Hello, I'm an assistant editor providing writing advice. SN specializes in superhero writing advice, obviously, but most of the advice here applies to fantasy and sci-fi as well.
Moira Allen provides useful information about pseudonyms here. Here’s a summary of the best reasons to use a pseudonym.
1. Your writing could interfere with your day job. If you’re interested in working in a political science or government position and every Google search for your name points to your book about how to write superhero stories, that could be problematic.
2. You’ve published in a different genre or field and want to distinguish your new work. Your readership might get confused if you’ve always written romance and suddenly you write a sci-fi thriller. Using a pen-name will help keep those parts of your audience separate.
3. You suspect that your name will make it harder for readers to relate to you. For example, if you’re a guy writing for women (or vice versa), you might find it helpful to use a gender-neutral name or your initial. In particular, military action readers are more receptive to male authors and romance readers are more receptive to women.
Who am I? Hey. I’m Becca. I’m eighteen, Creative Writing Major, Canadian (I live in that city where the Olympics will be). I’ve been writing since I was six, but only got super-serious about it about four years ago.
What am I writing? More like what aren’t I writing?! But what I’ll be posting here for review is a novel called The Superhero Effect, written in NaNo 09 and beyond. Basically I got thinking… what if a superhero didn’t have a secret identity, or a day job? What if being a superhero was his job? And that lead me to write The Superhero Effect, which takes place in a somewhat near future in a city taken over by gangs, and where superheroes are employed by the police in an elite task force, and called SCFs – Specialized Crime Fighters.
Target Audience? It’s YA. I’m thinking it would have much the same audience as Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, as its level of violence is much the same, as is its slight romantic subplot.
Notes for Reviewers: Be honest, but polite and sympathetic. It’s a NaNo novel, not revised yet, and I know there are some rough patches. Hopefully posting it here will help smooth the rewrites and edits I know I have to do. Thanks guys!
According to Google Analytics, we have about 10,000 serial lurkers: readers that have come here 25 or more times without leaving any comments. Our population of serial lurkers doubles about every two months.
Before publishing me, a prospective publisher will want to know more about you. Are you interested in my book about how to write superhero stories? Would you prefer information tailored to novelists, comic book writers or both?
I would really appreciate 5 minutes of your help. Thanks!
I have a few misgivings about mailing lists, so let’s get those out of the way.
I will only send you release information for my book about how to write superhero stories.
I will send you at most three e-mails.
I will not give or sell your e-mail address to anyone else.
Thanks for your time! Publishers will probably be more receptive if I have hundreds of readers waiting for release information. I appreciate your help and interest.
Hello again! If you haven’t taken our survey yet, I would really appreciate if you gave us 5-10 minutes of your time. You can take it by clicking here or by clicking beneath the fold. Continue Reading »
When you write a novel query, publishers expect you to describe some similar, competing titles. Ideally you can come up with a few similar titles that were successful; that suggests that your title will be successful as well. If you’re pitching a superhero novel, here are a few titles that might be comparable to yours.
When a hero runs into an obstacle, there is usually one of two reasons: 1) what he has done and 2) who he is. Persecuted heroes, like the X-Men, face major obstacles because of who they are. Here are a few problems with persecuted heroes.
1. Persecution usually makes stories more grim and less fun. This could be problematic. People usually read fiction because they want to have fun. Is there some other reason people will want to read your work?
2. Being persecuted may compromise the hero’s likability. Even though the persecution is probably beyond his control, being persecuted will probably cast a cloud of angst over him. In particular, the hero will become very unlikable if he comes off whiny or starts moping.
Here are several plot elements that will really affect the target audience and/or mood of your story. Please do not include these elements unless they are so important to the work that you’d feel comfortable mentioning them on the back-cover.
1. Please do not include rape or drug use unless you want to sell the work as very dark, gritty and/or dystopian. These elements are extremely mature and will have an enormous effect on the mood of the work as a whole.
It’s hard to handle backstory (what has happened in the past of the story). Most authors just use dull exposition. “Twelve years ago, John McGruesome was a mob hitman…” Here are a few common problems with backstory.
Here are a few tricks to help you keep writing after you get stuck.
Switch problems. Writer’s block often sets after a hero has resolved a problem and it’s not clear where the story is headed. Are there any problems left? Could you introduce a new problem?
