Catastrophe immediately right of Mallow– Westerners naturally associate left-to-right with before-and-after.

After a month, I think I’ll be able to draw some assessments about how Catastrophe contributed to the header art.

Captain Carnage: That’s dumb as asking a hog to hootenanny.

Lash: One, we know you aren’t really Texan. Two, no one has a clue what the hell you’re saying.

Captain Carnage, translating: “That’s as dumb as getting advice on napalm from Joann Fabric.”

I think what America clearly needs is another board game. This is where Hegemonopoly comes in.

Some aspects of the game.

In place of Park Place, we’d have National Missile Defense.  In place of Boardwalk, we’d have Strategic First Strike.  The “Go to Boardwalk” card would be “Accidental nuclear launch on your enemies.  Uhh, whoops.  Go to Strategic First Strike.”

Since the three reds are the most popular squares in the game, they will be perennial victims Manchuria (Kentucky), Poland (Indiana) and the Caucasus (Illinois).  The “Go to Illinois” card would be replaced by Caucasian Invasion.

The two utilities will be replaced by Russia and North Korea.  It seems like all they do is supply (nuclear) power and (heavy) water, anyway.  And they have about as much impact on the game.

Since the three oranges are conspicuously correlated with total annihilation, I’ll go with such tried and true methods of statecraft as Carpet Bombing, Untargeted Assassinations, and Death by Slaughter.  (Yes, you can get there with Go Back 3 Spaces).

St. James, States and Virginia will be Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India. The “Go to St. James” card will be replaced with “You always knew it’d be the little one, didn’t you? Go to Sri Lanka.”

The four railroads would be replaced with the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Guinea, Siberia and the Arabian Peninsula.  The more oil someone acquires, the more dangerous they get.

The School Tax card would be replaced by Second-Rate Brinksmanship: choose a player.  Unless the two of you immediately conduct a land deal, you both lose $150.

In place of Baltic Avenue, we’d have Exploding Sheep.  In place of Mediterranean, we’d have France. (Worth $60? Questionable).

Income Tax would be Contractor Surcharge, but I’d have to make it take more than 10% of your money to maintain plausibility.

Jail would be replaced by UN Conference.  (Somewhere you want to be when the game gets hot, but otherwise a death sentence to the aspiring hegemon).

This article builds on “Why Notre Dame? What’s it like?”

This article will cover some ways for you to distinguish yourself (on the application and otherwise). It also features a way to make your college visit a substantial boost to your application by networking with faculty.

Getting into ND

In the personal statement and essays, it’s usually pretty obvious who wants to go to this university and who just selected it because it was in US News and World Report. That’s probably true to some extent for all universities, so I’d really recommend visiting at least a few of the schools at the top of your list so that you get a better feel for the campuses and cultures.

At Notre Dame, students often try to show that they know the campus by writing an essay that refers to the sense of community and football fever that permeate the campus. These essays frequently refer to Rudy, the quintessential Notre Dame football story. It’s really, really hard to write a Rudy essay that sticks out from all the rest.

I don’t know what your academic interests and future plans are. I certainly wouldn’t want you to write a dishonest essay/statement! But, if your plans might conceivably involve going to a Ph. D. program and eventually becoming a professor, then Notre Dame wants you bad. One of the ways universities compare themselves is how many of their students go on to get Ph. Ds and Notre Dame scores a woeful five percent. Even Northwestern, my most reviled adversary, trounces us.

A good essay usually features you and Notre Dame. You might write an essay saying that you want to become a professor someday (because of whyever that would make sense for you), so you want to go to Notre Dame because it’s the best place to make that happen.

Notre Dame is pushing hard to give students chances to explore their intellectual horizons. These are some of the opportunities available to ND students that you might find it useful to reference in an admissions essay to demonstrate that you’ve actually considered why ND makes sense for you.

Research/creative opportunities

1. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program; it awards grants to undergrad students interested in working with a faculty member to conduct research or a creative endeavor together.

   1. For example, I got a UROP grant to write half of Superhero Nation with an English professor that helped me storyboard and edit. And I’m not an English major!

   2. Notre Dame has done a nice job of tailoring these to student interests rather than academic department politics.

2. A political science undergrad co-authored one of my professor’s papers.

3. A horde of political science students have banded together to create their own political research journal, Beyond Politics, to introduce political science research to a much broader campus community. (Good luck, guys!)

4. Grad courses

   1. I’ve heard that it’s generally easy for undergrad upperclassmen to take grad courses in their major. I’m a political science major and I’ve found that it’s really easy to take PS grad courses.

   2. Grad courses are really effing hard.

   3. If you’re interested in grad school, I’d recommend taking at least one, so that you know what the workload will be like. They’re also hugely useful for your applications to grad school. The recommendation letters could also prove extremely useful.
5. Notre Dame lets undergrads take directed readings with professors. That’s an interesting way to pursue a particular interest in a specific field with a professor/advisor.

So that all is one broad strategy—showing that you satisfy what the university wants (students that will go on to get Ph. Ds).

More Application Strategies

By the point in the application cycle you’re probably reading this, a lot of your application is essentially locked into place. You probably already have 4-6 semesters of high school grades and your SAT/ACT scores will probably not rise more than 50-100 points if you take it repeatedly. Your extracurricular achievements will probably not drastically improve—adding a lot of activities junior year usually looks flaky and it is virtually impossible to do anything in a year that would impress college admissions staffers.

So what can you do at this point to make your application stronger, besides rewriting your essays over and over?

Your single best option is a campus visit. It takes you 2-3 school days (or a weekend, but that won’t work as well) and the benefits can be enormous. (I know that many students can’t afford to invest a plane ticket in a prospective school, so I’ll offer some suggestions along the way about how you might be able to replicate many of the benefits of the campus visit with electronic legwork).

The conventional (less effective) approach to a campus visit

1. 1. Do the tour

   2. Visit the most prominent places on campus

   3. Visit the admissions office

   4. Speak with students

That isn’t bad, per se. It’s certainly better than staying at home. But doing the tour and knowing what the stadium looks like probably won’t improve your application much. (If you speak with admissions staffers, they will note that in your file. That suggests commitment, so it certainly won’t hurt).

But I’d feel pretty comfortable predicting that the following approach is likely to substantially increase a marginal student’s competitiveness in the applicant pool at Notre Dame.

Campus visits done right

Prepwork

1. Two weeks in advance, get a course catalog or look online to see which courses will be open during the days you’ll be on campus. (This is one reason that weekend visits are not very productive).

2. Email the professors of all the courses you’re interested in looking at. Something like “Dear Professor X, I’m a prospective Notre Dame student and I’ll be on campus on the 28^th and I was wondering if it would be possible to sit in on your International Security course.”

   1. Some of the professors—probably at least half—will email you back and say that’s OK. Promptly email them back: thank them and ask if there are any recent, small assignments that the class has done. Say that you really, really want to get a feel for what the class is like.

   2. At least one professor will suggest something small like a 1-4 page paper. Look online for what office hours that professor (or professors) has. You will want to meet with him (them) personally during your visit, after attending their class. If they do not have office hours that work for you, try to schedule appointments.

   3. Do the paper(s). Don’t be pretentious and/or reach for a thesaurus. Treat the paper(s) like a high school assignment that is unusually important to your grade. Talking with an English mentor and someone who’s knowledgeable in the course content might be appropriate.

The Visit

1. Forget the tour. Go to as many classes as you can. If there’s any way you feel you can contribute to class, like answering a general question from the teacher, do so. Understandably, you’re at a huge disadvantage because it’s your first time in the class.

