Also Nora plays a major roll in the story as she saves Dunimas from Exsusia who tries and kill him (For the first out of many times), sends him to he planet Coreous (Where Kyu killed Erra and one hour on earth equals 1 month on planet Coreous) to train him, and tells him what will happen if Haden destroys North America.

Also ‘tainted’ was used to spice up ‘the future’ because taking a world by force doesn’t have to mean that they used Doughnuts-I mean Weapons of Mass Destruction, the mind is the most dangerous weapon of all. If one could convince people to overthrow world leaders and crown said person emperor, then the world wouldn’t have to be corrupted. There are good emperors too you know!

Do you think I should tell about how if he doesn’t kill Haden then he’ll destroy North America?

I’m interested to know if this synopsis is Ok,

A cowardly gunslinger chases his father’s murderer across space. However in the process winds up becoming the only one capable of saving humankind from an apocalyptical invasion.

I’m not sure if I needed to mention the fact that the murder was of his father or if I should replace it with just

‘chases a murderer’ With this however, I don’t think it conveys why he is doing it as he is a coward after all.

Should I change ‘winds up becoming’ to ‘he becomes’ ?

Also am I right in thinking that mentioning the ‘mcguffin’ would be a bad idea? I haven’t but its something I’ve been pondering.

Also I’m still doubtful about being a Super Lemming. Lemming is a trait/habit-not a superpower. A suggestion though would be that their power is super wisdom. That would be better, since super lemming is a weakness rather than an advantage. They could just waltz into anything they want without thinking about the consequences to begin with. If you want a disadvantage give the hero the ability to forget everything at random…I hope you know where I’m getting at.

Super Lemming Power though must be read to be believed! I don’t use the word “lemming” at all in my text yet, but I’m sure the sidekick will say it at some point. I only recently realized what my superpower resembled. I’ll think more about whether the analogy is right for these marketing sentences.

To yours:

Your chapter 2 opening does a stylish job of painting Dunimas as a simple guy enamoured of his own thought process. Is the girl on the tie or with the guy? [strait -> straight]. Dunimas has a strange preoccupation with everyone’s outfit, He seems rather crazy to me unless it is irrelevant detail. His behaviour, and thought processes in general (such as running away) seems consistent, yet abnormal.

> Dunimas did not approve of the at all.

Perhaps his reaction could tell us this. He seems remarkably composed. He could be hit next! You do follow with his reaction, so perhaps you can just drop this sentence.

Dunimas has an interesting personality. Perhaps his quirkiness could be lampshaded or contrasted by other characters, to give some perspective on whether others also see him as a bit odd. And perhaps you’ve already done that elsewhere.

If I said anything offensive, I apologise, I’m writing fast from work

5 Reasons why your Superpower Descriptions are Lame.

1. They start casual. When I say this I mean that at the beginning of the story don’t say,
“Bob fires a Death Blitzer at the burning building.”
The first thing that comes to mind is,
“What the heck is a ‘Death Blitzer’?!”
Here is are some variations,

EPIC FAIL- Bob shot a Death Blitzer.
LAME-Bob blew up a building with a Death Blitzer.
MEH-Bob destroyed the burning building with a black Death Blitzer.
BETTER-Bob fired a black energy blast called Death Blitzer at a burning building.
WIN-Seeing the burning building, Bob cupped his hands and focused as hard as he could forming a deathly black, flame-like ball. Bob then aimed his hands at the building and fired it, obliterating the building.

Note: This is only if you introduce a new attack. If you have already had you character use the technique (In more than two instances) and name it, then you could refer to it in a more casual tone. However I would would stay around ‘MEH’ for the minimal of casualty.

2. You describe the power longer than 2 sentences. If it takes you more that two sentences to describe an attack then summarize it. Your readers don’t have to know every detail, let them imagine a little.

3. You forget the reaction. Sure your readers should know what a Death Blitzer is by the middle of the story right? Well, DON’T forget the reaction. I don’t care how generic the after-effect is, NEVER forget it! If he fires the attack, how do we know what happens once it lands? Does it kill the victim and cut a swath of destruction or does it blow up in Bob’s hands and blow his hands off? The reader should know this!