Add a complication. Last chapter, it may have looked like the hero’s solution worked perfectly. Well, that was last chapter. What went wrong?
Switch solutions. Have your hero try to look at his problems in a new way. Maybe he has to use ingenuity instead of brute force, or diplomacy instead of coercion, or careful planning rather than impulsiveness. (Or vice versa). For example, Heroes takes away the characters’ powers from from time to time.
Switch scenes. “Meanwhile, thousands of miles away…” Moving the story very far will probably feel disjointed at first, but you can add a smoother transition after you determine where the story is going.
Look at an important character in a new way. Perhaps there’s some aspect to your hero that could be developed more.
Give up on perfectionism. If you’re worried about being perfect, it will be very hard for you to start writing. Don’t set ridiculously high standards for yourself on the first draft. No one writes rough drafts that are good enough to publish. It is much easier to write a few pages a day– even if they aren’t any good– and later rewrite them into something publishable.
If you’re truly desperate, consider throwing in a new antagonist or obstacle. This may reduce plot coherence, but the most important thing is to keep writing. You can smooth out the connections later.
If the plot has totally stalled, consider switching your angle. Sometimes, writers pick an angle because it’s conventional. “I want to write about a magical university, so my story will be about a young wizard who studies there and eventually saves the world from great evil.” Harry Potter used that focus quite well, but it’s not the only possibility. What if you told a story about the teachers? Or campus security? Or the admissions office? Or the Ministry of Magic? Or the bad guys? Or the broom-flying instructors? Or the headmaster? Your story almost certainly has many such possibilities. At the very least, any of these perspectives could add another chapter to help you develop your main character in a different direction.
I’ve written before that blogging is a really useful marketing tool and is one of the only ways for a first-time author to establish an audience before he gets published. When you pitch your book to publishers, they will be really encouraged if you already have an audience. But how can you attract an audience to your website?
1. Pick a niche. If do a general writing blog, you’re competing against hundreds of thousands of similar sites. Try blogging about something more specific instead, like a blog about how to write a romance or a superhero story or a young adult fantasy, etc. If you’re planning on using this blog to market a book, the niche should be related to the book.
2. Pick a title that identifies your niche. For example, if you Google something like “writing a superhero comic book,” the first result will be a site that calls itself “Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books.” Our name makes it really clear why you should click on us. We offer superhero writing advice. In contrast, if our name were something like “B. Mac’s Superhero Site,” that wouldn’t work at all. If readers aren’t sure what kind of information you provide, they will skip past you. Also, please do not use your name in the title unless you are a celebrity.
Hi. I’m about to pitch a book about how to write a superhero story to publishers. In the near-future, I’d like to do an audience survey to help describe my readers to prospective publishers. These are some of the questions I’m considering. I’d appreciate any suggestions.
This time, we changed SUPERHERO NATION. We tested out two new fonts: VTC Supermarket Display and Rifleman. We also added a few minor effects that are probably pretty hard to notice. (We strengthened the drop-shadow and altered the blue-purple-red gradient). What do you think?
I’ve included some before-and-after shots beneath the jump…
1. Your protagonist is Rick Blurry, a cigar-smoking, eyepatch-wearing superspy. When Marvel’s lawyers call, perhaps you should have a better defense ready than “but he wears his eyepatch on his right eye!”
2. Your pitch includes the line: “This is just like your other series, but good.”
3. You are aroused by any of the characters. (Yes, we can tell).
4. It involves time-travel.
5. You’re not sure whether you want a protagonist to live or not, so you put it to a vote.
How Readers Read on the Web. This article will help you format online content more effectively. I agree with its conclusion that “promotional language imposes a cognitive burden on users who have to… filter out the hyperbole to get at the facts.” However, it handles the issue of bolded text poorly. Bolding should be used very sparingly.
Susan Boyle is a 47 year-old, unemployed singer that is on the latest season of Britain’s Got Talent. She is astonishingly talented. Watching her compete in this contest will probably be like seeing Michael Phelps– or an alligator– participate in a high school swimming meet.
I bring up Doyle because I think that first-time novelists and comic book writers, especially young ones, face similar challenges. Doyle doesn’t look like a singing sensation; teens don’t look like they’re worth publishing. Doyle doesn’t have singing credentials; young authors are unpublished and often lack a college degree. When a publisher’s assistant reads through a young author’s query, there are twenty different sirens going off in his head, all screaming “this guy has no talent.”