2. Turn in your paper(s).

3. Speak with the paper professor(s) after class. Emphasize how much you enjoyed their class (try to mention at least one detail that reinforce how enthusiastic you are) and arrange to meet with them personally by the end of the visit during office hours.

4. See them again in office hours or whenever you scheduled your appointment. Make The Pitch.

The Pitch

1. Ask the professor(s) to write you a super-short letter of recommendation based on your participation in the class and the assignment you’ve written.

   1. “Hi, I’m Brady McKinerney. I’m an applicant to Notre Dame. I really enjoyed your History of Democracy course and I’d love to actually take one of your courses next year. I was wondering if you could write a short letter of recommendation for me.”

2. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION ONE: “I don’t really know you all that well.”

   1. “I understand completely. I know you’ve only had me in class for a day and only have one assignment from me. But I’d really appreciate if you’d be willing to offer even a qualified assessment of my academic ability—I think that would boost my chances of admissions a lot. I’d be really grateful.”

3. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION TWO: “I’m not sure I can fit it into my schedule.”

   1. “I certainly wouldn’t want to impose on you. The dedication for applications is in three weeks [or whatever], and I don’t anticipate that it would take more than half an hour of your time.”

   2. Remember to send him a hand-written thank-you card for agreeing to do the recommendation. That will also serve as a subtle reminder in case he had forgotten.

4. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION THREE: “I’ve never written this kind of recommendation before.”

   1. This is probably more of a matter of comfort than reluctance. He just isn’t used to this kind of recommendation. They’re very rare.

   2. Suggest that his recommendation mention how you two met and how you participated in his class, both by participating and with your paper. Even a mild statement like “his paper was pretty good” will mean a lot because it came from a professor who obviously knows what is expected of Notre Dame students.

   3. Normally, a high school teacher or advisor writes a letter of recommendation that’s about a page long—and you’ve known the teacher for at least a semester. If a ND professor is willing to write even five sentences about how eager you were to participate and how obviously passionate you are, that could be enormously effective. If you are academically competitive, at your best you can outperform the average Notre Dame student in a class he doesn’t care much about.

A note posted on the Office of Special Investigations’ office refrigerator.

At some point in the past six hours, a Gatorade bottle disappeared from this refrigerator. It had blue contents and a label reading “Agent Orange’s: do not take under penalty of death. I MEAN IT.”

I must consult with the unauthorized drinker immediately to discuss his/her/its future with the agency and any appropriate HR paperwork (benefits, next-of-kin notification/estate planning and last rites arrangements).

Possible symptoms include:

• Hemoglobular disassociation (“blood feud”)
• Sore throat and coughing
• Writhing
• Loss of appetite
• Headache, disorientation and/or brain strangulation
• Spontaneous combustion

Thanks!

–OJ

Agent Orange: You find time for congressional hearings, field missions, heading Operations and a dual life as a psychiatrist that somehow isn’t compromised by a high degree of celebrity.

Captain Carnage: Yeah.

Agent Orange: … how is that possible?

Captain Carnage: You’re missing the point. I’m Captain Carnage. Of course it’s possible.

Bartender: New Hegemon movie’s coming out.

Catastrophe: I heard.

Bartender: …

Bartender: How much do they pay you to wear that?

Catastrophe: Not enough.

I recently wrote a scene where Agents Orange and Black discussed how the government might profile the alternate identities of superheroes. Black focused on relationship troubles and Orange goes for characteristics like being close to people that have been kidnapped more than once.

I think I missed two important characteristics: cheerfulness (specifically the lack of it) and extraordinary and seemingly inexplicable job performance.

Job Performance

No matter how “ordinary” superheroes pretend to be, they always end up having spectacularly successful alternate identities. They won’t just be a mild-mannered journalist, they’ll be a Pulitzer-quality mild-mannered journalist. Even freelance photographers, the homeless bums of the media world, will be so eminent that they publically tell their boss they want twice the money. Industrialists will invariably build world-shaping conglomerates. Let’s not even talk about super-scientists. (Well, actually, I will talk about them, in the chapters with Jacob Mallow and Dr. Berkeley).

If I were in charge of the OSI, I’d *definitely* have a watchlist of the 500-1000 most productive and influential members of American society, with a focus on top performers in the scientific, media, academic and business communities. We can rule out the political/governmental/judicial sphere, but definitely not pro bono civil rights attorneys looking to make the world a better place. That’s obviously too many people to run surveillance on, but it should seem highly suspicious if any of these individuals is involved in anything supercrime-related. Who misses one board meeting too many? Who has cranked out one Nobel-worthy advancement after another? Of course, that works for government-friendly scientists as well.. .

The OSI’s WWII-era predecessor did a comically bad job attempting to cover up the species of Dr. Joe “Slizard,” who showed that an atomic bomb was theoretically possible. Of course, in WWII keeping the identities (and species) of your scientists was critical because roughly a third of the nation’s lab assistants were fanatically hardened Nazi assassins. The real Slizard was saved on several occasions because a Nazi threw himself at a paid actor that played Slizard at public functions.

Cheerfulness, a lack of

Ever since the end of the Silver Age of comic books, most superheroes seem to have been pathologically unhappy. This unhappiness often stems from personal tragedy, government/social persecution, or the realization that you’re a tool who only get published to make shots at Vietnam veterans.

On the whole, superheroes often demonstrate a marked inability to cope with loss and trauma without becoming 1) totally withdrawn/asocial 2) pathologically violent 3) internally conflicted. It’s probably a good thing that American servicemen have proven much more resilient than Captain America; beating the Nazis and subsequent foes would have been quite tricky if everyone went to pieces as soon a friend died. NOOOOOO, BUCKY!

Speaking of post-traumatic stress disorder, Andrew Sullivan and Blackfive, the Paratrooper of Love, go at it over how best to help the traumatized deal with PSTD.

In terms of OSI target identification, I think that I’d place a special emphasis on people that are…

1. Cynical– though many heroes try to hide it with quips, pretty much every superhero is cynical and/or grim
2. Unable to find happiness in everyday affairs; perpetually depressed
3. Noticeably asocial– have you seen the latest Batman movie?
4. Short on intimate, deep relationships.

Spiderman is the crucial exception to most of these, but even he can get emo when Venom is involved. This rubs against Rule 27 of Comic Books: He who is the most well-adjusted is the most ass-kickarific, with the corollary “with great power comes great instability.”

But, generally, I think that a psychiatrist would have some success identifying potential targets of concern. Just another reason that the hero-in-hiding should stay away from the counseling services of the Bedlam Clinic.

Superhero Nation specifically

I don’t think that many of my characters are deeply unhappy except perhaps Jacob Mallow. I’m inclined to think that angst and superheroicness are mutually exclusive. And angsty supervillains are damn unsatisfying and lack the charisma to really move the audience and plotline. So even Paingod is pretty optimistic, in a villainously libertarian kind of way.

Agent Orange:  It’s been said that truth is the first casualty of war.  But usually RETCON gets involved after there’s a bodycount.

1.  We usually respond to comments within a day.  If you think that we’ve forgotten about your comment, you can post another comment as a reminder, but please do not remind us more than once per day.

2.  No drama, please.  Also, please criticize ideas rather than people.  Something like “your dialogue was weak” is far more helpful and civil than “you suck.”

3.  We will delete useless comments, like “first!”  No one cares that you posted the first comment.   Congratulations?

What can we do for you?

Our main goal is to provide a venue for comments that are civil, intelligent and useful.

If you’d like to compile your comments into an easily readable document, please let us know.  We can do that very easily.

r. Berkeley: Something’s wrong with the sunscreen vat. I was wondering if you could explain a few things to me.

Jacob Mallow: Could I discuss this in the lab with you after-hours?

