Comments on: Problematic Superpowers and How to Make Them Work

By: Aj of Earth

Aj of Earth — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:25:27 +0000

Agreed: Totes.

By: Myna

Myna — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:02:21 +0000

Thanks, Grenac! Okies, I will get to drafting up an article and talk to B. Mac about it in a bit.

By: Grenac

Grenac — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:54:39 +0000

I think so, because there are many pitfalls that authors can fall into when writing female characters. Like making them overly dependent ‘damsels-in-distess’ types, Mary Sues, boring, etc.

So, yeah. Totes good material for an article. Go Myna! I will look forward to it 8D

By: Myna

Myna — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:49:02 +0000

Hahaha. xD I love capslock too, but my capslock key has threatened to sue me several times for abuse. xP

I’ll think up what powers to write an article for, maybe anyway, I’ll see what I can find. Actually, I’ve been wanting to do a How To Write Female Characters for awhile. There’s a Males one here, but I think Female Chars would be helpful too, as most comic book writers and superhero/action fic people are guys and from what I can tell from the comic book industry, female characters can sometimes be… well… horribly cliched. xD What do you think, would that be good grounds for an article?

By: Grenac

Grenac — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:24:37 +0000

MYNA I AM SURE YOU WILL DO AWESOME ON AN ARTICLE BECAUSE YOUR WRITING IS MADE OF AWESOME.

Caps Lock ftw

By: Aj of Earth

Aj of Earth — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:47:16 +0000

I think you should go for it, Myna. Is there a particular power that you feel you know pretty well, are the most familiar with? Or rather one that you just really want to dissect and understand literally from the ground up?

I’d love to read what you come up with.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:45:41 +0000

For Time Travel, there’s this show that does a good job (at least in my opinion) with it.

The girl has the ability to stop time, but only for a brief moment. On top of that she can revert time back to the day when she met her friend, but only after a month has passed from that day on. So she can basically repeat that same month only.

By: Myna

Myna — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:21:39 +0000

“…And now that I consider it, I think a similar article specifically addressing each of the more common superpowers (Writing Speedsters, Writing Superstrong Characters, Writing Shapeshifters, etc.) would be a really helpful resource….”
Huh, you’re right. I kinda wanna try at writing one of these articles now but I’m not sure what good I’ll do. xD

By: Aj of Earth

Aj of Earth — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:17:51 +0000

Nice. I enjoyed this article, Marissa; these are definitely common and problematic issues and you made a lot of interesting points in how to go about resolving them.

It really is about being creative and also original, mixing up and making fresh, something that can be difficult to achieve given the “stock” nature of most superhero memes. To that, I generally find there’s a delicate balance between using base, pre-fabricated powers-sets and (on the other hand) overcomplicating them with so many particulars, side-effects and circumstantial limitations that it’s hard to remember them, make sense of them, or even make it worth the use of them. I feel the suggestions you offered on how to temper the Super in simplistic and yet original ways (especially your examples of Superspeed and Shapeshifting) can go a long way to help folks get a stronger handle on what their characters can and can’t do. It certainly gave me food for thought for my own work of fiction.

This is one of those instances in which less really is more, and I think you illustrated that keenly.

Also (shameless plug), for more on how to resolve issues with telepathy/psionics, I humbly offer the article I came up with on Writing Psychic Superheroes. Heh.

…And now that I consider it, I think a similar article specifically addressing each of the more common superpowers (Writing Speedsters, Writing Superstrong Characters, Writing Shapeshifters, etc.) would be a really helpful resource….

Hmmm…

By: Wings

Wings — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:59:58 +0000

No problem!

- Wings

By: Rog

Rog — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:27:45 +0000

thanks

By: Wings

Wings — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:40:13 +0000

For pyrokinesis, a simple limitation is that the character can’t generate fire on his own, meaning that he’s dependent on outside forces like matches and lighters. Alternately, fire generation could cost a lot of energy, or if he creates too much flame he runs the risk of suffocating from a lack of oxygen. Alternately alternately, maybe he isn’t immune to his own flames and has to be careful about not injuring himself in the process.

- Wings

By: Rog

Rog — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:03:45 +0000

what if the character’s invurability is as limited as per say a bullet jacket, but not to something like a sniper rifle or a machine gun? Also would you know anyway to limit something like pyrokinesis

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:08:21 +0000

“So I thought the character could wear glasses that are not prescribed to him so that he can see outlines of stuff and make out what it is from the shapes, but not see faces correctly, thus controlling his power. If he needs to read a mind, he can just remove his glasses to ‘clean’ them, and glance over.” I think it sounds interesting.

Someone really astute might notice that he isn’t at 20/20 vision even with his glasses, but I don’t think it’d be easy to make the leap from “his glasses aren’t good enough” to “he’s hiding something,” let alone “he’s hiding a superpower.”

One glasses-related situation that would be much more noticeable is Matt Murdock (Daredevil), who wears the black glasses that signify blindness but sometimes walks without a cane or a seeing eye dog.

By: ekimmak

ekimmak — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:54:37 +0000

I like the idea. There’s just one thing I’m not sure about it.
If he’s wearing glasses that mess up his vision, then it’ll mean that people will notice that he has poorer vision despite his glasses. He may end up misreading something, or crashing his car into the back of a stopping police car, or something like that. Of course, I’m no expert when it comes to stuff like this, it might actually be more stuff you can write about.