4. ‘Good’ is NOT good! What this means is that you say,
“The black ball burned up stuff, but B.Mac dodged it.”
Can’t you find something else to describe it other than ‘black, and ‘burned up stuff’? Another one is ‘good’, that could be changed to something that explains the noun better. Exceptional, breath-taking, and mesmerizing-just to name a few.

Tip- Adding a dash and ‘like’ to some words can spice it up. Here are a few examples,
Flame-like
Plastic-like
Wood-like
And generally any noun that it could be described as. Also if you use a color, instead of saying ‘blue’ liven it up with something like, ‘bedazzling blueberry’ depending on the audience.

5. The descriptions are out of the audience’s understanding. B.Mac had a problem with me with this one. I’m just a kid, but I wrote the dialogue like an adult was talking rather than a child. We get it, some people have big vocabularies. Sometimes we are afraid that the audience won’t understand the ‘slang’ and such. Common slang like ‘gonna’ and ‘ain’t’ can be used just fine, ‘homie’, and ‘G’ can’t. ‘eyeballs’ can work, but ‘blepharos’ can’t. If your description is out of the audience’s league, it sucks.

Hope that helps!

“Nicholas, your understanding of the sidekick is remarkably prescient. The sidekick’s father dies after rescuing the hero from an assassin, but she was knocked out at the time by a drug – given to her by her father. The sidekick seeks to find out what really happened, so that she may carry out her revenge. Was it the superhero’s fault?

I agree with your word change too. As for the vocabulary, the two-sentence challenge is partly to blame. As I get chapters reviewed in future I will try not to alienate my audience with words (excepting perhaps the dialogue of the evil scientist). These sentences are only for an editor/publisher. A back cover blurb might be simpler, with more than two sentences.

B. Mac, thanks. I’ll definitely keep writing this story. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, but the chalk-and-cheese partnership that makes it intriguing is only a recent twist. The whole thing now needs a lot of rework but this feedback suggests I might finally have a tale someone would want to hear. Unorthodox beats banal, right? ”

I just got confused is all. Also, how could a mental condition be a superpower? I think a superpower classifies as one that gives one an advantage over another. However, there are some metal disorders that give one an advantage over another. For example, hyperthymesia (Thymesia is Greek for memory) gives one a superior autobiographical memory. (I’m starting to think I’m a genius for a 7th grader-knowing all this extra stuff…hmm…)

Anyways i do have a forum here but it has a lot of posts so here is an excerpt of it.

Chapter 2: The Best Successor

7 years later…
Dunimas was sweeping the floor behind the register. He had swept up a cockroach, some paper, and dust bunnies. Dunimas muttered to himself, “The dust bunnies slowly yet patiently approach the roach. They finally surround him when…a huge wind swept them away!” Dunimas often talked to himself to satisfy his social need, not that he was crazy, no, far from it. He was smart for a kid his age. His mother home schooled him because in such a grief-stricken world people do crazy things. His mother taught him a lot, but it wasn’t that which made him seem really smart-it was his thinking which did it for him.

A tall, light tan, bald man walked in wearing a black tuxedo, boots, and a blood-red tie with a young girl. Dunimas was a decent young fellow, eleven-years-old, had strait brown hair like his mother and grandmother, Molly, yet his father and grandfather’s light peach skin. He was wearing a starched white dress shirt, black belt, and blue jeans when he walked to the two and said, “Welcome to Dull Bookstore how may I help you gentle…people?” Ugh! I just KNEW I’d go and screw it up! I was gonna call a girl a gentlemen! Idiot-idiot-IDIOT! Dunimas roared in his mind.

“Hello.” The bald man said in a stern and slightly annoyed voice with a hint of ‘you better say that’.

“Um…hi.” The girl weakly smiled. Her voice was fragile and cautious, like an expensive wine glass trying not to fall from an earthquake.

