Feb 24 2008
Index: How to Write a Superhero Novel
This site provides writing advice. If you're writing a superhero novel or comic book, please also read our superhero writing articles.
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Creating a Superhero Character
- List of Superpowers
- How to Write Effective Origin Stories
- NEW: How to Write a Plausible Origin Story
- Superhero Creation Questionnaire
- NEW: How to Create Weaknesses for Your Superhero
- How to Name Superheroes
- Modern Superhero Naming Conventions
- Questionnaire for Nonhuman Characters (Transformed Humans, Aliens and Otherwise)
- NEW: Random Name Generator for Alternate Identities
The Mechanics of Writing a Superhero Story
- How to Write Superhero Fight Scenes
- How to Pick Superpowers that Make Your Story Work
- Common Problems with Superstrong Heroes
- Common Problems with Psychic Superheroes
- Common Problems with Powersuited Superheroes (like Iron Man)
Marketing and Visual Issues
I think this is useful. :) Have I mentioned this is helping me write a novel?
Good luck, Mysticgust! Let us know if you’d like beta-reviewers– just leave a comment here or e-mail us at SuperheroNation[at]gmail[dot]com .
What do you think about the name Luxman? Is it apt for a superhero? Is it already in use?
I think that as far as a comic book audience is concerned, it’s not in use. (There’s a Japanese electronics company named Luxman, but I think that none of your readers will have heard of it and you probably won’t have any legal liability issues). For example, the novel Soon I Will Be Invincible features a character named Bluetooth whose ability is remotely controlling electronic devices and, as far as I know, they haven’t gotten sued yet.
I think you’re legally in the clear to use the name, but I am not sure how effective the name Luxman is. It doesn’t seem to me to be very emotionally powerful and the pronunciation seems ambiguous (LUCKS-man or LUKES-man?). What are some of the characteristics you want readers to associate with your character?
Good luck!
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This is helping a lot, but I’m still having trouble with defining my character’s powers and coming up with character names. Do you have any suggestions?
@Necro:
I find that it’s usually easiest to start with the character powers, fill in personal details like background and personality, and then come up with the super-name.
It’s hard to say what powers are best for your story. However, if you’re a first time novelist, it’ll probably be easier to start with generic powers and then add in one or two minor exotic powers. For example, Spiderman has several generic powers (enhanced agility, reflexes, and strength) and then two minor, exotic ones (webs and spidersense).
Likewise, when we wanted to make a character to parody Nick Fury and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we gave the character a few basic powers that seemed logical for a mutant alligator: strength, claws and regeneration. Then we threw in two exotic touches, supersmell and infrared vision. Because we want this character to come off as an absurd and comical g-man, we named him Agent Orange.
Most main heroes fall into one of six archetypes: the tank (like the Hulk), the gymnast (Spiderman or Flash), the mage (Dr. Strange), the psychic (Invisible Woman), the gadgeteer (Batman) and the elementalist (Human Torch or Captain Atom). I think it’s easiest to write a tank or gymnast, but it really depends on which story you want to write. If you want a high-fantasy story, mages will probably work better. Gadgeteer stories usually feel a bit more believable, psychics lend themselves nicely to fantastical science fiction (or perhaps high fantasy), and I think elementalists are particularly well-suited for comic-books and novels aimed at younger readers.
As for names, again it really depends on what character and story you want to write. If you post a few details about the character, his powers and origin story, I’ll offer a few suggestions.
Yours,
Jacob
The character that I’m trying to name is basically a psychic that can only use his powers while he is fighting. He has five swords from a giant buster sword all the way down to a small blade, because I based him off an artist that draws a picture using his swords as he fights. So the swords are like paint-brushes to him. As he fights, the way he cuts things and destroys stuff will fit into his picture that most likely tells the future. But he blacks out when he fights. Either he or my main character, Necro, interprets the pictures.
He was a child prodigy in his village but went rogue to find out why he was drawing these pictures and their meaning. He joins up with this organization called Sector 13, which took him in and promised that they would teach him more about his power.
What do you think about Dwan as a character name?
Dwan’s fine, but the -dw- sound might be hard for readers to pronounce. However, I like the artistic angle of the character. So I have a few suggestions that try to combine hard-and-protagonistic sounds with soft-and-smooth ones. I got the impression that you’re writing a high-fantasy story not set on Earth, so I went for relatively exotic and unusual ones.
–Orphid
–Delance
–Shayman
–Illid
–Crane
These five, I think, are not conventional names but I don’t think they would trip up readers too badly. Good luck!
I think he is a pretty unique character. He’s one of my favorites.
What about Kiru or Riku?
Of the two, I like Riku better.
Thank you for all of this. I’ve been attempting to write a novel, and this site has been immensely helpful. I’m not really writing a ’super-hero’ novel, because the character isn’t really a superhero until the last quarter of the book.
