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.

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And we are in it, baby!  The White Sox earned their spot in the playoffs today in a 1-0 tiebreaker win over the Twins.

CADET DAVIS ADDS: You have to be in it to win it.  But, as the Sox are about to discover, you also have to be in it to get swept in the first series.

Microsoft Word automatically corrects common spelling mistakes. It also allows users to tell it which words should be autocorrected. Here are a few ways you can use autocorrect to make your life easier.

1. If you use the same long phrases repeatedly, you can use autocorrect to create a macro. For example, our book repeats phrases like Agent Orange and the Office of Special Investigations, so we told autocorrect to turn the “word” [OJ] into Agent Orange and the “word” [OSI] into Office of Special investigations. When you set up macros, I recommend either using a combination of letters that will never come up naturally (like OJ) or a bracketed phrase. That way, you will reduce the odds of accidentally setting off your macro.
2. If you change a character’s or location’s name, you can use autocorrect to help remind you not to use the original. If you change your hero’s name from Hiro to John, suddenly referring to him as Hiro will confuse readers. Autocorrect will help you from adding more mistaken references to Hiro. (However, it won’t fix instances of “Hiro” that are already in the work– use “Find and Replace” to hunt those down).
3. This can help you maintain stylistic consistency. For example, sometimes authors forget how they spelled the names of minor characters. Mr. Merriman might become Mr. Merryman. Mrs. Busch might be married to Mr. Bush. If you notice that this is a problem, you can use autocorrect to prevent future occurrences by telling it to turn Merryman into Merriman.

Apparently I’m not the only one that thinks it’s past its sell-by date.

Hoping that the show would overcome its second-season slump, I watched the third-season premiere.  It was ridiculously bad… even worse than last season.  Here are some spoiler-heavy observations…

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In cinema, he was best known for his performances in films like Butch Cassidy, but he also played the villain in the phenomenally funny Hudsucker Proxy.  Along with Team America and Canadian Bacon, it’s the only movie with heavy political undertones that I find remotely watchable.  This clip is most funny from 3:10 to the end.

The widget would count the words of all articles tagged with the category in question and then display that for readers.  “B. Mac has written 12,500 words on ‘Characterization.’”  “B. Mac has written 30,000 words on ‘The Superhero Nation Novel.’”  If you want to get really fancy (or sadistic, depending on how much you procrastinate), you could add a feature where the word-counter breaks down results by month.  “B. Mac has written 0 words on ‘The Superhero Nation Novel’ in September 2008.”

He had an amusing take on comic book synopses.

We’ve started using Share This on about 20 of our most popular articles.  Hopefully it should be easier to share our sage insights with the unenlightened masses now.

This means that Georgia and Florida might be #1 and #2.  If that happens, I promise we’ll put out a commemorative webcomic… thesis be damned.
UPDATE: Erm, due to unexpected losses by both Georgia and Florida, it appears we will be able to keep our theses on schedule.

A few weeks ago, we applied for a university grant to underwrite a non-fiction book about how to write superhero stories.  (Ahem, we’ve written more than 50,000 words about the subject here).  Today I learned that our application was very well-received…

Thinking about what to put on your novel’s cover?  Jacob grades six covers.

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If you’d like a writing exercise, try to apply one of these to a character.

1. Surly
2. Robust
3. Feeble
4. Majestic
5. Anemic

One of our Google queries today was “can radiation give you superpowers?”

No. However, if you’re writing a superhero story, that doesn’t matter! Your readers will accept that tropes like radiation can give someone superpowers, so radiation makes for a completely plausible origin story. Except for intense training, it’s not like there’s any better alternative.  (In real life, one drug addict somehow enhanced his sense of smell to canine-like levels, but that only lasted for a few weeks.  Also, for obvious reasons, drugs do not typically work well for superhero origin stories).

Here are some other origin stories that readers have generally come to accept.

1. Cybernetics (Bionic Woman, Cyborg).
2. Genetic engineering (Spiderman).
3. Chemical enhancement (Green Goblin).
4. Powersuits (Ironman, Steel).
5. Ridiculously tough training (Batman, GI Joe).
6. The hero belongs to a tougher-than-human species (Superman, possibly X-Men).
7. Mutations, probably (X-Men, Heroes).