Berkeley: Sure…

That evening…

Berkeley: I’ve been doing some tests on the toxicity of the sunscreen…

Jacob: Those weren’t in your operational area.

Berkeley: The sunscreen would burn clean through flesh!

Jacob: I don’t think you understand how seriously we take our security procedures here, Dr. Berkeley. I see no alternative to summary termination.

Berkeley: You’re firing me?

Jacob pulls out a tranquilizer gun and shoots Berkeley twice, then pushing Berkeley into the vat.

Jacob: Something like that.

END

Agent Orange: Can you hotwire that car?

Lash: No, jackass. I’m a Harvard MBA. And there is no way you would ask a white…

Agent Orange: Just because you attended Harvard doesn’t necessarily mean you’re devoid of useful knowledge. Excuse me for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Many comic book fans expect superhero stories to have a diverse cast. For example, Superhero Nation stars a black superhero and a reptile. (One of our running jokes is that black superheroes are extremely rare and always the first to die). I think that diversity can definitely add something to a novel.

Some reviewers believe that the opposite is also true, that a lack of a diversity hurts a novel. For example, this review of Soon I Will Be Invincible criticizes SIWBI because its cast is too white and straight.

A more serious drawback is the lack of ethnic diversity among the heroes. There are a few comically ethnic villains, but all the heroes appear to be inhuman Other (catmen! Aliens!), specifically white American, or undescribed. This lack of description easily lends itself to “writing in” people of colour, but since white is normally the default for superheroes, readers would have to work against their usual assumptions to do so. It’s also a very heteronormative world. Sexuality likewise isn’t visible in every character, but when it appears, it’s invariably straight sex.

This criticism is well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive to the goal of authentic-feeling minority characters, I think. Though the industry as a whole probably has a moral obligation to include more minorities on egalitarian grounds, expecting that from individual works will likely encourage writers to insert cartoonish, stereotypical and usually token minority characters. Finally, I believe that diversity-based criticism forces authors to pick between characters that are “too black” or “not black enough”. Let me illustrate that claim with a scene between two black characters, Lash and John.

Even the conversation’s first line creates a sensitivity paradox. When Lash introduces himself to John, should he say something generic like “Hey, man” or something more stereotypically black like “Sup, m’nigg?”

If I choose something stereotypically black, readers will complain that I’m stereotyping blacks. “Blacks don’t really talk that way.” That may be true. I am not black and live in a monolithically white/Asian community, so I don’t really have much experience to evaluate that claim. My main source of information about blacks is media caricatures. Relying on those seems like a recipe for disaster.

I think that many whites would be inclined to think that “Sup, m’nigg!” is implausible for a black character and would find the work weaker on that basis. Do you? If you said yes, I’d appreciate if you could critically evaluate why you think that line is implausible. I’ll give you a minute to do that…

Hopefully, you said something along the lines of the following justifications. 1) “I’m black, and we don’t talk that way.” 2) “Although I’m not black, the blacks I talk with regularly don’t sound like that.” These criticisms are strong because the reader has the experience to challenge my portrayal*.

(*An aside: can any single person’s experiences with blacks, even a black’s experiences, suggest that a black speaking otherwise is innately implausible? Probably not. But let’s accept for our purposes that individual experiences are valid enough).

Someone that’s familiar with black people has the experience to challenge my portrayal of blacks. But I suspect that most comic book readers are upper-middle-class whites that don’t really know many (any?) blacks. I’m interested to see how such a person might argue that my representation is implausible. “I don’t have any evidence to support this, but it just seems implausible that blacks would use a line like sup, m’nigg!” Many would probably look to the back of the book to see if I was black or not and then conclude that I was clueless.

The quote is actually quite realistic; a black professor suggested it to me. That I even have to justify myself suggests how complicated this process is for white authors. I feel uninformed readers will readily disregard any research I do to create an authentic black character. But they would not do so if I were black. I think that those two premises strongly suggest that (many? some?) readers implicitly expect me to stick to white characters.

It’s hard but possible for anyone to create an authentic character of a different racial background. But I’ve concluded that it is essentially impossible for a white author to satisfy an audience with black characters (authentic or otherwise). I think the “sup, m’nigg!” example demonstrates that most of the audience presumes that I, a white person, am not credible when it comes to creating a black character. If that is true, I’d say that the audience doesn’t want a black character from me.

Returning to the conversation between Lash and John, the alternative to something like “sup, m’nigg!” is something less stereotypically black. Readers will complain that I’ve inserted token characters to add superficial diversity. They will likely add that “blacks don’t really talk that way,” a conclusion that might not be supported by any personal experience.

No matter what I do, by including a black character it seems that I have guaranteed that diversity-concerned critics will be upset.

KPhoebe at Girls Read Comics counterargues:

…when writing, you shouldn’t be “seeking to satisfy diversity critics”, but keeping in mind that white, straight guy points of view are a cultural norm, not a reflection of reality. It’s not about satisfying people who criticise a lack of diversity so that they won’t be mean about your work, but an ethical choice to reflect a diverse world. As you point out, it requires extra research and effort, and you’re still almost guaranteed to offend someone, but that’s not an ethically worthy excuse not to make the effort.

Perhaps I conceive of the author’s role differently. I consider the primary goal of a fantasy author to be producing the most captivating and satisfying story possible. Other considerations can follow (like commentary, philosophy and political judgments), but a story that fails to immerse its readers has failed.

How does identifying characters as minorities affect how immersed readers will be? I suspect that it wouldn’t help in any way, at least in any way that I can think of. In fact, I am virtually certain that it will lead some readers to question my authorial credibility, which is a total failure of immersion. “Blacks don’t talk that way!” KPhoebe anticipated that point, saying that “reflecting a diverse world… [is] almost guaranteed to offend someone, but that’s not an ethically worthy excuse not to make the effort.”

Perhaps this is insensitive and/or crude, but I don’t think that reflecting reality is (or should be) a major concern of most fantasy writers. Isn’t the point to rely on whatever aspects of reality you need to tell a story and then fabricate the rest? If you don’t need the element of race to tell your story– and most stories are not about race*– then you probably shouldn’t include it. I don’t think that it’s fair to expect authors to pay a fairly high cost in credibility, time and effort for something that is extraneous to their story.

(*An aside: if you’re interested in writing fiction about racism and/or racial tension, I have some suggestions).

I have concluded (above) that using minority characters virtually guarantees that some readers will think that I’m:

1. Racially insensitive, maybe even a racist. If I portray Lash negatively in virtually any way, people seem to assume that I’m trying to pass a judgment on all blacks.

2. Clueless and/or a bad writer.

The alternative to racially identifying characters–leaving it all ambiguous—is much stronger.

1. Readers will generally interpret unidentified characters in a way that is easiest for them. Returning to the original critique, it’s probably true that most white readers will envision most of the characters as white. But I think that it’s unfair to base your reading experience on what you think other readers are doing.

2. Listing character ethnicities, particularly for the protagonist, is likely to alienate some portion of your audience.

3. It’s extremely awkward for a book to mention a character’s race. “I saw Lash, the African-American superhero, sitting there.” “Senor Swagger, you set the bar for all Hispanic superheroes. Eres increible, hombre.” If race is not relevant to your plot, a line mentioning the race of a character will almost always stick out and jar your readers.

Mentioning race is probably warranted if you want to explicitly tackle themes like alienation, persecution and of course racism. But, if you were willing to implicitly address those issues, you have alternatives that are far less costly.

I’d argue that one such alternative is the use of characters that are different in a fantastical way, like mutants and non-humans. If humans persecute mutants in your story, it can be an allegory about racism, heterosexism, etc. The above reviewer didn’t like this option much. “…all the heroes appear to be inhuman Other (catmen! Aliens!)” she said.

