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.

Hi.  If you’ve followed some of my articles on blogging, you know that building an audience is a gradual (read: slow) process.  It takes time for people to discover your content, to link to it, to mention it to other people, etc.

As a result, you will probably have very few readers during the first few months.  But that’s not a problem.  Focus on these issues and the readers will come in time.

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If you have any questions about villains or villainy, please ask them here.  Here are some sample questions to get you thinking.  (If you’d like to use these, go ahead).

• Is my plot any good?  How could I improve it?
• How can my villain challenge my hero?
• How can I make my villain more stylish?
• Should the villain’s origin story be related to the hero’s?
• Is my villain too corny?

Robert Scott has an amusing and informative horror story here.

To summarize:

• He and his artist weren’t working on the same schedule. Make sure that your artist will be to produce quickly enough to meet your deadlines.
• “Had I put more thought into it, been a responsible business person, I would have never solicited [a distributor] without all of the books being drawn.   If I had done that, I could have died and the books still could have shipped on time!”
• Planning your story ahead will help you keep production moving at a speedy clip.
• Missing deadlines screws over a long chain of people, but no one gets screwed as much as you.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have an interesting article on some of the problems with POD self-publishing.  In summary…

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It’s been our most successful month so far.

• Most importantly, we completed the first draft of our nonfiction query.  We are almost ready to start pitching to agents.
• We had 15,000 visitors, about 500 a day.  In contrast, we only had 350 visitors per day in February.  A 40% growth rate is pretty impressive.  We can’t sustain that rate of growth, but if we could, we’d be up to 10,000 visitors each day by December.
• Our readers spent a combined 1310 hours here.  That’s 65% higher than our previous record.
• We doubled our amount of review forums.

What do you think?  Is it hard to challenge a character that can teleport?

I know that’s a bold claim, but I dare you to top this.

What’s a review forum?

It’s a page where you can post excerpts of a story for people to review.  (Most of our authors have done either novels or comic books, but we’ve had a TV script and a play as well).

It’s very similar to an online writer’s workshop like Critters, except that you can post however much you like, as often as you like.  On Critters, the average writer waits through a six-week queue and ends up receiving about 10 reviews.  Our average review forum gets about 50 comments in the first week.

How do I get a review forum?

Leave a comment asking for one.  We usually set up the review forum within a few hours of the request.

What sort of things can I include in my review forum?

Whatever you want.   Most people post a part of their novel or comic book, get reviews, and then move on to the next part. Other authors are just in the conceptual stage and get reviews about their story’s concept.

I recommend sticking to one story in your review forum.  If you’d like to add another review forum for your second story, we can do that.  That will make it easier for readers to keep track of each story.

How do I post to my review forum?

Just post your content in a comment.

How can I get a post above the fold?  I’d like it to say something more interesting than “Please see the comments below.”

Good thinking!  Just leave a comment saying something like “I’d like [X] to be in the first post.”  I’ll leave it up to you what you’d like up there, but I have some suggestions here.

How can I encourage people to comment on my review forum?

1.  I recommend that you write sequentially rather than jumping back and forth.  Start with page one and move forward. That will make it easier for readers to follow your writing.

2.  Comment on other review forums. People are markedly more likely to review your stories when you’ve commented on theirs.

3.  Try to post regularly.

Are there any content restrictions? Does it have to be about superheroes?
It’s fine if it isn’t about superheroes.  However, we do have some restrictions on adult content.  (The short version: no R-rated sexual stuff… as long as you don’t go beyond what you can find in a James Bond movie, you should be fine).

Novelists write a query to convince a literary agent or publisher that…

• The book’s concept is exciting and well-designed.  If they don’t like the concept, they won’t read the sample chapters.
• The book is marketable and could find an audience.
• The book has some sort of advantage or angle that will allow it to compete with similar books.  Why will readers pick up this novel instead of a competing title?

The formatting depends on which literary agency or publisher you’re submitting to, but usually it will feature the following sections:

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If you have any questions about formatting a comic book script or novel manuscript, or any questions about grammar/punctuation/capitalization, please post them here.

Here are some tips for webmasters that want to add moderators.

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1. We’ve resolved most of the technical issues about volunteer moderators and we will begin inducting them on Friday.   The volunteer mods will have enhanced HTML access and comment-editing powers from the very beginning.  We’re still working on providing access to our comment search-engine.
2. I will be leaving within a week or so.  I hope it’s been as fun and rewarding for you as it has been for me.

When a first-time novelist says that he’s writing the first book in a series, that’s usually code for “I’m not going to resolve anything.”

For example, the story builds up to a “climactic” battle that doesn’t actually vanquish the villain. The main sidegoal is to get the girl, but the hero doesn’t manage to accomplish that, either. After reading hundreds of pages, your audience will want some resolution.  If your novel can best be summarized as “to be continued,” then what’s the point?