Your window of opportunity to demonstrate your talent is exceedingly brief. If your query is forgettable, the publisher will reject you without even looking at the sample. If your first page is forgettable, you are done. Etc. If you have any reservoir of freakish talent, tap it sooner rather than later. If your first paragraph is poor, it doesn’t matter how awesome your ending is because no publisher will read that far.
Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to something Simon asked Susan. “Why hasn’t your singing career worked out so far?” That’s similar to the question on every publisher’s mind: “do you have an audience already?” If not, why not? If you were good enough to have an audience, wouldn’t you have one already? Publishers would much rather work with an author that has already established he is good enough to draw readers. Who would want to spend (at least) ten thousand dollars publishing a book by a completely unproven author?
The two easiest ways to build an audience are to either start a blog and/or write for some professional outlet (like a magazine or newspaper). That will help you prove that you are worth reading and that you are already producing at a professional level.
Spill.com did a mock script showing how Michael Bay (the guy who did Pearl Harbor and Transformers) might have tried The Dark Knight.
I recommend that you read all of it, but this is my favorite part.
BRUCE WAYNE is standing in front of a mirror, flexing his sculpted, shirtless torso.
BRUCE: Let’s do this.
Cue AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” A series of quick shots show BRUCE gearing up: putting on the boots, slapping on the gloves, a brief glance across those beautiful pecs. Finally, there is no longer BRUCE WAYNE, but BATMAN standing before us.
BATMAN: Back in black.
Pyrotechnics erupt in the distance. Wailing guitar solo.
Today, I came across a self-published book called Superhumans.
Here’s what it says on the back-cover:
Seth, a college student, is accidentally exposed to an experiment that gives him incredible powers. When he and his friend, Chip, try to unravel its secrets, they discover a threat to the world unlike any other. And soon, Seth will find himself faced with one obstacle after another as he tries to live a normal life with the woman he lives and their daughter.
I’ve posted the first page below the jump. If you’d like a writing exercise today, please rewrite the first two paragraphs of the chapter so that they’re interesting.
When you’re querying your book, please do not mention that you’re thinking about a prequel. Mentioning a prequel suggests that you don’t really know when the story starts. It also suggests that you might leave out crucial information so that you can use it for the prequel. Finally, I’d regard it as a warning flag that the chronology of the series will be confusing and hard to follow. Ick. If you’d like to discuss a prequel with your publisher, please do so after the first book has sold well.
1. Mentioning Dragonball Z eight times would be questionable for any query, but maybe there’s a better analogue for your historical romance.
2. You think the only thing between you and getting published is that publishers misunderstand your spelling and grammatical choices. If only they appreciated your style!
3. Your writing teacher told you to “write what you know,” so you write the story of a tragically unappreciated author who finally snaps and starts murdering editors.
4. Your writing teacher told you to make your characters sound realistic, so you write your teen romance as a series of text-messages. You receive a cryptic message from the publisher: “nothnxbai.”
What I’m writing: I want to start this as a very classic fantasy novel and build it into something else. It is about a main character that is brought down an evil path by untrustworthy mentors. The main character is not the protagonist.
Target audience: My target audience are people who have read multiple “high fantasy” fantasy novels.
What I’m looking for: Tough advice. I have thick skin– let me have it.
Many authors here aren’t really sure whether they want to write a superhero novel or a comic book. Here are a list of factors you should consider when deciding which one will work better for you.
Earlier this month, Praxis Comics’ site had gone down for a few days and I assumed that the publisher had folded. After all, it’s a cutthroat business and their website had previously mentioned some trouble with investors. However, I am pleased to report that the website has returned with a new design. (I’m generally fond of Praxis’ art, but I think the design probably uses sex-appeal a bit too blatantly. Ah well. That’s pretty standard for this industry).
So, if you’re interested in doing a trailer for your comic book (or perhaps even a novel), I think you can learn something from their approach. Their trailers are striking because they have no narration and hardly any words; they only use wordless images and an instrumental sound-track. That’s a surprisingly interesting way to present a simpler story like Calibre, an Arthurian legend retold in the Wild West. It did not work for series with a more complicated setup. For example, the premise of City of Dust is that fictional stories have been outlawed 100 years in the future. I don’t feel like the images gave me a good idea of what was going on or why I should care.
