Aug 15 2008
Manuscript Killers: Homo Superiors
Diagnosing the Problem
Homo superiors are characters that are like humans but better in every conceivable way. How would you describe how Superman differs from a human? “Well, he can do anything a human can, but a hundred times better.” He even looks like a human. Homo superiors are usually aliens or elves, but sometimes a human with enough superpowers or enhancements.
A homo superior is usually not merely better at fighting than everyone else, but also more sophisticated and savvy. If he has a character flaw, he’s probably arrogant because he knows he’s so much better than everyone else in the story.
Why Homo Superiors Wreck Stories
Homo superiors are usually undramatic. Superman never really struggles to do anything, because he’s the best at everything. But a struggling character is what makes stories interesting. If a police officer is in a standoff with a hostage-taker, that’s dramatic because we don’t know if the police officer will succeed. The police officer will only win if he’s wittier and craftier than the criminal. Perhaps he convinces the criminal to surrender. Maybe he convinces the criminal to lower his gun and then shoots him in the face. In contrast, Superman just uses his superspeed or eye-rays and stops the criminal. That’s quite boring, especially after you’ve already seen it a few times.
Homo superiors also usually lead to overpowered characters, which can make the plot feel unbelievable. Let’s say you want to write a fantasy story with a dragon rider. But why would the dragon take a rider? What does he think he gets out of having a puny human on his back? Why is Superman willing to risk his own life for humans? I couldn’t imagine myself being so charitable to ants and, from his perspective, we must seem something like smarter ants. Why would an incredible elven-mage be willing to join a ragtag band of adventurers? Etc.
Fixing the Problem
The best way is to try to explore ways in which the character is either mediocre or inferior. Maybe that elf, normally so elegant and well-spoken, completely goes to pieces in high-stress situations like combat. Maybe the dragon thinks that having a human might be useful in certain situations.
Here are some other ways in which a character might be different and/or inferior.
- Physical– strength, dexterity, stamina, reflexes, senses, coordination, precision, aim.
- Mental– logic, memory, cleverness, wit, associational reasoning, rhetorical skill, investigative prowess, gullibility, curiosity, adventurousness, bravery, education, magic.
- Social– teamwork, selflessness, diplomacy/tact, persuasion, subterfuge
I think a homo superior could be a cool character if he is used wisely. For example, Master Chief, even without his armour, is superior to humans in almost every way.
I thought it might be cool to simply design a character as a homo superior (the next generation of homo sapien). He’s just naturally better at everything, but he’s still mortal. He’s not Superman, but instead of working out with 15 pound weights he used forty fives.
His villain could be another homo superior, like they’re emerging all over the place. This would give the character an equal and opposite villain, and there would be more.
That could still be problematic. Even if he did have another homo superior villain, it could get annoying. For example, being better than humans, he wouldn’t struggle with things that a normal person would. Being homo superior raises a character’s level of unrelatablity.
I do think it could work, but you’d need to give him a trait that makes him imperfect. Mortality is good, but a trait that could be more frequently exploited would work better for a story.
Master Chief is completely a homo superior. He’s better than humans at everything but socializing.
I don’t think that a video game character is a great example for most authors.
You kidding? MC is a hero for kids all across the planet. Some people in Korea or Japan might not know who Superman is, but EVERYONE EVERYWHERE knows MC.
I don’t think Master Chief is nearly as well-known outside of the US as you think he is. Halo sold fairly poorly in Japan.
I’m not sure he’s even all that popular in the United States. I asked six random people on my floor if they could name any of the characters in the Halo series and only three came up with anything.
Jacob, you’re probably right that Halo isn’t popular overseas, but that’s missing the point. Even if Master Chief were well-known everywhere, so what? Mario and (maybe) Sonic are very well-known, but they don’t have nearly enough depth or style to propel a novel. Hell, I doubt they could sustain a quality comic book.
Video game characters aren’t generally good examples for authors, but some cut scenes can be good references. Most of the games I’ve played have cut scenes, and sometimes I convert the visual of them moving and talking into little screenplay type things in my head.