Here are some better ways to set up sequels.

1. The hero achieves his initial goal, but the problem is more complicated than he had believed.   For example, we are set up to believe that John is the main villain.  Over the course of 300 pages, the hero struggles against him and narrowly defeats him.  At the very end, though, we learn that he was only a lieutenant to the true mastermind.  This gives us some resolution because the hero has accomplished what he set out to do.
2. The hero achieves his goal in a standalone novel, but unanticipated complications arise in a later work.  In the first novel, the hero defeats the villain and woos the heroine.  The end of the first novel will feel satisfying because it appears to have resolved the underlying problems.   The characters live happily ever after… well, not quite.  Your next novel skips forward a few months and reveals that the hero is quite unhappily married and that the villain from last time left a nasty surprise. This sort of sequel is easiest to write if you give yourself some minor loose ends to pick up later.

Grant proposals for the Xeric Foundation have to be postmarked by March 31. Xeric helps underwrite some of the cost of self-publishing.  Self-publishing is highly dangerous, especially for new authors, but grants like these can help minimize your financial liabilities if the project flops.  If you’re interested in applying for a grant, please let me know if I can provide any advice with the proposal.

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Over two years, several hundred thousand page-views and 750 posts, I’ve accumulated some thoughts on what makes a blog successful.

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Last week, I discussed why self-publishing is an awful idea for young writers.  Here are some of the reasons that self-publishing might make sense for you.

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Slate’s Jacob Weisberg argues that the Kindle will totally reshape the publishing industry.  Not likely.

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My query letter to literary agents is coming along really well!  This is the first major writing success I’ve had in the last month.

I’m planning for the contingency that someone beats me in our proofreading contest next month.   So I need to design the t-shirt that I might give out.  My original plan was to just give out a generic Superhero Nation t-shirt, but I’d like to design a separate “I Beat B. Mac” t-shirt.

On the front, I think it will have something like a Che Guevara-esque drawing of me with the caption “I Beat a Professional Proofreader And and All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt.”  That’s kind of cliche, so hopefully one of you can suggest something more stylish.

There will be text on the back.  For example, something like “What are you waiting for?  Beat B. Mac and win this shirt on  SUPERHERONATION.COM”

If you look at the top of the site, you’ll find a link that says Behind the Scenes at SN.  Here are a few of the things we’ll cover there:

• How to join our volunteer staff
• Details for our staffers
• Our statistics

• Notre Dame just announced that the President is doing our commencement speech this year.  I’ve always been opposed to the idea of commencements and do not plan to attend mine, regardless of the speaker.  This announcement merely makes it absolutely certain that my absence will cause my parents to flip out.  They’re still sore that I successfully missed my high school commencement, even though I had a valid excuse then.
• In other Notre Dame news, the police busted my St. Patrick’s Day party.  Very exciting.
• Over these past three days, we’ve been averaging 1000 visitors per day.  That’s about three times as many as normal.

A mysterious mercenary working for heroes and villains with a grudge against both, an uptight heroine with a clean-cut worldview, a useless engagement ring, and photokinesis, her leaderless superhero team, and a supervillain mastermind systematically slaughtering heroes. This is a destruction of superheroes and the world in which they live, from child sidekicks to flamboyant costumes, blended with a dash of darkness and a good helping of sarcasm. Other works discussed in this forum include Hunter’s Abomination, about a so-called utopia and the men and monsters who call it home; Twisted Fantasy, a blend of video game homage, RPG cliche deconstruction, and a fantastic quest; and Strawberries and the Meaning of Life, a postapocalyptic love story about a hot-tempered boy searching for something he doesn’t understand, a hermit with a taste for riddles and impossible fruit, and a lonely girl from a city which has never touched the ground.

Please see the comments below.

Hello.  In the last week, we’ve had about 650 comments.  Currently, Cadet Davis and I do basic proofreading on each one.  That’s a lot of work!  As a result, we’d like to begin taking on volunteer moderators/proofreaders. If you might be interested, please read on.

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Hello.  I have an exciting new game for the grammatically inclined.  Compete with B. Mac in a proofreading contest.  Those that can score 80% as many points as BM will be eligible for a volunteer moderator position.  Those that score more points than B. Mac will also receive a free Superhero Nation t-shirt.  (I’m judging the contest, but I’ll be fair).  If you’d like to compete, please download the following document and email your completed version to superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.  The contest ends on March 27!

Please see the comments below.

Would it be helpful if we offered authors the ability to take more than one review forum so that they could pursue more than one story? If we started offering multiple review forums, would anyone be interested?