I recommend that you look at the entire list on Bookgasm, but here are some of the highlights.
8. The market for Iron Chef slash-fiction isn’t quite as broad as you may have assumed. “Oh, Morimoto,” Chef Batali sighed. “Stuff me like a pepper!”
31. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.
32. Be thankful that they merely refused to publish it. After all, submitting a manuscript that ends with the protagonist realizing that it was just a dream (or was it?) usually causes the publisher to edit your face with a pair of brass knuckles.
36. God may have told you to write this book, but he apparently forgot to tell you how to give it a decent ending.
47. The entire point of your book has already been more satisfactorily made in a single strip of Family Circus.
Here are some tips to help you write a super-intelligent character even if you are pretty ordinary yourself.
1. Try not to focus on him talking intelligently– what can he do that’s intelligent? When you’re thinking about this character’s actions, he should be able to come up with cunning plans and brilliant moves. Try to keep these as simple as possible. After the hero carries out his plan, ideally your readers will say “damn, why didn’t I think of that?”
Many (if not most) magical superheroes have day jobs as stage magicians. (Zatara, Mandrake the Magician, Mr. Mystic, etc). It’s a stale and completely obvious choice for a day job. So I decided to do a fresh concept for a magical superhero. By night, he’s a genuine sorcerer. By day, he works to disprove supernatural claims, like James Randi. I think it would be fairly amusing for a sorcerer to resort to nonmagical parlor tricks to convince the masses that what they saw was not, in fact, a magical fireball. (Umm… perhaps it was a steam pipe malfunction?)
1. Don’t get defensive. The worst case scenario is that someone thinks your writing is awful. So what? Several reviewers have accused me of being the worst writer in the world. No matter how bad it gets, there’s no reason to get huffy. If you think you can learn something from what they’re saying, then read it carefully and make any necessary improvements. If it’s just a generic “you suck” kind of review, then you should move on. Either way, there’s no need for you to defend yourself.
A Berlin woman divorced her husband for cleaning too much. “The wife got through 15 years of marriage putting up with the man’s penchant for doing household chores, tidying up and rearranging the furniture.” One of the advantages of marrying me is that this will certainly not be a problem.
This article is an interview with Marcus Hart, the author of The Oblivion Society. He originally self-published ObSoc but was later published professionally by Permuted Press.
In my list of common day jobs for superheroes, I forgot soldiers. Ack! How did I miss that? Anyway, I just added them. What sort of tips would you recommend for an author writing a story about a superhero soldier?
Hello. I’m still dealing with major technical issues on my end that will keep me from adding new moderators. I’ll let you guys know when I have resolved these issues; I expect it will take us a week or two.
Agent Kristin has some suggestions for applicants to her literary agency, but I think they’re mostly applicable to prospective publishing professionals across the board. Even in the comics industry. […]
If you’re looking for a low-stakes way to get a short story (up to 6000 words) published, This Mutant Life might be worth looking into. You can see its submission guidelines here. ”Stories which deal with the everyday lives of people with unusual abilities or physical characteristics are ideal, and there will be a definite [...] […]
One of the more frustrating things I see is when an author tries to give a character a guilty backstory but one he is utterly not responsible for. For example, the character’s powers might manifest by killing the town and/or pretty much everybody she knows. (Please see the TV Tropes Power Incontinence page for more examples). If [...] […]
Hello. If you haven’t seen my comic book’s five sample pages already, please check them out here and sign up for a chance to win a free signed copy when it comes out. Thanks! Having more interested readers will help me get published and I really appreciate your time. […]
Check out Fraggmented’s “Comic Book Insanity” category. Here are some choice excerpts. Then, while passing a volcano, Carol comments that Wonder Woman’s invisible plane obeys her every command “like magic!” To which WW responds, “The magic of science, Carol!” This is bitterly ironic, given that less than ten issues earlier Kanigher had explained that Wonde […]
If you’d like to suggest any, I’d appreciate that. Here are some of the questions we’ve previously answered. How long should I wait to introduce my main character? How can I do accents well? What are some common day-jobs for superheroes? How can I write a good opening? How can I do fight scenes? […]