You know, the socialising weakness is a massive one. Humans, and by extension superhumans, have an innate need to socialise; someone who’s socially awkward is ultimately going to be facing a lot of drama and feel quite lonely. The problem with a few of the articles on this site is that you’re using physical/violent issues as primary problems in stories when what you should be using is mental and social issues. All of the super-strength, heat vision and flight in the world can’t bring someone back to life or cure a heart condition, for instance. This is a fact which is highlighted by Superman himself in the Richard Donner films when he proves to be completely incapable of saving his father’s life.
My personal suggestion; if you’ve got a homo-superior hero, use obstacles which can’t be punched through and are reliant on the emotions of the hero. Recent incarnations of Superman have actually bothered with the whole bit about taking this into account.
You make a very good point about the social issues of superheroism. I, too, would like to get a more mental and social understanding of the issues that come with being a superhero. Besides, the secret identity and their overall motivation for their actions, I hadn’t thought much about what a hero thinks of more secular issues. I would suspect that most of them would have to come to grips with the fact that they can’t save everyone no matter how hard they try. I’ve also wondered: Would people mistrust a superhero because they wear a mask? Or would they understand that due to a superheroes obligations they have to conceal their identity?
I’ve never read much into the social issues, but I suspect it would be relatively fertile writing soil. That is, if it doesn’t get bogged down by preachy messages and an overly talkative storyline.
“You know, the socialising weakness is a massive one. Humans, and by extension superhumans, have an innate need to socialise; someone who’s socially awkward is ultimately going to be facing a lot of drama and feel quite lonely.”
I suspect that poor social skills could also raise severe likability and relatability issues. For example, the Sentry is a extremely withdrawn homo superior; he is widely reviled. My take is that problems that originate from within the character’s own mind generally do not make for very satisfying obstacles. If the main thing holding back your character is himself, readers might feel that he’s useless. The Sentry has definitely reached that point. (Please read this article on the Sentry and his imaginary internal obstacle, the Void).
I think the Martian Manhunter is another example where poor social skills compromise likability. Poor social skills are especially lethal when the character has an extremely exotic origin story, I feel. If the origin removes us from the character, it will really help to make him friendly and outgoing to reduce the obstacles between the character and audience.
“The problem with a few of the articles on this site is that you’re using physical/violent issues as primary problems in stories when what you should be using is mental and social issues.”
Mental/social issues are an option, but they’re kind of a niche option. I would definitely not recommend them for every author, and I don’t think that most authors want to write that kind of story. For every Rorschach or Dr. Manhattan, there are at least 20 superheroes that deal mainly with physical obstacles. There is a side-market for superhero drama as opposed to superhero action, but I would venture to say that the large majority of readers that buy superhero stories are looking for stories with at least a strong action component.
I’ll look into an article on internal obstacles, though.
“All of the super-strength, heat vision and flight in the world can’t bring someone back to life or cure a heart condition, for instance.”
This is true, but I don’t feel that these sorts of storylines typically turn out well. For example, “One More Day” features Spiderman struggling to save his Aunt May and eventually he, umm, makes a deal with the devil. On the DC side, Superman loses Pa Kent to a heart attack. I think that these arcs are (at best) forgettable. On the other hand, Gwen Stacey and Uncle Ben provided extremely moving themes about the limits of power and the responsibilities of a hero. I think that the deaths of Gwen and Ben are much more memorable (in part) because hostile actors were involved.
The problem is that these are all failures of bad writing more than anything else. Though I’ll protest that the Sentry made for an interesting miniseries, but was quite a difficult character to continue with any further, which I’ll say is more the fault of Marvel Comics than anything else. The Invincible comic managed to pull off a super-strong protagonist and make him quite easily to relate to on several levels. The fact is that superheroes’ superpowers don’t always provide them with ways of battling mental or social issues. Or emotional issues. Let’s put it this way; dangle Mary Jane (before ‘One More Day’, though that’s something that we’d like to forget happened, like a lot of recent Marvel developments) over a lava pit and you’ve got the effective equivalent of piano wire around Peter’s… *ahem* Parkers, and thus you’ve got him in a corner. He’s not even going to remotely risk Mary Jane’s life.
As for the fight-scene thing, remember that a strong hero is also likely to be a fast and highly destructive hero. Do you know how runners get so fast? Strong leg muscles; a super-strong hero therefore ought to be capable of leaping about and running just as much as your average agility-based hero.
