Jan 05 2008
Seven Common Problems with Psychic Characters
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Writing a novel or comic book about a psychic character? Stories about psychic characters often suffer from the following seven problems.
1. Depicting a psychic fight is hard. In a comic book, you can draw Superman throwing a rock at someone. How would you show a psychic using his mind to throw a rock? It will probably look goofy (little white lines everywhere!) In a novel, describing a psychic fight is even harder.
2. You can’t use psychic powers creatively. Mind-reading, telepathy, mindblasts and (especially) mindcontrol are not very versatile. Authors can’t show the characters solving problems in unusual ways with these powers: the powers are either directly applicable or completely useless. Telekinesis gives authors some opportunities for creativity, but it’s still pretty limited.
3. Secrets, fear and uncertainty add drama, but psychic powers make it implausible for the character to be surprised or deceived. That’s a suspense-killer. One way you can fix that is by adding limitations to your character’s mind-reading powers. For example, mind-reading is usually a secretive ability, but that’s kind of lame. Let your psychic’s victims know that their minds are being read. That will encourage your hero to read minds only when it’s very important.
4. Stories with psychic characters are prone to “reboots,” when something important happens and the story later makes it unhappen. For example, someone learns the psychic’s secret identity and later the psychic erases his memory. That isn’t very satisfying. It also makes it hard to keep track of who knows what.
5. Forcefields usually don’t work out well for authors. They’re hard to depict, hard to choreograph (especially in novels) and aren’t very versatile. They also suffer from power fluctuation. (Typically, the villain can break them until the author wants the hero to start winning).
6. It’s hard to explain how a psychic could survive the routine blows any supervillain will land in a fight. Most superheroes have some kind of super-resilience so that their fights don’t end as soon as the villain lands a punch. But super-resilience doesn’t seem to fit with psychic powers really smoothly, particularly if the hero has an otherwise normal body.
7. “Why doesn’t she crush Dr. Doom’s windpipe!?!” Readers will wonder why the Invisible Woman doesn’t make the most of her powers by rearranging her enemies’ organs. “But she’s a good guy!”, you’ll say. That may be true, but those ethical qualms will seem really flimsy when the supervillain is minutes away from conquering or destroying the world. It will probably help to create a stronger restriction. For example, your character’s powers only work on things he can see, or they only affect inorganic material.
Interesting as my character is psychic. I’ll keep this in mind whilst writing my story.
Good luck. Let me know how it turns out. If you need a beta reviewer, I’m available.
Hey, will you help me with a hero? He has elasticity and increased strength because he’s a martial artist. What kind of transformations can he have?
Elasticity transformations? Well, uhh. Hmm. When you say transformations, do you mean a species-change (like Kafka’s Metamorphosis or The Fly) or something like Spiderman? I’m drawing a blank on a species change (well, I guess some lizards have long tails and tongues that you could conceivably use for stretchiness, but that’s a stretch).
If you’re looking for a more generic modification (like Spiderman), you could try pretty much any sci-fi origin story (radiation, genetic engineering, cybernetics, mutation, chemical alteration, cosmic rays/radiation, etc.) For example, your character is working in a lab that is designing spider-silk body armor, which is designed to stretch when the wearer is shot. (That reduces the impact of the bullet by extending the time of impact with the person… you can think of that like jumping off a building vs. jumping off of a building onto thirty down comforters). However, he spills one of the chemicals on himself and it makes his own skin as elastic as the spider-silk… his bone structure becomes more flexible and his skin becomes more elastic. If you’re looking for quasi-scientific mumbo-jumbo, I recommend “tensile strength,” “molecular cohesion,” “matter density,” “structural enhancement,” etc.
If the spider-silk body armor tangent interests you, I’d recommend looking at this site: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_32/b3996068.htm .
Depending on how wacky your story is, you might try a fantasy origin (magic, artifacts, divine intervention, etc.) But I’d recommend a sci-fi story… that’s probably more appropriate for your story’s tone.
Wow, your whole site is ridiculously cool. So happy I came across it.
A few of my characters in my current novel have a variety of psionic and psychokinetic powers.
In number three you wrote, “Secrets, fear and uncertainty add drama. If your character can read everybody’s mind, he can’t be surprised. That’s a suspense-killer!” which makes complete sense. Do you have any ideas about realistic (well, relatively :) ways to present a character with telepathy? What might be ways in which the telepathy is limited? Distance/range is one limitation I’ve given to my telepathic character - she has a hard time when someone is beyond X feet, etc. Other ideas?
Thank you!
Hmm. I would start by making sure that his powers aren’t very useful for preventing ambushes. For example, perhaps one of the restrictions on his ability to read minds is that he has to see the target first. That will make it easier for villains to surprise him. In contrast, some psychics have the ability to mentally sense people behind them, which takes away the potential for dramatic ambushes.
Second, I would suggest tweaking his mind-reading power so that his targets know what’s happening. They should know that he’s reading their minds. That would help restrict his ability to read minds.
As for making telepathy realistic… the brain works with electrical impulses. Your psychic might just be able to pick up and interpret the electrical impulses of other people’s brains.
Thank you! That is incredibly helpful.
Sure thing. Thank you for your question.
Also, could a psychic hero be limited by technology or equipment?
Example: Magneto wears a helmet to block Charles Xavier.
I like your suggestion, Brett. Juggernaut also wears a helmet to protect against psychic attacks. An anti-psychic helmet would force a psychic hero to improvise– how can you get the helmet off without using your powers? That’s an interesting setup.
Angel in Maximum Ride can read minds, but her enemies have developed ways to mentally block her, and replace the organic Erasers (flunkies who carry out the dirty work) with robots so they have no mind to be read. Angel is a very scary six year old, I’m telling you that. She doesn’t have the problem with being a kid either. When she does have a cute line, it always makes you feel sorry for her or go “awwww”, not “shut up and do something useful”. That shows just how good an author James Patterson is.