Typically, plausible origin stories tend to be scientific.  Fortunately, you don’t have to have a strong grasp of scientific research to write a compelling origin story. Generally speaking, modern scientific research in fields like genetics is conducted by large teams of scientists that spend years on each project and have access to large budgets.  If you’re writing a superhero story, your readers will almost always accept that a single supergenius can perform unimaginable feats of science.  Reed Richards is apparently a world-class researcher in every branch of science, and he’s able to instantaneously solve problems that would probably take a real team of scientists decades.

Here are some other (incorrect) assessments of modern science that readers will usually accept.

1. Superhero scientists rarely keep good notes.  When the doctor that created Captain America got killed, the formula for the serum was lost forever.  Whoops.  In real life, researchers keep exhaustive notes so that their experiments can be replicated.
2. Superhero scientists rarely fail.  In real life, scientists would test hundreds of variations of a drug, which tends to make the process inordinately laborious and expensive.  But readers will accept that a superscientist tends to get it right almost immediately.
3. A super-scientist can accomplish anything if he’s desperate enough.  Tony Stark built a powersuit in an Afghan cave and Norman Osbourne became the Green Goblin because he was willing to subject himself to premature tests.
4. Even a scientifically gifted high school student can have flashes of scientific brilliance.  See Peter Parker and Virgil Hawkins (Static Shock). My most profound scientific thought in high school was that I could make my paper airplanes more aerodynamic by adding flaps in the back.

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Many readers felt that the heroes of Soon I Will Be Invincible were whiny, insufferable failures.  For example, one review said that “the most [the main character] ever manages is some uninspired teenage-esque angst that her character seems much too old for.”

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The creator of Heroes said…

In the second season I think we had some interesting things happen. You can’t really plan for the audience’s reaction to things and one of the things we found out was that the audience did not want to start slowly and build.

First, the show has been going on for two seasons.  Why does an action show need so much time to develop a plot that is far less complicated than Battlestar Galactica or Eureka?  Second, after introducing 10+ recurring characters in the first season, did Heroes really need to introduce another 5-10 characters?  No.

Finally, it seems that what we’re building up to is what they already did last season: a loosely linked assortment of heroes has to save the world from Something Really Bad.  That’s a premise that doesn’t lend itself well to repeats and tweaks.  The coincidences and contrivances were strained enough the first time, but it only gets worse as more and more characters have to be drawn into a badly uncohesive plot.

What I liked about the first season was the development of Hiro from a scarcely comprehensible desk-jockey into someone that could almost be confused for a badass geek.  Now Hiro has disappeared 500+ years into the past and we’re left with Peter (who makes Keanu Reeves look like a thespian) and a bunch of characters that have added virtually nothing to what the show has already done.   Add the crazy contrivances that Davis listed here and you get a show that’s at least half a season past watchable.  Unfortunately, it looks like the creator doesn’t have a clue what’s wrong.

An e-mailer asks:

When you guys review titles, you frequently suggest that the title go farther to distinguish itself from other books with a similar setting.  For example, you said that the manuscript Questor failed to distinguish itself from other Roman stories, but how many Roman stories are there?  Why would you need to distinguish yourself within such a small subset of books?

Thanks for your e-mail, Giuseppe.  Questor’s title failed to distinguish its premise.  The setting is uncommon, but what happens in the book?  What is the hero trying to accomplish in ancient Rome?  Generally, the best titles identify the book’s premise.

• His Majesty’s Dragon (“what if the war against Napoleon was fought with dragons?”)
• Soon I Will Be Invincible: (“what if we told a superhero story mostly from the supervillain’s perspective?”)

Some other titles neglect the premise and focus on the subgenre and setting.  That may be sufficient, but it’s generally not as impressive.

• Superhero Nation.  The title suggests it’s a superhero story set in the real world, but you’d have to look at the book cover to know that the book is mainly about an unlikely police officer and his non-human partner.
• Questor.  It’s a story set in ancient Rome, but that’s just the setting.  What is the premise?  What happens?  What is the hero attempting to accomplish? My guess is that the setting isn’t interesting enough to sell the book on its own.

Writers sometimes add unique weaknesses to challenge their heroes or rein in heroes that have gotten overpowered. For example, Superman has kryptonite and for a while Green Lantern’s powers couldn’t affect anything yellow.  Those two feel gimmicky.  The powers don’t work on yellow? How does that work?   Why would anyone be vulnerable to his own planet?  Etc.

A better example of a unique weakness is the Martian Manhunter’s vulnerability to fire.  It doesn’t feel arbitrary that fire might damage something.  Unlike yellow or kryptonite, fire is dangerous to most living things.  Compared to kryptonite, something generic like fire has the added advantages that it’s easier to acquire and use.