The other problem is that you’re citing these bad decisions… but all of them were very poorly handled as opposed to being inherently bad ideas. Except for One More Day, which was an unforgivably terrible idea. Ultimately, what you ought to do is treat superhero writing like you treat any other fiction; add double-edged swords and drawbacks to your characters that don’t necessarily need to be physical in nature. Currently, I’m working on a story featuring a super-strong character whose primary weakness is practically her own emotional trauma. She’s extremely strong, durable, and she can fly. But prior to her developing her powers (in her mid-teens), she was in an abusive family relationship in which her dad liked to drink a bit too much and she was beaten a lot. It’s what inspired her to become a superhero, on some level; she invented a place to escape to in her mind, a new identity where she was a superhero that she called ‘Star’.
When she actually developed powers, including the odd side-effect of a cool silvery glow (a drawback, actually, due to the fact that it’s hard to be stealthy when you’re glowing like a beacon), she started calling herself Silverstar while doing the heroic thing and clung very hard to the ideals of classical heroism. Except that she’s very emotionally unstable, and has a few bits of difficulty keeping up the whole ‘hero’ façade. Though she has friends to help her, a local (i.e.; based mostly in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland) superhero team made up of the ‘misfit’ superheroes. The ones who don’t quite fit in with most society due to a few odd reasons. I’m not fully decided on a villain yet, but I do intend to mix drama and action to some extent.
It doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive, after all.
“The other problem is that you’re citing these bad decisions… but all of them were very poorly handled as opposed to being inherently bad ideas.” Ok, but why will yours be better? How will you execute it differently? When you submit queries and proposals, I think it could only help you to be explicit about that.
In particular, if you’re submitting this to a comic book publisher, I think that the Sentry will weigh on their mind. Since comparisons to the Sentry will probably render your work dead on arrival, I would really try to differentiate yourself from it. Here are some possible suggestions: your hero isn’t obnoxiously overpowered, you treat the character’s mental issues as something other than a comedy routine, you’re not inserting the character into the universe’s history, there’s no fake/imagined Void, etc.
If you’re doing a comic book, I’d also recommend looking at Doom Patrol or any other series with emotionally troubled heroes. I feel like it’ll be a tough sell, though. These series often sell poorly.
If you’re pitching a novel, I’d recommend focusing on Hero. Hero is a superhero novel that sold reasonably well even though the protagonist dealt with major internal struggles (coming to grips with his gayness). I haven’t read it, but based on reviews I would say that the book did a pretty good job bringing his internal struggle into external drama by adding a conflict with his father. Generally, I think external drama is more compelling and easier to sell than internal drama. I’m not sure how you could turn mental anguish into external drama, though. (I suppose you could look into I Am Sam, a movie about a retarded protagonist that fights the courts for custody of his child).
I hope that helps. Good luck.
I’m going for a novel, and I’m still figuring quite a bit of it out (real life concerns have recently put a damper on the amount I can work), but I feel the best way from my point of view is to use Silverstar’s interaction with the other heroes, and some of the villains, be a primary look-in point. Basically, I intend to be subtle with it, while also making the audience remember that drama-based conflict can indeed be mixed in at the same time with action. Since I’m setting it in both Edinburgh and Glasgow (a bit interchangeably), the heroes ought to encounter a bit of violence.
Funny that you mention Hero, one of the minor aspects of Silverstar (also known as Emily Morrison; not at all given the surname in reference to a certain Glaswegian comics writer, honest!
) is that she’s actually a lesbian. I haven’t read Hero myself, but I wouldn’t mind doing so; I’m very supportive of the gay rights movement, and a novel written to explore that in part would strike me as quite interesting. I’m not exploring it myself, though. I’m going to explore her lesbianism in the same way that I intend to explore the heterosexuality of some of the other characters; it’s simply be there as part of the character. It does affect part of the story, as she winds up falling in love with the beautiful and very powerful Victory; the twenty-something daughter of Prometheus, one of the most powerful heroes in the world and the local Superman pastiche.
As a sidenote; I’m actually relatively new to the whole superhero thing, having been far more focused on fantasy, science fiction, and studying Shakespeare for my university course.
