Feb 14 2009
How to Give Your Superhero A Day Job
If your superhero has a secret identity, he probably has a day job. Here are some tips for picking an effective day job.
1. It will be easier to pace the story if the day job can set the hero against the villain. For example, if there’s a new supervillain in town, a journalist has to report what happened, detectives have to investigate his crimes, lawyers might be involved if someone got framed, etc.
2. Superhero day jobs are often investigative in nature. Journalists, detectives, lawyers, private investigators and the like are very popular.
3. Superhero day-jobs usually have a distant boss. For example, Peter Parker and Clark Kent do most of their work outside the office.
4. For dramatic purposes, it’s best to have a tough boss. That gives you opportunities for conflict and will help make the character relatable and likable. If the character doesn’t have a boss (because he freelances or owns the company), he probably won’t be as interesting.
5. It will probably be most dramatic if the job is stressful and high-stakes. Would you rather read a story about a superhero that was a professional knitter by day or a superhero that was investigating a supervillain’s string of murders?
If you liked this article, you will probably like Common Superhero Day Jobs.
Could school count? Teen heros would be there most of the time, and another activity might be excessive.
I guess that counts. It’s more of a norm than a day job. Most teens don’t actually work at a day job instead of going to school. I think a part-time job along with school could work.
I think it’s fine to have a hero do school as his only job, but I’d really recommend mixing up your school setting. Most of the students I’ve seen are pretty much interchangeable with Peter Parker: an innocent dweeb struggling with nasty jocks.
You need conflict, but it doesn’t have to be the protagonist vs. jocks. For example, Kim Possible fights to be the top cheerleader. Jake Long spent the first season fighting with a jock, but in the second season his main rival at school was just like him, but better and cooler.
Also, try NOT to do what I’ve done and have a new kid come to the school every now and then, and every single time turn out to be a supervillain.
That sounds pretty awkward, Tom, but to be fair I think that cartoon shows have a lot of leeway to suddenly introduce villains-of-the-week.
If teen heroes can go to school, how can you get a teen zombie to school without the whole school running their heads off screaming? He’s still a hero, so he doesn’t want to live in hiding for the rest of his life…
Maybe put him in a school for special kids (superhumans or whatever), like the Xavier Institute. Since he looks like a zombie, I think regular kids at a real school would probably run away screaming. Unless… maybe he is first introduced to the kids at the school when he stops something truly horrifying? I think Firebreather did something similar with a half-dragon in a random Nevada school.
This helped a lot since I’m writing a novel about a new team of heroes and some of my characters have day jobs. One of my female heroes is a supermodel, so she’s constantly being flown to other parts of the world. This puts somewhat of a damper on her relationship with her teammates because she becomes unreliable. I also have a member who’s in college, so he has to deal with the stress of being a hero and a student.
Yikes, hero and student sounds like hell.
Haven’t seen you around, XoXo, so welcome to Superhero Nation!