Other authors sometimes use completely innocuous weaknesses, but that’s tricky and usually contrived.  Let’s say your hero is vulnerable to marshmallows.  You’d probably have to come up with a (goofy) explanation for his weakness, then show that he somehow discovers that he’s weak against them, and then show that the supervillain somehow discovers it as well.  Generally, it’s easier to work with weaknesses that are plausible and logical.  That helps you avoid relying on ridiculous contrivances to explain how the villain discovers the weakness.  (You could work something like fire into a fight scene even if the villain doesn’t know it’s his weakness.  I don’t think you could do the same for marshmallows).

I think the best weaknesses are side-effects of the hero’s strengths.  For example, a hero with supersight might be vulnerable to intense light.  Someone with superhearing might be vulnerable to loud sound.  One advantage of these weaknesses are that you can work them into secret-identity stories.  Clark Kent isn’t likely to run into kryptonite when he’s having dinner with Lois, but he might get a migraine when a jet flies overhead.  Here are some other possibilities.

• Superstrong heroes are probably too dense to have much buoyancy.  That would make it very difficult for them to fight in water– even treading would be a tremendous struggle for someone like the Hulk, let alone Ben Grimm or Slate.  If your villain needed to escape, he could take advantage of this by flooding the room with water, knowing that he will float upwards but that the hero will sink.
• Super-fast characters would create a lot of friction when they run.  A supervillain might try to take advantage of that by dousing the room with a flammable oil (so that the friction will set him on fire) or anything slippery.  However, the slippery angle has already been used fairly extensively.
• A psychic’s powers would probably require more concentration than physical powers.  A supervillain might try to take advantage of that by flooding the room with a weak tranquilizer gas to make it harder to concentrate.  Loud noises might also work.  Finally, if the villain sets distractions before his final plot is set to go off, the hero might be completely exhausted and badly in need of sleep when the final battle commences.
• Someone that wears a powersuit is probably not very dexterous or precise when he has his armor on.  A villain may be able to trick him into taking off his suit (or at least parts of it) by planting a bomb.  I doubt anyone could manually defuse a bomb with metal gloves on.  Alternately, your villain might also try using a powerful magnet to reduce his mobility or an electromagnetic pulse to fry his circuits.
• Unlike humans, most terrestrial animals cannot metabolize alcohol.  If your character is not human (like Superman), he might not be able to either.  That could easily lead to interesting social situations.  Additionally, you could probably work it in as an ingestible poison.  It would be much less incriminating to have an assassin armed with Bud-Lite than cyanide…
• Capture the hero’s girlfriend.  Add an explosive booby trap.  Voila!  Instant trap.  Ideally that will kill the hero, but the worst-case scenario is that it kills the girlfriend, leaving the hero in an emo funk for years to come.

Alternately, you can try a quirky vulnerability to Kryptonite or something else that isn’t usually dangerous.  If you’re leaning that way, please see this cautionary article.

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What are some well-known books that have major flaws?  We’re looking for books to use to help our readers improve their writing, so I’d especially appreciate books that are superhero-related, fantasy or sci-fi.

My dictatorship will allow the purchase of daschunds for only one purpose.

I’m pleased that they didn’t miss She-Hulk.  You can see the follow-up article here.

Many beginning authors think that they can create a brilliant plot by adding layers of deception, betrayal, double-agents and triple-agents, lies wrapped within feints, etc. Err, no. That’s actually a recipe for a horribly convoluted plot. Rather than seeming brilliant, your plot will probably come off more like this assessment of Metal Gear Solid.

These convoluted characters usually try to show that their characters are brilliant because they make freakishly accurate predictions about what other characters will do. At its worst, that devolves into a game of “I know you know I know” that will leave your readers writhing in agony. A genuinely brilliant character should use plans that leave the audience wondering why they didn’t think of that. Typically those plans are simple and rely on predictions that seem obvious in hindsight. Let me demonstrate.

In Justice League, Batman tries to find the Joker by convincing his assistant that the Joker has ignominously replaced her with another woman. (See 4:24-4:54 here– if the link doesn’t work, check the bottom of the page*).  A mediocre writer would have ended this scene with the assistant telling Batman where the Joker is.  Fortunately, that doesn’t happen.  The resolution is that Batman only makes her slightly more distrustful of the Joker.  She goes to confront the Joker about the new girl and… Batman follows her!  You can see that glorious scene here (1:45-2:25).