I assume you’re going to publish this in the UK. I’m not sure how mainstream readers in the UK handle homosexuality. However, at least in the US, I would really recommend against making the protagonist gay unless it’s extremely important to the book. In the US, books about gay protagonists are usually sequestered on the gay-and-lesbian rack of the bookstore, which is very corrosive to sales.
Also, I’ve heard it from a few authors that US publishers are very cool to books about lesbians written by heterosexual males. (Perhaps they presume that a heterosexual male is less serious about the subject than a woman, or that the readers don’t want a male’s perspective on the subject, or whatever). I would recommend asking around to see if that’s the case in the UK.
uk readers are very good with homosexuality i dont think that would be a problem publacastion wise
But do UK bookstores have separate bookshelves for gay stuff? Having never been to a British bookstore, I don’t know. But UK Amazon does list a separate category for gay & lesbian works. (Admittedly, that could be because it’s owned by an American company, so take that for what it’s worth).
If British bookstores do separate gay & lesbian works, I’d recommend staying away from a lesbian protagonist in this situation because I don’t think that it’s that important to this story.
Honestly, I’d be wary of a book about lesbians written by a heterosexual guy. I’ve never, not once, seen a lesbian written properly by a guy. Usually they overly emphasize the ‘hot lesbian action’. =/
I don’t get the heterosexual male attraction to lesbians, but it’s definitely out there. I think that’s one of the reasons that heterosexual males are often regarded as less than credible/serious when it comes to lesbian fiction. I’m not sure about gay men, either.
Hmm… I’d trust a gay man’s portrayal of a lesbian, as long as he’s sure he’s gay.
And I really hope that statement didn’t offend anyone. >_>;
I intend to publish in the UK, being that it’s where I live. As for the whole lesbianism issue; Silverstar is merely one character in a team of heroes, she’s one of my focal characters, but she’s not the only character. Hell, I only mentioned Silverstar because she’s got the super-strength/no-weakness angle, and thus would possibly qualify as a ’superior’.
The problem with your statements, Marissa, is as thus; how do you define a lesbian being ‘written properly’? The way I’d see it is in the same way I’d write her as if she were a heterosexual character; define who she is, and merely make the sexuality part of her overall bigger picture. The story also isn’t actually *about* lesbians. The story merely has a lesbian couple in it, though the self-acceptance of her lesbianism is going to be a part of the plot.
As a bit of an explanation, I’m from an odd school of thought where my characters more or less create themselves; I only do the interrogating, but I basically only make one aspect of them (in this case; Silverstar was beaten up as a child) and then I expand from there in a logical ‘web’ fashion. But due to the way it works, I have very little control over where my inspiration actually takes me. Her lesbianism came about mostly as something which she would have had a little bit of trouble accepting in herself and coming to terms with. She’s emotionally scarred, and has a lot of trouble accepting things that she doesn’t have complete control over.
Her ultimately accepting her lesbianism is partly going to be a symbol of how she finally learns to move past her trauma. Or at least it’s an important step.
‘But do UK bookstores have separate bookshelves for gay stuff?’
Not that I’ve noticed; the nearest decent bookshop I go to regularly (Waterstones) has fiction separated into General Fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Manga, Western Comics, Teenage Fiction, and Children’s Fiction. There is no separate area for gay/lesbian fiction, which is a trait exclusive to Americans; there’s no real gay stigma over here, we’ve had gay marriage (well, equal-level civil unions) for the past five years now. And no, we haven’t been sentenced to the darkest depths of hell.
Well, we have gone straight to hell, but that was because we were responsible for the Spice Girls. As sins go, that one’s pretty unforgivable.
“Written properly” meant… used as more than just sexual objects. =/
As it stands, I think I qualify on that front
I’d be lying if I said that the whole lesbian thing didn’t at least titillate me on some level, but I like to challenge myself by writing characters who at least attempt to be interesting, complex and nuanced. I’m studying currently for a bachelor’s degree in English literature, so I do at least have a few dozen starting points when asking ‘how’. I see William Shakespeare as a very, very good bit of recommended reading for any writer regardless of the genre due to his brilliant use of complexity and ambiguity in his characters. It’s also worth noting that Billy the Bard has a startling level of modernity relative to many other writers of the period.
As a bit of a rant on this homo superior lark on the most irritating and actually rather universally pervasive example of them; homo sapiens. Yes, that’s right. Typical homo sapiens, that and their whole annoying Humanity Are The Speckle Onez crap; but let me explain what I’m talking about.