This paragraph appeared in a Washington Post article about a miserably incompetent bank giving hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses: “The rhetoric grew so heated yesterday that Sen. Charles E. Grassley suggested in a radio interview that AIG executives ought to ‘follow the Japanese model… resign, or go commit suicide.’ An aide later explained he does not actually want executives to kill themselves.” Good to know!

Synopsis:  I’m mainly working on a superhero action comedy. The story is about a superhero trying to find the origin of his own superpowers.

Genre: Supernatural, Comedy, Drama.

Target Audience: young adults (12-18).  Contains fantasy violence, mild language, rude humor.

Preferred Reviewing Style: Please be honest. I don’t mind rude comments too, so tell me whatever you want to tell.

Check out these alternate covers for Savior 28. I’d like to know what you think.

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Please see the comments below.

See the comments below.  Thanks.

Here are some brief tips for stimulating visitor loyalty on your site.

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Unfortunately, many literary agents are dishonest and/or incompetent.  Here are some tips to help you select an agent that knows what he’s doing.

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See the comments below.

Site titles play an important role in search engine optimization.  A site named “Superhero Nation: a writing advice site” has a much better chance to place for a search like superhero writing advice than a site named just “Superhero Nation.”  Site titles also helps draw people into your website by explaining what viewers will get out of your website.

For example, check out how a typical search for Superhero Nation appears on Google.  The site name plays more prominently than the name of the article does.

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See the comments below.

Good literary agents only accept manuscripts with some potential, so having a good literary agent suggests to publisher that the work is worth looking at more closely.

According to Kris Waldherr…

“Of the hundreds (maybe thousand plus) of manuscripts I read during a six month period, only about 2% went onto consideration by an acquiring editor. None of them were acquired. This suggests why so many publishers have stopped reading manuscripts not submitted to them by agents or colleagues. Bottom line: reading unsolicited submissions is simply not cost effective.”

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Blurb

It only takes a few people to start a global war for power:  a criminal mastermind who develops inhuman abilities, an alcoholic who transforms into a monster, a spirit who can possess any human and a mysterious serial killer who steals people’s energy.

What? – Supernatural thriller. Contains intense violence and dark elements.

Who? – Recommended for mature readers.

How? – Give me tough advice. I can take anything!

What’s it like? – Nothing else, at least nothing I’ve ever read.

If you’re thinking about self-publishing, particularly print-on-demand, please check out this estimate of some of your startup costs.

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It looks like Slicehost went down for a few hours and we went offline from about 4-7 am EST.  I apologize.

(It is).

What I’m writing: Either a comic book or a novel (I haven’t decided yet) about a team of superheroes known as the Lords of the Impossible. They are the world’s greatest heroes and they have to save the day when the world goes to hell. At the same time they come into conflict with another superteam over issues like morality. Is it  alright to kill supervillains?

My target audience: Fans of comic books or people with new interest in comic books or superheroes, aged 16-25.

How thick is my skin?: I’m happy to hear all comments about my work, good and bad, so spare nothing.

See the comments below.

Comedy and humor are notoriously hard to teach, but here are some tips.

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A Harvard professor and a Texan start talking at a bar.  The Texan asks “Where ya from?”  The Harvard professor says “Where I come from, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions.”  The Texan asks “Where ya from, jackass?”

See comments below.

These are some of the biggest comic book companies.  Knowing which publishers are geared towards your style of writing or art will help you decide which publishers to apply to. (Please note that I tried to stay away from publishers that I know will not accept unsolicited queries, like Marvel and DC Comics).

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This should be pretty obvious, but unfortunately it isn’t.  When you submit a novel manuscript or a comic book script, pick your prospective publishers carefully.  Make sure you submit it to publishers that actually work with stories that have a lot in common with your story.

1. Audience (age and gender)
2. Genre and content
3. Style/mood
4. Setting (real-world Earth vs. historical vs. the future vs. a Tolkien-like fantasy world)
5. Length, for books (length usually goes hand-in-hand with the age of the audience)
6. Art style, for comic books (dark and gritty vs. Western cartoons vs. anime/manga, for example)

Prospective publishers love it when authors put some thought into this.  If your query clearly shows that you have looked into which publishers will be the best fit for your book, you will look professional and competent.  A good place to start is looking up 5 or 10 comparable works on Amazon.  Where did they get published?  For comic books, which editors signed on?  That should give you a few publishers to look into.

I’ll use a very particular example to show how easy this is.  For example, right now I’m looking for publishers that would be interested in a guide for how to write superhero novels and comic books.  It’s aimed at teens.  Many publishers have printed books for kids that want to write, so finding apt publishers shouldn’t be a problem.  I’d also like to look at publishers that have printed guides about writing comic books.  

After 30 minutes on Amazon, I found ~10 works that seemed comparable at first glance.  Let’s look at why these works might or might not suggest that their publisher would be interested in mine…

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