I think that using fantastical characters is stronger for several reasons.

First, no one is ideologically attached to preconceptions about how an alien or a mutant cat will act. If my mutant cat acts dumb, no one will assume I’m a closeted mutant-cat hater. In contrast, readers are (understandably) more attached to preconceptions of how they think real minorities will or will not act. Failing to satisfy those expectations is dangerous.

Second, hardly any readers will assume that alien/mutant characters are meant to reflect on real-life groups unless the author directly makes the connection, like mutants representing Holocaust victims in X-Men. But even when we’re supposed to connect a real-life minority with a fantastical group, we cut the author more slack with his portrayal of the fantastical group. For example, X-Men’s portrayal of a bloc of mutants as vicious terrorists is obviously not meant to say anything about Holocaust victims!

If you’re telling a persecution story, using real-life groups may isolate groups of your readers. Let’s say you’re writing a story about gays facing discrimination. Many of your readers will feel that the discrimination is hopelessly wrong and backwards, but other readers will probably feel that gay relations are immoral or unpleasantly gross. (If your audience is similar to the US electorate as a whole, there is probably even some overlap between the groups). A straight-vs-gay story is virtually guaranteed to upset at least one of the groups. Most gay-themed comic books (Green Lantern, etc.) have “solved” this problem by just cutting out the second group from their target audience. That’s very parochial, both from an ideological and sales perspective.

If you’re writing something to change your audience’s mind about something like homophobia, it probably matters that the people who disagree with you are not going to read it. So you’re preaching to the choir. By contrast, a mutant-vs-human story is less likely to draw in outside baggage, like the audience’s preexisting beliefs about homosexuality. It will also probably be more enjoyable. Most people want entertainment rather than moral guidance when they buy a book. If offering moral guidance is something you’d like to do, using fantastic allegory (like mutants) is a wise marketing move.

The thrust of the arguments I’ve made so far is that using minority characters is pretty much a lose-lose proposition for white male authors– many readers will deem that your characters are too black, not black enough, or both. So I’d like to pivot to a question I get a lot: why have Lash be black?

That’s a good question. I think the author’s comfort level is critical and, at least when I started this novel, I felt pretty confident that I could do justice to a black protagonist. Right now, I’m not sure. My readers overwhelmingly think that Agent Orange, a reptile that works for Homeland Security, is a much better written and more believable character than Lash, the black superhero. In contrast, reviews consistently criticize Lash for being bland, poorly characterized and indistinct.

I think that I generally have done a better job with Agent Orange than Lash because writing a black character is vastly more sensitive and more disruptive to my creative process than a reptilian agent. When I attribute wacky statements (“mammals!”) and bizarre attitudes to Agent Orange, readers generally think it’s funny rather than a sinister insinuation about the federal government or, uhh, extraterrestrial lizards. In contrast, readers give me much less leeway with Lash. One review said I “caricatured Lash as a stock angry black male.”

From most perspectives, I believe that portraying Lash as black has cost me enormously, so much so that I’m actually considering rewriting the first thirty-thousand words to make Agent Orange the main character. Consider that for a second. It seems like it would be easier to write and sell a novel starring a paranoid and frequently delusional G-Rex than to proceed with a black lead. In fact, the prevailing view among our contributors is that we should eliminate him entirely or kill him several chapters into the book, but I don’t think that the situation is that desperate yet. (And, as team leader, I figure that the wait-and-sees have it by a vote of 1.5 to 3.5).

UPDATE: The leader of the anti-Lash faction of our writing staff convinced me to let him write a web-comic based around Agent Orange and a third character (someone who “wouldn’t be a collection of tropes tied together by an ethnicity,” he said). I think that the resulting Agent Black is an interesting and consistent character. This bodes poorly for Lash.

Please feel free to comment and/or criticize! I’d really like to know what you’re thinking.

ADDENDUM 1: A valid diversity critique?

The author of SIWBI, at least according to Wikipedia, said that he had intended to make Feral (his mutant cat) gay but he didn’t feel that was necessary because he’s such a minor character*.

I’m notoriously insensitive. In fact, insensitivity (and sexiness) are my defining traits. But even I’m inclined to think that making the token gay character an animal would have been gratuitously offensive.

Jacob Mallow: I’ve finally perfected the concoction. It will–

Paingod: No.

Jacob Mallow: What?

Paingod: I don’t want to know what it does, how it does it, or your vast and no doubt eminently disruptable deployment strategy. Telling me can only guarantee that your plan does not come to fruition.

Jacob: What? How would that matter?

Paingod: …

Paingod: You’re new here, aren’t you?

A Marine typist vs. the Chicago Manual of Style:

MARINE:  About two spaces after a period.  As a U.S. Marine, i know that what’s right is right and you are wrong.  I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period.

CHICAGO MANUAL:  As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. [sic]Status quo. [sic]

I think XHTML turns properly formatted periods (with two spaces after) into single-spaced periods.  That looks HIDEOUS, which is especially problematic for writers that upload large blocks of text, like novel chapters and lengthy reviews.  Whenever I edit a Word Press post, I have to go back and make sure that I’ve replaced the double-spaces so that it’s readable.

I think it’s pretty funny that we don’t put any spaces after periods in abbreviations.  Something like “he’s a U.  S.  M.  C.  drill instructor” would be painful.

European defense consultant: “You don’t think our marketing campaign will work?”

Captain Carnage: “You sure as Houston heat can’t be American. I reckon you got a shot at truth in advertising.”

Consultant: “What would you recommend?”

Captain Carnage: “If y’all can’t make something of France naming its toughest fighter a Mirage, y’all’re not tryin’ hard enough.”

Hello. In addition to my normal articles on writing, I now have Writing Case Studies.  Each entry will review a book and then describe what writers should take away from what worked and what didn’t from the book.

This makes it a bit easier to describe problems/successes in characterization and plotting that might otherwise be abstract.

So far I have:

• Soon I Will Be Invincible
• Empire of Ivory

I’d really appreciate if you’d like to suggest any novels, particularly ones with superheroes or high fantasy generally.  I focus on those kinds of novels because they often have the same challenges and audience expectations as Superhero Nation.

• Creating a world more or less by scratch
• Making a fantastic world serious enough that people won’t hear your premise and groan
• Combining action and non-action components into a workable whole.

Proving that, when you have 10,000 Marines in one place and nothing to kill, strange things happen.

Consultant to a European defense contractor: “We’re set to dominate the U.S.-American market.”

Captain Carnage: “Really? What’s your plan?”

Consultant: “Marketing! We want to show how much we understand the United States. Our tagline is ‘as American as cowboy boots. ‘ ”

Captain Carnage: “…uhh… that dog’s not gonna hunt.”

I fiddled with Photoshop for an hour before picking a filter that made the flag look like a set of hard pencil strokes. Click on the picture and you can see the whole thing.

Some background knowledge that might help you understand his quotes:

• Captain America’s SHIELD agency had flying cars until late in the 20th century, when the comic book writers apparently thought that helicarriers were cooler and more exotic. The Avengers have always had a lavish NYC mansion, complete with a butler.
• Squids and devil dogs are slang terms for servicemen in the Navy and Marine Corps, respectively.
• According to Ronald Reagan, the scariest nine words in English are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
• 18 USC II § 3592 is the portion of US law that sets out some parameters for when the death penalty can be applied.

Gigas: The government admits it maintains a set of “breeder reactors,” reactors that make Chernobyl look like a Swiss clock. The government purposely exposes countless people to radiation to breed supersoldiers.”

Grim Trigger: I don’t think that’s what we meant by “breeder reactor.”

This review will focus on two questions. One, is “Soon I Will Be Invincible” worth reading? Two, how can SIWBI improve your writing?