The first third of the book is told from the point of view of his mother, Elizabeth, who had given him up for science after she discovered that she had become pregnant. The biological father, Tyler, tracked the child down, discovering that he had become part of a government operation known as Project Heracles whose goal is to create a ’supersoldier’. At this point, Russel (the main character), is only four years old and able to bend rods of steel with his bare hands and withstand gunfire. Eventually, Elizabeth rescues him from the project’s grasp, and takes the reins over it in the process.
The second part of the book describes Russel’s child and teenager hood, and how he befriends the highly intelligent but emotionally and morally unstable Mark Newman. Also, in keeping with at least some superhero cliches, Russel fights to control his secret and saves the occasional life. At the end of high school, Russel and Marks friendship comes to an abrupt end, and, due to a combination of different ‘injustices’ Mark decides that he hates Russel and threatens to kill him. Mark and Russel go their separate ways.
The final section of the book describes Russel’s becoming a ‘law enforcer’ for the city of New York, gaining technology based powers in the process. Slowly, random terrorist attacks become more and more frequent around the globe. Soon, it is revealed that all of them are the work of Mark, now a world class inventor, who is building on an idea for a ’society of the best’ that he had gotten in high school. It’s pretty obvious how the book turns out from this point, with Russel confronting Mark before his ‘final act of villainy’ occurs.
I was just wondering what anybody though of it. And, in case your wondering, all of the characters do have believable motives. The story is inspired partly by Smallville, and partly (though I hate to admit it) the story of Wolverine.
It’d be easier to evaluate this if you sent me a manuscript, but my initial concern is that publishers might sweat about the book if the first third is told from a different character’s perspective and is largely different from the 20-30%, which I imagine to be a fairly conventional superhero action story. There is a large group of readers interested in superhero novels, I think, but can you interest them in a book that seems at first glance to be about Elizabeth and Tyler rather than Russel and Mark? Can you make Mark’s plot logically flow from the first part of the book? It seems like the second and third parts of your book are coherent, but tying in the first part may be difficult.
“The biological father, Tyler, tracked the child down, discovering that he had become part of a government operation known as Project Heracles whose goal is to create a ’supersoldier’.” It seems like Tyler is a more interesting character than Elizabeth here. He is curious and attached to his child, which are both endearing and plot-driving traits. In contrast, Elizabeth gave up the child (to science!) and doesn’t seem to care as much where the child went, which seems a bit cold and apathetic (neither of which I would recommend for a protagonist). Also, on a marketing level, I’d speculate that the majority of readers of superhero-themed novels are males. It may be easier to sell them on a male character rather than a female?
Do you think it would be better to split it into two books?
That’s an interesting question. Again, I think it would help me to see a manuscript (which you can e-mail to superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com if you’d like us to beta review it). However, without having actually seen that… my instinct tells me that splitting it would be useful.
All right, I’ll consider sending the manuscript to you. Keep in mind though, I’ve barely started, so it may or may not take a while. I think it should go pretty quickly since I have a lot of scenes already outlined. Thank you for your input.
I’m trying to design a female character, but I don’t want her to be a damsel in distress. Can anyone help me?
Hmm. The single best female side-character I can think of in a superhero story is Lois Lane in the TV series “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” Although Lois repeatedly gets into situations where Superman has to save her, she is wholly superior to the average damsel-in-distress.
1) She’s clever and witty. She frequently knows more about what’s going on than Clark/Superman.
2) The story mostly avoids political incorrectness (women need to be saved!) by occasionally endangering Clark’s male co-workers (Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, usually).
3) I found it extremely endearing that she came from a broken family, which was a useful foil to Superman’s storybook-perfect roots in Kansas. Although broken families can make a character feel emo, I thought that the show did an excellent job of using the detail to make her feel realistic and resilient.
4) She’s not perfect, but she is likeable.
5) She spars with Clark pretty frequently, and sometimes she gets the better of him.
I have a few more thoughts here. Also, if you have the time, I’d highly recommend watching seasons 1 & 2 of the show.
Does anyone know how the copyright law applies when writing a novel that uses an existing world and characters, like a new Ironman or Superman story? I know that people are writing all kinds of new Star Wars stories but I am not sure how to stay on the right side of the copyright laws.
It would be a bit ironic if a superhero out there fighting evil got sued for copyright infringement!
First, I’m not a lawyer, so please take this accordingly. As long as you are not profiting from your work, you are probably in the clear as long as you acknowledge that (obviously) you do not own the rights to the Star Wars franchise.
If you want to profit from your work, I imagine your only option would be to sell it to the publishers licensed to legally produce Star Wars books, because no one else can legally publish it. I think that’s Del Rey. That said, selling what I imagine to be fan-fiction is probably extremely difficult. The publisher for an established franchise like Star Wars can probably pay for pretty much any science-fiction author it wants. Making that sell would be like scoring a bullseye on a womp-rat with a T-16. Gah! I can’t believe I just wrote that.
Hahaha, nice shot!
Thanks for the reply. I was just using Star Wars as an example. I was actually thinking about a very old tv series and modernizing it. Take Dragnet for example. That was an old tv show that they did a movie about many years ago. Kind of like what they are doing with Charlies Angels, Starsky and Hutch etc.
Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but I think that you should probably talk to the people/company that owns the rights to the TV series, then. Then you’d have to convince them that it could be rewritten to play for 2008 readers. My initial impression is that it would be a tough sell, particularly if you’re not an established author with a track-record of strong sales.
You would probably find it dramatically easier to write a similar story by changing the setting and characters as needed. For example, Seaquest DSV was absolutely excellent (and legal!), even though it was pretty much Star Trek underwater.
Thanks B. Mac. I know that the original author is dead. I have to find out who owns the rights to the story and characters.
Ah. You may find this link to John August useful.
Good stuff, B. Mac. Thanks.
I’m writing a story about a superhero group right now. The group was put together by a government organization. I want the organization to have an acronym for its name. Any ideas?
Also what’s a good number for a superhero team, besides 5 members because that’s so cliche? And what should be the female/male ratio?
I’d recommend 3-4 members. Five is very common, especially on anime cartoon shows, but in a novel you’d probably be hard-pressed to develop five characters, particularly if you plan to do anything with their origin stories. On television shows, viewers are more tolerant of characters that are grossly simplistic carciatures. (For example, each of the ninja turtles only has a single trait). But novel-readers expect more character development.
As for acronyms, I looked through the dictionary for some interesting sounding nouns, with an emphasis on words with a defensive connotation (like SHIELD). Some of the ones I liked were Epoch, Ward, Aegis, Guard, Slake, Acre, Rush, Sabre, Omaha, and Manhunt. What tone are you trying to develop for the group?
Alternately, if you’re not a fan of defensive words, another conventional theme for a government-themed supergroup would probably be a patriotic-themed word (like FLAG). You could try Star or Eagle, I guess. [I assume this is a US agency, but it wouldn’t be hard to adjust that for another country].
The gender ratio kind of depends on your target audience. If your story is likely to appeal overwhelmingly to females (a la Sailor Moon), then you’d probably want (assuming you went with a 4 member group) 3-1 or 4-0 females:males. Conversely, your story might appeal overwhelmingly to males, particularly if it’s heavy on fighting and doesn’t feature very much interaction between characters. In that case, I’d recommend 3-1 or 4-0 males:females.
Besides marketability, I think the main consideration is what you feel comfortable with. You can make a good story with all males, all females or anywhere in between. However, if you use a team that’s either entirely male or entirely female, it may be helpful to have a character try to offer some in-story explanation for that. That would probably help readers of the other sex feel like the story hadn’t forgotten that they exist.
Thanks so much! You were definitely a big help. The only thing is I created a number of different heroes and its really hard for me to pick and choose. So I was thinking of creating a Justice League type of team with about 7-10 members. (Some members would join throughout the book, not all at once.)
In the end, through a series of novels, I want to create an entire universe. I plan on starting with the core super group, then doing some single character stories, and finishing with a novel that includes all the characters together. Any ideas on big enough events that would require a large amount of superheroes to overcome?
Good luck with your group. I think that 7-10 heroes might be hard because your readers aren’t as familiar with your characters as Justice League’s viewers are with most of the big 7. I think a really large team is quite ambitious for a novelist building a world and mythos from the ground up.
Introducing the characters gradually over the course of the novel is very shrewd. For example, over the course of the first Harry Potter novel, the author introduced us to Harry Potter, Hagrid (about 80 pages later), Hermione and Ron (about 30 pages later) and then finally minor heroes like Dumbledore and Neville. You don’t have to need to spend 80 pages developing your main character, obviously, but 1-2 chapters will help solidify the character in your readers’ minds before you introduce the next.
I like that idea. I was planning on introducing the characters somewhat like Heroes did. Random stories that end up flowing into each other.
And the agency is a branch of the government that is supposed to produce and back a superhero team. Train them, finance them, a provide them with transportation, science, medical help, etc.
Could you help me with an acronym for the word ALPHA? I’ve made several attempts but they all sound campy.
Hmm. I think I could offer some suggestions for ALPHA (nice word, by the way), but I’d like to ask a question first. What does your agency do? For example, SHIELD handles mostly national security, but Hellboy’s bureau handles paranormal incidents.
Ah. And what sort of villains are you looking at? (For example, mostly terrorists, straight-up supervillains, paranormal monsters, aliens, etc).
The main villains are a terrorist organization with ties to some of the heroes. But I’m also going to throw in other supervillains, monsters, etc. I’ve decided to do a series of books about the team. Because I have a lot of content and it won’t fit in one novel without being confusing.
OK. In that case, I’d recommend something that sounds like generic national security. Whether it’s a supervillain or Godzilla attacking, it’s a threat to national security. (Also, would you want to bet the country on whether the National Guard can take down a supervillain? Questionable).
But I’m really blanking. The best I can come up with are the Association of Paranormal-Hunters and Analysts and the Agency for the Prevention of High-Powered Aberration.
The Audit of Paranormal [Homeland] Adversaries.
Agency for the Locating and Prevention of Hazardous Anomalies.
Thank you so much, guys! I really like Cadet Davis’ idea. Thank you for all the help.
XoXo Phyre
Haha, B. Mac. I win again!
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