*TRANSCRIPT, in case the link is broken.

BATMAN: Where’s Joker?

HARLEQUIN: After all these years, you still think I’d give up Mr. J.

BATMAN: Why not?  He gave you up.

HARLEQUIN: That was a long time ago.   He’s changed.  We’ve been to couple’s counseling.

BATMAN: I’m talking about right now.  Haven’t you been watching?  [He points at a screen showing Joker with his new female sidekick.]  The way he touches her hair.  The way he rubs her shoulders.

HARLEQUIN: You mean Ace?  She’s just a kid.

BATMAN: Really?  Then why is she with him when you’re in the cold?

[Harlequin slaps Batman, but goes to confront the Joker.]

Yeah, I’m really sorry about this, but I don’t think we have the time to pursue the webcomic with any degree of regularity over the academic year.  We will continue regular updates in May.

Currently, at Amazon, Spore has been ranked at one star by over 90% of its 2000+ reviewers.

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The consensus seems to be that Fringe is a less-inspired version of X-Files. What bothered me was the torture sequence.  Allowing torture as a plot device robs interrogation sequences of any semblance of wit and intelligence.  I’d much rather see a foxy cop trick a criminal into confessing than beat it out of him.  (Also, torture is typically a disappointing way to make the hero morally conflicted). But enough about torture.  I’d like to quote one review of Fringe…

“Hi, Vague Agent I don’t know from Adam. I’m Nina Sharp, Executive High Muckity-Muck. I’m just going to assume you’re in on the conspiracy.  Oh, by the way, have you seen my absurdly high-tech prosthetic arm? Sorry if this is going too fast, but we only have an hour and a half to out-WTF Lost and The X-Files at the same time. Do try to keep up.”

Some of the mad science was pretty cool, but other aspects were patently ridiculous and goofy (talking to the dead, LSD-communing, etc.)

Defense Tech has an article on military exoskeletons.  We haven’t reached the level of killer androids (yet), but strength-enhancement is interesting, too.  (Also, if killer androids are in the works, exoskeletons will help programmers teach the androids how to move naturally, says one commenter).

Popular Mechanics did an article on 5 rifles in development.

They include a submachine gun that can fold into a large pocket…

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Today in Charlestown, construction workers found a live 10-pound artillery round from the Civil War inside a home’s walls.  What distinguishes your character’s house from the other ones on the block?  If that’s too broad for you, try this: who, if anyone, has lived in the house before and what have they left behind?

B. Mac provides another set of gear to help you design superheroes that don’t look goofy.  (See his collection of boots here).

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“It’s these constant attempts on Hitler’s life by time-travellers.  You kind of have to wonder!“

Hint: the Iraqi connection.

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Dr. McNinja is a doctor that is also a ninja.  More importantly, he’s the protagonist of an absolutely hilarious webcomic.  This is what Real Ultimate Power would be if Robert Hamburger were a real comedian.

If you’re new to DMN, I recommend starting with series 2. For example, on page 21 a conniving pirate attempts to convince the Doctor that he can win his family’s respect by proving his medical skills are not worthless to a ninja.

Let’s say you’re writing a book about a candidate trying to join the Navy SEALs.  Unless there’s something holding him there, he can always walk away if it gets too hard.  That’s a lousy plot.  There’s no consequence for failure!  If failure is an acceptable option, we probably won’t care whether the character succeeds.  You can make this story more dramatic by adding personal urgency.  For example, perhaps the SEAL candidate had a brother or father that died as a SEAL and he sees it as his life’s mission to finish the job.

Here are some other suggestions to keep your characters in the story.

1. There is nothing to return to. The Empire killed Luke’s family.  (Careful, this is a bit cliche).
2. Too much is at stake to walk away. In The Day After Tomorrow, the protagonist doesn’t have to trek from Philadelphia to Manhattan, but it’s the only way to save his son.  Alternately, the characters in LOTR have no choice but to fight their genocidal enemies.
3. The character physically cannot walk away. If your character is in prison, he can’t avoid the local thugs.  His only choices are submission and resistance.  Alternately, she may be trapped on a spaceship with a killer alien.

This is a useful resource for anyone that might want to destroy the world.

Inquiring minds will want to check out Marvel’s Secret Invasion.