SIWBI is a first novel about a cyborg and her superhero team trying to stop a supervillain from taking over the world. Although it has some redeeming qualities, I would recommend it only for writers.

Other reviews have been mixed. Here are some Amazon excerpts, edited for brevity.

“This book reads more like a first draft than a published work.”

“This excellent novel reminds me more than anything of The Unforgiven in its deconstruction and reconstruction of its genre.”

“Most dismayingly, the two narrators sound remarkably similar, except that Fatale’s utterly flat sections lack the occasional moments of inspiration that sparingly pepper Dr. Impossible’s narrative.”

“Absolutely delightful.”

“The heroes don’t even take part in the fight that beats Impossible, yet the book wants you to feel like they’ve proved themselves at the end.”

SIWBI is not awful. It was, however, poorly executed and suffers from many flaws common to first novels. These are the lessons authors should take away from SIWBI:

1. Characters drive stories. Dull characters (like Fatale) drive bad stories.
   1. Do your characters feel fresh or are they weak copies of cliches in your genre?
   2. Do all of your characters advance the plot? Can any be eliminated?
2. Originality and flavor drive reader enthusiasm. Even if nonenthusiastic readers like your work, they won’t spread the word.
   1. How have you built on or developed the conventions of your field?
   2. Imagine a conversation between a critic that loved your book and one of his friends. How will he sell the book to his friend? How will he distinguish your book from similar works?
3. Irrelevant characters annoy readers; your point-of-view character(s) should usually be the main character of the scenes they narrate.
   1. Do your protagonist’s actions drive the plot? Or does the plot just happen to the character?
   2. Why did you choose your narrator? Does he provide the most interesting perspective on the scene? Why?

As you can see, SIWBI stumbled in many ways. But I think that its characterization was the most fatal of these.

By my count, within the first thirty pages we were introduced to twenty named characters and three super-groups. Most of the characters parrot a popular comic book character but without any kind of comedic spin. These characters are so thinly-developed that you can only differentiate them by remembering who’s a ripoff of Superman and who’s Batman. For example, let me run down the eight main characters.

1) Fatale. She’s the main protagonist and one of the two narrators. She’s a female cyborg and former NSA assassin, obviously based on Black Widow. That wouldn’t have been a problem, if the author had provided any personal spin or commentary on BW. Instead, we get a bland character that does very little throughout the story. She does a lot of watching and ruminating, but neither her perspective nor her voice are interesting.

2) Dr. Impossible. He’s the villain and the other narrator. He comes closer to parodying Dr. Doom, but Dr. Doom is virtually self-parody to begin with. Impossible is more interesting than Fatale, but still isn’t nearly developed enough to drive a story.

3) Blackwolf, one of Fatale’s teammates. He’s a millionaire (or billionaire*) martial-artist without any superpowers. He’s clearly a clumsy homage to Batman. But where’s the parody?  And, unlike Batman, Blackwolf does virtually nothing.

*Fatale describes him as a millionaire on page 21 but a billionaire on page 60. It looks like poor editing.

4) Corefire, another teammate. He’s mostly Superman with a bit of Reed Richards. The main difference between Corefire and Superman is that he’s a human transformed by a science experiment. Dr. Impossible was his college rival (paging Dr. Doom…). Corefire is dead at the book’s start but still affects the plot more than any of the other heroes.

5) Damsel (Wonderwoman)

6) Feral (Beast, minus the intelligence). This character annoyed me the most because he sounds like everyone else, which is especially unforgivable for a mutated cat.

7) Mr. Mystic (any magical hero)

8.  Elphin (Sir Justin)

9) Rainbow Triumph (Dazzler)

Fatale’s group has eight characters, hardly any of whom do anything. You might wonder what actually does happen. We learn a lot about another supergroup that has literally no bearing on Dr. Impossible’s villainous plot. Dr. Impossible gets beat up by another supervillain, who just lets him go and then never shows up again.

Inexplicably, we learn the origin story of one of the other supergroup’s heroes. Incidentally, it’s a bizarre and funny play on the Chronicles of Narnia. But the only reason the author could possibly have wanted to spend a chapter on that character is because he’s setting himself up for a sequel.

In conclusion, the characterization was awful. But the lack of originality and flavor was also truly disappointing.

SIWBI’s cover looked so promising and fresh. But the book is painfully bland. Usually, most superhero stories go something like this.

1. The supervillain breaks out of prison.
2. He starts his evil plot.
3. The heroes try to stop him but fail.
4. The villain raises the stakes.
5. The heroes stop the villain in the final climax.

Isn’t there supposed to be something more? For example, the Incredibles and Spiderman had interesting themes about family and responsibility. The Matrix and X-Men 2 had great action. But– even for a novel– SIWBI had boring action scenes.

First, it only has three superfights. Second, these fight scenes have far too many characters (see how big that cast is?) Third, the villainous plot is absolutely lame. That’s frustrating because Dr. Impossible muses about his past attempts to seize world power, including armies of mushrooms and termites and stuff. Termite armies would have been epic compared to his banal scheme.

Even beyond the action, the story was just very bland. Many stories sell interesting and fresh worlds, but SIWBI’s is very generic. Let me try to illustrate that with its portrayal of the government. Each superhero story has 4 ways to show (or not show) how its superheroes interact with the government.

Model 1: the government is completely absent from the story. The heroes tie up criminals and readers assume the police will come along eventually, but we never see them. One variation of this is that the story mentions that the government has deputized the heroes. We can call this 1-a. It’s a simple and generic way to make the heroes feel more sympathetic than supervigilantes without getting bogged down in politics.

Model 2: the government is a mild antagonist. For example, in Spiderman, the police aren’t villainous but they get in the hero’s way.  Often, there’s a friendly cop to add flavor.

Model 3: the government is a villain, like in X-Men. This is interesting, but it often gives the story an ideological, anti-American edge. These stories frequently feel cartoonish. Government agents (and usually the public) are usually portrayed as dystopian, bleak, hateful carciatures.

Model 4: the government is a protagonist. This is very rare. The Hood used two minor FBI agents and Superhero Nation draws heavily on government heroes. (Did you know that the KKK Act makes it a federal crime to commit a felony with a mask on? Take that, evil-doer).

SIWBI goes for option 1-a, mentioning offhandedly that the government is OK with the heroes doing their thing. That’s fine, if generic. Maybe no one else cares about the government! But it feels like every aspect of SIWBI is the equivalent of 1-a writing, an easy and conventional way to build a comic book world. You can’t develop every aspect of your world, but no aspect of this world is notable.

In conclusion, the story created high expectations with its fresh title and front-cover and then completely failed to meet them.

I also found the narration to be problematic. Each chapter was narrated by either Fatale or Dr. Impossible. They monologue a lot. Sometimes SIWBI’s monologues parody comic books, but usually they felt like weak storytelling.

Another problem was the perspective. Fatale is a poor choice for narrator.

1. Her back-story is cliché. She’s an injury victim-turned-cyborg, concerned about remaining human despite having mechanical parts. Boohoohoo.
2. She doesn’t know what’s going on. That wouldn’t be a problem if introducing her to the world immersed us at the same time. It worked much better for Harry Potter and Frodo.
3. She has no unique impact on the plot. Except for her inexperience, she brings literally nothing to the plot that other characters couldn’t replace.

I’d also like to mention the voice problems. This story is told from the first-person perspectives of a male megalomaniac and a cyborg superheroine. These characters should not have sounded at all alike.

There were a few chapters where I read through a page or two and found that I had actually mistaken the identity of the narrator. In one case, it took five pages.