I’m a fantasy reader; I read lots and lots and lots of fantasy novels, from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen to Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I’ve also, without a shadow of a doubt or any remote attempt at denial, read some of the D&D tie-in fiction. Now, this means that I have read of the infamous dark elf ranger with the twin scimitars and the pet astral panther. I could even tell you that he’s at a level of about 16 in the NPC statistics he’s given in the various Forgotten Realms campaign guides. But I’ve read the novels, and one of the first things people note is Drizzt’s constant and intrusive monologues or diary entries at the beginning of each chapter. It’s like Faerunian Livejournal.
I can’t quote the specific part, being unable to find it, but he always and constantly extols the virtues of humanity, constantly mentioning how human wizards always ‘outdo’ their closest elven equivalents despite the elves having centuries’ worth of study and being more naturally inclined to magic. It’s sort of saying ‘we’re special just because we’re human’ or something like that; it seems to be a constant thing in which we’re always being bombarded by a race with objective superiority and then we outdo them due to this whole ‘human spirit’ thing, or because we’ve got more drive or more ambition.
Ugh. ‘Tis *quite* annoying. I practically always make my elves (yes, I have elves in my fantasy fiction; just not quite the same style you’d expect) superior to humans just because of this very annoying cliché alone.
I think it’s far more cliche for the elf to sneer about how everything elves do is awesome (as in Eragon or 8-Bit Theatre, for example). I’m not familiar with Drizzt’s odes to humanity, but I think that a person who is insecure about his own species has a lot more potential than the typical sneering homo superior.
Tangent time. I’m annoyed that, when humans have a superior trait over elves or whatever, it is almost never that we are physically or mentally or magically stronger. It’s always something like “the human spirit!” or willpower or whatever.
‘I think it’s far more cliche for the elf to sneer about how everything elves do is awesome (as in Eragon or 8-Bit Theatre, for example). I’m not familiar with Drizzt’s odes to humanity, but I think that a person who is insecure about his own species has a lot more potential than the typical sneering homo superior.’
I would say read them for yourself, but it would probably serve as an example similar to Eragon on this site. Though not quite as bad, they’re still pretty damn annoying, below-average fantasy novels by a writer who doesn’t even have the excuse that he’s young. Worst part about it; the fact that the writer actually can write an interesting story about interesting characters, but they’re all NOT Drizzt Do’Urden.
‘Tangent time. I’m annoyed that, when humans have a superior trait over elves or whatever, it is almost never that we are physically or mentally or magically stronger. It’s always something like “the human spirit!” or willpower or whatever.’
Personally, I have human superiority be ‘numbers’. Elves in my fantasy world are rarer due to lower birthrates (they’re not dying out; they’re just not growing in number at a particularly rapid rate either). As such, while elves may indeed be as strong and smart as five men each, they’re outnumbered ten-to-one. Though they aren’t actually haughty or arrogant about their being elves. Or at least the elven characters that I focus on (admittedly most of the cast; I focus on the elves more than the humans) aren’t haughty or arrogant.
Well, they can be, but most of them aren’t. Most of them are characters first, elves second. Though the one called Taurrandir is more or less just actually Taurrandir first, everything else second. He’s a hard-to-describe character, but he’s more or less the comic relief due to the fact that he’s a mystical elven warrior who happens to act (and sound) more or less like a stereotypical highlander. Picture a rather more boisterous version of Liam Neeson’s character in Rob Roy, and you have Taurrandir.
‘Tangent time. I’m annoyed that, when humans have a superior trait over elves or whatever, it is almost never that we are physically or mentally or magically stronger. It’s always something like “the human spirit!” or willpower or whatever.’
Well, the human spirit thing applied rather skillfully in the Matrix. A robot can have complex functions trained to have emotional responses, but it can only go so far to mimic the human condition. Egad, did I just have a philosophical moment? Sorry, everyone. Either way, it can work sometimes, depending on how well it is incorporated into the story.
Also, Neo was much better at using the Matrix than the robots were. I’m not sure why that was, but it may have been for reasons other than the superiority of the human spirit. Neo was much better than other humans, as well, so that suggests that it’s not all about the human spirit.