I’ve never been a fan of the Skrulls, Marvel’s standard shape-shifting alien villains.  Sort of like an Atlantean invasion, aliens feel so far removed from the standard Marvel setting that the effect is campy rather than sinister.  It’s also extremely hard to write an interesting alien invasion plot.  Marvel seems to be treating this plotline like it’s novel, but the concept of a secret alien invasion is pretty tired (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the second Wild Cards novel, Animorphs).  “Benevolent” alien invasions aren’t much better (The Day The Earth Stood Still and maybe The Happening).

I found the ads for Secret Invasion above-average, but more because the slogan “Embrace Change” is vaguely threatening and sounds like it came from a US political campaign.

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John August did a post on writing a plot that isn’t contrived.  He focused on the role of coincidence. I found it highly useful…

Given a choice, try to find cause and effect. One event happens because of something else we’ve seen — ideally, something the hero himself has done.

Instead of having the hero accidentally overhear a key conversation, get him actively trying to listen. Or have an interested third party steer him in that direction — perhaps for his own reasons. At every juncture where a reader could ask “Why did that happen?”, try to have an answer that isn’t, “just because.”

CADET DAVIS ADDS: The most contrived plot I can think of is Heroes season 2.  Please consider the following…

1. In the last two minutes of the first season, Sylar is nearly killed by a crowd of ten heroes but somehow slinks away into a sewer.  No one, including a psychopathic MPD victim or the police officer who was seriously wounded by Sylar, thinks to make sure that he’s dead or otherwise accounted for.
2. The Company captures Sylar and keeps the formerly-superpowered serial killer in a zero-security facility with a single attendant that is tasked with restoring Sylar’s powers. There’s no reason to suspect that Sylar would have made a good employee under any circumstances, but how were they hoping that this would turn out?
3. Sylar kills the attendant and walks out of the facility.  He tries to return to the US to find Suresh, but he drops of famine along the side of the road.  The first person to come across him is Maya, another superpowered person that’s looking for Dr. Suresh’s father.  What a lucky break!  Sure, why not come along?
4. In spite of being wanted for murder and presumably not wanting to attract suspicion, Maya and her brother take Sylar along.  Do not pay attention to the gringo in the back seat!
5. Peter’s failure to consider the possibility that Adam is evil starts out as implausible and gets so unbelievable that it strains the suspension of disbelief.  Peter knows the following facts:  The Company has held the virus for 30+ years without using it.  Shortly after Adam escapes, the virus is unleashed.  If you’re wondering whether Adam’s escape is related to the release of the virus, you’re already 5 episodes smarter than Peter.

One of the easiest ways to create comedy is to use a double act.  You set up a comedic conflict between two characters– usually, one character is sober and the other is crazy or one is savvy and the other is clueless.  This is a very flexible setup that can handle most genres.  For example…

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“It’s the most heart-warming phone ad of the year!”  I’m not sure that heart-warming is the best fit for NFL Live.  I think that the average American man likes his humor a bit more robust and, umm, funny.

UPDATE: We’re in the second quarter now and the ad has played three five times.

SECOND UPDATE: The ad ended up playing nine times, by my count.

As an advertisement, this probably didn’t sell Serta mattresses very well, but the laugh-line at :25 was remarkably well-delivered.

Many villains do gratuitously bad stuff to remind us that they’re EVIL. For example, the nerdy antagonist in Live Free or Die Hard coldly executes his hackers even though there’s surely enough money to go around (ahem… hundreds of billions of dollars). Not only was it unnecessary for him to kill the hackers, but it was also out of character (he didn’t seem otherwise psychopathic). There’s no reason he should have been that evil– it didn’t gel with his main objective, which was to show his old agency that it was wrong to cast him aside.

Authors usually write their villains as gratuitously evil to make them badass. That rarely works. Except for Dark Knight’s Joker*, superevil villains are rarely as badass as their more restrained peers (such as Darth Vader, Dr. Octopus, Naomi Novik’s Napoleon and Dr. Doom). Why are superevil villains insufficently badass? A villain that feels more evil than his plot requires is probably cartoonish. In contrast, a badass villain is almost always serious and sober.

*In case you’re interested, I argue below the jump that the DK Joker isn’t unnecessarily evil.

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The site is http://www.annecordwainer.com/ .  Anne is a friend of mine and I would really appreciate if you would check out her site, particularly if you’re a fan of real-world magic stories.  Does the site work?  It feels like there’s something not quite clicking, but I’m not sure what.