Your readers should know quickly and without any doubt who is narrating each chapter. If your readers can’t identify the narrator by the second paragraph, you need to start rewriting. Readers hate it when they don’t know who they’re listening to.

You have several ways to fix voice confusion.

1. Write the narrator’s name right below the chapter title. This is 100% effective, though unsubtle.
2. Use demographic cues. If the narrator’s high-heels click, she’s probably a female. If his tail swishes, we know he’s not human. Readers might miss these, but they draw the reader into the story more.
3. Give them distinct voices! Making your characters sound different is definitely doable. It’s difficult, but it gets past the symptoms of voice confusion and addresses the problem, that your characterization and voice need work.

SIWBI tried (unsuccessfully) to identify the narrator by putting a graphic about the size of a pencil eraser at each chapter’s start, a laser pistol for Impossible and an eye for Fatale. These graphics were too small to notice and I’m not sure why I would associate a laser pistol with a supervillain instead of a cyborg, or an eye with a cyborg instead of a villain.

The story’s characters also tended to sound alike. Let me offer you a multiple choice quiz. I will give you five sets of lines from the book. Who utters them? Your choices are A) a mutant cat created in a lab accident, B) a genius millionaire gymnast-turned-businessman, and C) a whiny teen idol. (This should be easy, right?)

“Maybe you should be at work, then. Spend some time on the streets.”

“He always looks fine. I know you two kept in touch.”

“Darkness? Crime, you mean.”

“This is all geek stuff.”

“You honestly think there’s something behind this.”

“We haven’t seen a serious threat for almost a year. I’m almost bored.”

The first four are A and the last two are B. If you’re wondering why a mutated cat would use phrases like “geek stuff,” you’re not the only one. Notice that none of these lines actually came from the whiny teen idol, but pretty much all of them could have come from her.

Finally, I’d like to talk about the badly unfocused plot. As a rule, you should only bring in as many characters as necessary. Each additional character is a liability.

1. Each new character makes it harder for readers to keep track of the other characters.
2. You have less time and space to develop each character.
3. Adding characters leads quickly to superficial and underdeveloped relationships.
4. Bloated casts ruin fight scenes. A book’s fight scenes are hard enough to visualize with two fighters, let alone SIWBI’s 7. (If you want to write epic fight scenes with many extras, I recommend screenwriting).

To paraphrase, redundant characters are reader kryptonite and should be removed. But how do we identify those characters? Any character whose function/role in the plot can be performed by other characters is redundant.

SIWBI hit readers with eight characters whose only purpose was to represent a type of superhero. For example, Mystic is the magical superhero and Feral is the mutated animal superhero. That’s a bad reason to add characters! Even if these characters were used well for parody– and they certainly were not– extra characters are a liability. If you absolutely needed, say, a Feral to parody Beast, then it would make more sense to mention him as a bit character once or twice. He should not have been in Fatale’s supergroup.

A much better SIWBI would have had 3-4 characters on the superhero team.

1. Fatale (or your favorite narrator; I prefer Lily).
2. Someone to represent life before Fatale showed up (probably Damsel)
3. Someone that can develop the narrator, usually by playing the foil or providing comic relief.

That leaves us with a core of three protagonists: the main character, status quo, and the comic foil. That’s elegant and flexible.  You can go Harry-Hermione-Ron or Laurence-British society-Temeraire, for example. Three is easy, but a “core” of eight protagonists is completely unworkable. I don’t know if His Majesty’s Dragon even has eight characters.

“Pass me down the shark repellent, Robin!”

Which classes are best for you?

For applicants who want to BS future interviewers: Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, Computational Biophysics and Systems Biology

For applicants that don’t care what their interviewers will think: Hong Kong Action Cinema, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Introduction to Excel

For applicants to counterterrorist think tanks that wouldn’t object to cutting out a clause to, uhh, “save space” on their resumes: Cultures of Fear: Analyzing Horror Films

For students that are either unusually uncreative or terrible at geography: The West of Ireland: An Imagined Space

For prospective OSI Human Resources agents: Human Resources in High Performing Organizations, Business Intelligence, or Mammology.

For students not too concerned about job-applicable learning: Directed Readings in Physical Education

For students that probably need to study less and get out more: Sociology of Sexual Behavior

For students that hopefully won’t design any structure that I ever set foot in: Archaeology of Gender

For either open-minded non-Catholics or (more likely) students that need to attend mass more regularly: What Catholics Believe

For students that are unoptimistic about management-employee relations: Slavery, Captivity, and the Company Store in American History

For morbidly depressed students: Nuclear Warfare or Abnormal Psychology.

For students that want to be morbidly depressed: Reading “Ulysses”

For prospective entertainers: Game Theory. (Wait…)

********************************************************

I’m now reading through the course catalog for the third time, trying to find classes that will fit into gaps in my schedule.

I was sitting there, disappointed by our security offerings, when I caught a glimpse of Homeland Security: Surveillance, Terror… and I got excited.

Then I look through its catalog entry.

ENGLISH 40728 – Homeland Security: Surveillance, Terror and Citizenship in America

Close readings of various 20th-century African-American literatures, with foci on how “black subjectivity” is created; the relationship between literature, history, and cultural mythology; the dialectic of freedom and slavery in American rhetoric; the American obsession with race; and the sexual ideology and competing representations of domesticity.

I’ll admit that when I think of Homeland Security surveillance and American citizenship, sexual ideology/domesticity, black subjectivity and the dialectic of slavery are not the first things that come to mind. I find it hilarious that it mentions the “American obsession with race” when the professor has turned a class about homeland security into a discussion of slavery and black subjectivity.

I recommend, as a more honestly marketed alternative, the African Studies Department’s Slavery, Captivity and the Company Store in American History. I still have no idea what the Company Store allusion means, but that’s why you should take the course, obviously. J

Doctor Savant: “Do you know what the difference between you and I is?”

Lash: “I make this look good?”

Doctor Savant: “A Ph. D and 200 I.Q. points.”

In eager anticipation of DHS moat duty, an alligator has taken it upon himself to devour an alleged burglar.

Tribal police divers searched for the man that night, then again Friday morning and afternoon.  During the third dive, the body was recovered.  It bore alligator teeth marks on the upper torso.

The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department said the cause of death was an alligator attack.  [I hope taxpayers didn’t spend too much for that autopsy].

I suppose employee orientation will have to include something about due process.  That’ll probably be an interesting conversation.

“Due process of law, dammit, law!  Not jaw!”

This Youtube video has nothing to do with superheroes but is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  It’s hard to describe, but it has something to do with a man’s growing obsession with The Delicious, which is a bizarre and ritualistic dance associated with a bright pantsuit.  The first minute or two are kind of slow but I promise it’s worth it.

[This is part 3 of the Catastrophe strand]

Journalist:  Do you feel discriminated against?

Catastrophe: Someone called me an egghead once…

Journalist:  Has anyone ever made untoward cartoonophobic comments, glared at you, suggested a government internment camp or secret holding/dissection facility, or shifted uncomfortably when you moved near?

Catastrophe:  Hmm, yes.

Journalist:  Really!  The internment camp, I hope.

Catastrophe:  I notice that children…

Journalist:  Yes, children, excellent… they haven’t learned to hide their prejudices yet…

Catastrophe: …have an unseemly tendency to approach me…

Journalist:  Out with it, man.  Out with it!

Catastrophe:  And ask if I’ll get around to killing the son of a bitch in the sequel.
Journalist:  …

Journalist:  …

Journalist:  What about stereotypes?  Do you find that people tend to stereotype you as a cartoon-American?
Catastrophe:  What, umm, stereotypes did you have in mind?

Journalist:  You know… stereotypes… of cartoons.

Catastrophe:  [???]

Journalist:  Christ, man, don’t make that face again.

Catastrophe:  What?

Journalist:  That face!

Catastrophe:  [???]

Journalist:  GAH!  It looks like you’re ready to cleave my skull open with the power of your mind and suck my brains out.

Catastrophe:  If I gave you a look as puzzled as you deserved, I think it would melt your face off.

Agent Black: The quintessential yes-or-no question of our times is not “do you want to win the war on terror?”  There are actually two: “do you feel safe in New York City?” and “Should you?”

[this is part 2 of the Catastrophe quote thread].

Journalist:  What about your superpowers?

Catastrophe:  What superpowers?

Journalist:  What do you mean, ‘what superpowers?’  How could you be turned into a cartoon character and not get superpowers?  Even effing frogs– not cartoon frogs, mind you– turn into super ninjas.  You wouldn’t happen to have developed something earth-shatteringly interesting, would you?  Strong proclivities towards violence, particularly with melee weapons?

Catastrophe:  Well, I don’t suppose I could rule out a superhuman intell…

Journalist:  Fine, fine.  I’ll just say you don’t know yet.

Agent Orange: “If journalism is really the first draft of history, we need some keen editors.”

Journalist:  Mr. Berkeley…

Catastrophe:  Doctor.  Bar-keley.  Doctor Barkeley.

Journalist: Well, if you have just a momen–

Catastrophe: Doctor Barkeley.

Journalist:  Doctor Barkeley, if you have a moment–

Catastrophe:  We’ve met before, haven’t we?

Journalist:  Yes.  Believe me when I say it was an unforgettable experience… one that won’t soon be forgotten, anyway.

Catastrophe:  Ah.  Was it the lecture on the relational degree of freedom in quantum mechanics?  I’ve also done work in noncommutative dynamics and I’ve been branching out into mathematics…

Journalist:  As fascinating as those undoubtedly are, I can’t remember what the topic of your lecture was.  But I’m pretty sure that you were a non-purple human at the time.  I think that I probably would remember if that had not been the case.

Catastrophe:  …and my thesis on combinatorial mathematics– I suppose the more accepted term is ‘combinatorics’– is coming along quite nicely.  Peer view has been favorable.  Do you need help spelling ‘combinatorics?’

Journalist:  Unless it has something to do with you taking on a startling resemblance to a cartoon character, no.

Catastrophe:  Well, there was, uhh… an unfortunate incident with a wizard.  He cursed me.

Journalist:  I can’t print that!

Catastrophe: Fine. Fine! I had been contracted to help produce a sunscreen that would permanently make skin more resistant to solar radiation. Or so I had thought! I discovered, to my chagrin, that the “sunscreen” was actually a weapons-grade mutagen.

Journalist:  How did you determine that?

Catastrophe:  An esteemed colleague threw me in it.

Journalist: …

Journalist: …

Journalist: …

Journalist:  What’s the name of this wizard, again?

Two questions.

1. Do you live outside of Austin or San Antonio?
2. Do you hate puppies?

If you answered no to both questions, look into the TSA’s puppy adoption program.

(Sorry, Oklahoma… this is just another reason Texas is cooler).

Everybody knows that ladies go nuts for puppies and Texan ladies swoon especially for servicepuppies.  Fortunately, you can get the ladies and save the day, thanks to the servicepuppy adoption program.

You don’t hate servicepuppies, do you?

CPT America will be featured in a Veteran’s Day comic sold at military base stores.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service asked Marvel’s VP for business development to include Captain America and he “agreed because no other character better symbolizes the heroism and patriotism of the American soldier,” the VP said.

That’s funny, kind of. I’d be kind of insulted… well, really insulted if someone said I were as patriotic as Captain Anti-America. Sadly, The Hood (a Marvel anti-hero that trafficks in drugs and blood diamonds and accidentally kills a cop) makes a far stronger case for being patriotic.  He gets extra points for a hilarious reference to Guiliani Time.  

In Marvel’s comics for servicemen, there’s a big two-page spread that puts America in a romantic pose in front of the American flag that wouldn’t have been ridiculous, say, decades ago, when Captain America actually supported the American military.

Posing CPT America in front of an American flag is horribly two-faced.

1. Well, he’s a traitor and/or rebel.  He couldn’t bring himself to be as enthusiastic about fighting terrorists and registering superheroes as the government and people expected, which is fair.  Retiring would have been entirely acceptable. Instead he took it upon himself to militarily prevent the government from doing so, which is quite solidly treasonous.
2. Even before he rebelled in Civil War, his plotlines almost always featured the US government as a nefarious and sinister actor.  The details are blurry to me, but for example he beat the crap out of a sadistic and villainous Navy captain.
3. He’s never been very enthusiastic about either fighting terrorists or, frankly, America.  National Review argues that CPT America’s New Deal comics show that he is a terrorist sympathizer.  I wouldn’t go that far, but his recurring criticisms of the Dresden firebombing are pretty unrealistically severe for a WWII veteran.  Real soldiers–particularly ones that fought the Nazis, I’d imagine– aren’t that squeamish.  My impression is that servicemen overwhelmingly believe that the WWII bombing raids were justified on the basis of shortening the war and reducing casualties on both sides.  It seems a lot like Marvel’s writers have a certain set of views and they use CPT America as a mouthpiece to voice them, no matter how wildly implausible it would be for a WWII-era soldier to have them.  It would probably be more appropriate, I think, to have a younger America replacement make the revisionist case that the Dresden bombing is wrong;  I think that having the original America justify the bombing is probably truer to the source material, at least Captain America circa 1945. 
4. There is a major disconnect between the civic values of America’s servicemen and Captain America. America doesn’t seem to mind very much attacking Americans whenever he thinks it’s his duty to do so, which is unsettlingly often.  

Perhaps I should rest assured that “AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU”!  The comics are selling well, I guess, so maybe I’m looking at this too cynically.  I wonder who would admit to buying a comic book on a military base .  I’ll have to ask around at Parris Island this summer.   

On the other hand, Spiderman is pretty kickass.  I’d be OK with his support any time.  Even Wolverine and the Fantastic Four seem to know how it is. 

Office of Special Investigation’s Retroactive Continuity branch mission statement: “Fixing history, one day at a time.”

A supervillain is easily identifiable because power is sexy.  That’s why we always get the best women (no one really wants to date a mild-mannered reporter or an inept freelance-photographer).  But superheroes are also easy to identify if you know what to look for: the bumbling factor.  The more bumbling someone is, the more superpowers he’s waiting to unleash. For example, the last time my henchmen attempted to break into a presidential convention, they got absolutely shellacked by Tucker Carlson. If you have ever wondered whether someone that looks that bumbling could only get on TV because he was really a superhero, you’re not alone.

There’s really no way to know how many of my plots have been spoiled by Carlson and Alan Colmes, but I’d feel pretty confident saying that they’re the main barrier between me and global domination.

I’d give you two guesses whether it’s Hannity or Colmes that’s the bane of supercriminals everywhere. Remember, people that look bumbling are dangerous. And anyone that looks as bumbling as Colmes can strangle your best assassins with his mind.  Interestingly, Sean Hannity is also a superhero, but any supervillain that fears a conservative diversity hero should reconsider his line of work.

Unsurprisingly, the talk radio guy doesn’t know how important it is to keep his appearance secret.

The Refrigerator of DOOM

Doctor Savant: “Before we open my refrigerator, you better take this.”

Lash: “What the hell, a flame thrower?”

Doctor Savant: “Just in case.”

Lash: “Just in case of what?”

Doctor Savant: “Exactly.”

Captain Carnage: “I reckon I’d be plum crazy if I didn’t say Texas is the doggoned smartest place in South America.”

Captain Carnage: “We have a Department of Defense. We need a Department of Offense.”

Hello. Today, I started running a Quote of the Day. I’ve already got the next two weeks covered.

Some of the things on my to-do list.  

PARODYING COMIC BOOK VIOLENCE

1. Someone being eaten
2. Death by plant
3. Death by fire extinguisher
4. Death by ceiling
5. Death by squid
6. Death by refrigerator 
7. Death by frog and meteor showers

PARODYING ALTERNATE IDENTITY-INDUCED STUPIDITY 

1. POLICE: “Well, Mary Jane Watson’s been kidnapped at least three times in the past ten years, generally by criminals associated with Spiderman.  But there’s no reason to suspect a connection…”
2. EMPLOYERS: “My star employee puts in fewer hours than everyone else and runs off a lot more.  He must just love being productive… by himself.”  
3. JOURNALISTS: Glasses.  Enough said. 
4. POLICE DOGS: fortunately, they are curiously unable to identify superhero scents at crime scenes and then track them back to either the source or hangouts.

PARODYING USE OF WOMEN IN COMIC BOOKS

1. Women virtually absent
2. Any woman introduced must be paralleled by the man she will end up falling in love with 
3. Feminists complain about objectification despite wearing less clothing than most four-year-olds and OBVIOUSLY getting implants
4. Women must be hopelessly, hopelessly clueless compared to male peers

PARODYING ALIENS IN COMIC BOOKS

1. EMPIRE STATE CONNECTION:  The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence uses the Empire State Building as a beacon to contact alien life.  That’s why aliens that crash-land on Earth have a remarkable tendency to make landfall within 25 miles of it.  
2. GOVERNMENT COVERUP:  The government will always spend considerable amounts of money and manpower covering up the presence of aliens and will kill anyone that gets in the way.  The conspiracy is so deep that none of the participants know why the government needs to conceal the existence of aliens.
3. CONVERGENT EVOLUTION:  Humans are really genetically competitive!  
   • 100% of alien species have a human body structure (two arms, two legs, walking upright, etc.)
   • 90% of aliens have fundamentally human psychologies (similar thought processes, senses, cultures, desires).  And the remaining ten percent are invariably villains opposed by human-like species. 
   • 75% of aliens look exactly like humans (or shape-shift) and lack any characteristics that would rule out an alternate identity easily identify them to humans.   (How frustrating would it be to look overwhelmingly like a human but smell overwhelmingly different?)
   • ALIENS, DARWIN’S GOLDEN CHILDREN:  Sorry, guys… aliens outclass us in every conceivable way.  Every alien species beats us in strength, resilience, flight, senses and technology.   Aliens aren’t necessarily smarter than humans, but no aliens are notably dumber than humans.  In short, humans have no advantages compared to aliens, even in traits like speaking human languages.  We don’t even have a distinct edge at seeming human. 

1. VESTIGIAL LIMBS:  Even species that can fly effortlessly retain their two legs.  Among species that fly, legs are considerably more prevalent than wings.  Even species that able to fly will have two legs.
2. Unlike human behaviors, 100% of alien behaviors are attributable to their species.  For example, if France randomly attacked Germany, it wouldn’t follow that “humans are really aggressive.”  However, any alien aggression towards humans indisputably proves that the alien species is implacably hostile and needs to be stopped. 
   • Per Independence Day, War of the Worlds, E.T., Perfect Dark…  in peacetime, humans will capture and exploit alien prisoners.  When aliens and humans fight, humans never take POWs… because the aliens are savages! 

Note: Superhero Nation does play on these expectations, but the joke’s on the reader.  I surveyed 30 people that read chapters 1-3.  

• 26 agreed with the statement “Agent Orange can’t be trusted.”  “Why do you think that?”  3 said because he probably lied to Lash in Best Investigator.  17 went with “because his species is hostile to humans.”  6: don’t know.  (I allowed for that option because I didn’t want respondents to feel like they HAD to assess Orange based on too little information). 
• “Why do you think Paingod and Agent Orange are upset with each other?”  5: because of political differences.  8: because of personal differences.  11: “because members of their species interact differently.” 
• “Why do you think Lash is upset with Fox News?”  15: because of political differences.  13: because of personal differences.  1: “because of the human condition.”  (I really struggled to come up with a parallel to ‘because members of their species interact differently’).  It surprised me that anyone selected the “human condition.”  On further investigation, it turns out that he was a fan of Augustine.  Sigh.  I need to weed out Philosophy majors from reader surveys.   
• “Which one of these do you think best describes Agent Black?”  6:  “An American doing a patriotic and moral service to his people.”  13: “Someone making the best of a morally difficult situation.”  5: “Generally more a part of the problem than the solution.”  1: “A traitor that needs to be dealt with.”  (5 unsures).  (Other questions revealed that self-identified conservatives tended to go with the first two categories and liberals with the last two).   
• “Which one of these do you think best describes Agent Orange?”  2: “An American doing a patriotic and moral service to his people.”  4: “Someone making the best of a morally difficult situation.”  8: “Generally more a part of the problem than the solution.”  4: “A traitor that needs to be dealt with.”  (12 unsures).  The ideological split was less clear here.  Conservatives made up most of the two extremes and liberals generally went for the third choice or weren’t sure. 
• “It is possible that someone who is born into drastically different conditions that I was could be meaningfully American.”  Virtually unanimous agreement (26 strong agreements, 2 weak agreements, 1 weak disagree, 1 don’t know). 
• “It is possible that someone who acts or thinks drastically differently than I do could be meaningfully American.”  This was more contentious but a majority still agreed.  (12 strong agrees, 7 weak agrees, 4 weak disagrees, 4 strong disagrees, 3 don’t knows).  Compared to the previous question, populists moved the most (and also, to some extent, conservatives).   
• Looking back at the question, “which of these do you think best describes Agent Orange?,” readers generally thought less of Orange than (the human) Black. 
• So Agent Orange was generally judged much less sympathetically.  That could be because Agent Orange just is less sympathetic and that my readers aren’t discriminating against aliens… the results would flip if I made Agent Black the alien and Agent Orange the human and kept everything the same.   Or people are subconsciously discriminating against Orange because he’s not human.  I don’t have enough information to determine which it is, yet, but it puzzles me that anyone would describe Orange as a “traitor that needs to be dealt with” without factoring in him being an alien.  I’m vaguely sure I didn’t put in anything that would suggest that… well, I did write a possibly sinister line about Agent Orange reworking the world, but I think readers would be more inclined to judge that the line would be idealistic, rather than creepy, if it were spoken by a human.   

Methodology 

I used a few criteria to eliminate potential poll responders.  They had to answer three multiple choice questions correctly.  Additionally, I only gave the quiz to Americans because I want to examine the American political culture.  (Sorry, everyone else… I’m sure you have your own political scientists).  

1. “What state is the setting of the first three chapters?”  (NY)
2. “Which species does Agent Black belong to?  Which species does Lash belong to?”  [correct answer: both are human.]
3. “Which one of these best describes the physical appearance of Agent Orange?”  [the correct answer was the only one that sounded remotely reptilian.]  

The first question was pretty basic.  Even if you didn’t specifically remember that the answer is New York, you might have recalled that Lash works on Wall Street, that Agent Black is the “Manhattan Mangler,” the “Empire State Strikes Back,” or the mention of mutated animals living in the Queens sewers.

The second question mattered because I needed to know whether my readers were reacting differently to alien characters because they are alien.  Obviously, if you don’t remember who is human who isn’t, then your answers wouldn’t help as much.  (Sorry!)

The final question served mainly to identify readers that would remember enough specifics about the book to justify their opinions later. 

Over 60% of respondents answered the three questions correctly.