“Shut up! He was talking to me-me and me only!” The bald man roared at the 10 year old girl, wearing a red dress with white gloves and stockings. She had small black, round-toed short heels; also her hair was long and blond that draped to the center of her back with light tan skin tone. He then backslapped her, causing the girl to stumble.

“You didn’t have to hit me!” the girl cried with her face red and blood trickling from her mouth to match. Dunimas did not approve of the at all.
“Sir, I understand I’m not this child’s legal guardian but you can’t slap a girl like that.” Dunimas insisted.

“Dunimas!” Molly, his grandmother, snapped. Molly was 63 years old but looked and functioned like a young adult. She hadn’t aged ever since she reached the age of 25 years old due to her Xian heritage in which they do not age after they reach the peak of their youth. Molly had long strait brown hair, light peach skin tone, and was wearing a white shirt with black polka dots. To match she had a long black skirt with black shoes. Her voice tended to be gentle, even when she yelled-as if she didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings all the time. She also looked nothing like her diehard martial artist ancestors; she looked like a normal librarian despite her super strength, speed, and endurance. Predictably, she had something against Dunimas learning how to fight, mainly because she didn’t want him to try to save the world and get himself killed.

“I can do whatever I want, boy.” The man snarled.

“There are always rules to things, no matter how much you deny it!” Dunimas pointed out, yelling now. The man thought this was very disrespectful and dealt a devastating blow to Dunimas’s mouth. Dunimas then delivered an impressive blow to the man’s stomach, causing him to bend over in anguish. The man pulled a knife and almost stabbed Dunimas before Molly intervened, she got from the other side of the store so quickly it seemed as if she teleported. She grabbed the knife by the blade and snatched it from the man, pushing Dunimas to the ground. She then threw the knife behind her while she taunted

“I didn’t know a man would have to use a weapon against a child.” They stared at each other for what seemed to be days from Dunimas’s perspective.

“Humph!” The man snarled, “We were just leaving!” He then yanked at the girl’s arm, who was staring at Dunimas, almost dragging her out. The man walked off in the distance, the noonday sun rising high above the sleepy little town and Molly’s bookstore.

Checking her hand, she warned Dunimas in a stern manner, “Dunimas I do not want you talking to that man, or anyone with him, got it? If I’m in the storage room come get me right then okay?”
“Okay.” Dunimas agreed with a strain of sadness in his voice.
Molly thought that she must have sounded angry with him so she turned around to Dunimas, who was standing up, and kneeled down to make better eye contact apologizing, “Dunimas I didn’t mean to get angry with you I just don’t like using force on people, I just want you to be safe…I don’t want anyone else to-”

“Grandma it’s not that…it’s how that man treated that girl. It just wasn’t right.” Dunimas revealed, “The stories you told me my great grandfathers and uncles never had a part in it were they gave up on protecting the innocent. In such a time as this, they wouldn’t be sweeping floors or dusting tables in a bookstore! They would at least try to do something!”

“You’re not going to try and confront that man, are you?” Molly feared.

“Yes I am.” Dunimas insisted, “I’d rather die than let a helpless child deal with that!” Dunimas then checked his right pocket to make sure he had his pocket knife, and left.

“Maybe Dunimas is right…what if I am doing the wrong thing? Maybe I should try helping, even if it means I will die. But he is right about one thing…this isn’t fair.” Molly thought. She the stood up and went to the back room of the bookstore.

Dunimas ran down the grassy road, broken-down cars on Dunimas’s left side, and tall weedy grass to his right. He could hear a girl shouting in the direction the man had walked off to. Dunimas ran as fast as his two legs could take him and met up with the bald man forcing her inside a small building.

Dunimas decided fighting a snake in his own hole would give him the upper hand so rather than trying to fight him directly, he should draw him out. “Get your hands off me!” the girl shrieked. Instead the bald man picked her up and threw her inside. Dunimas jumped into the very tall grass, approaching them slowly like a tiger stalking his prey. The bald man then went inside and the double steel doors began closing automatically. Dunimas scrambled to get inside before the door shut, making it just in time. There was a small basement door in the cramped room which Dunimas was present. Dunimas cautiously opened the door to a long, dark, metal hallway. He could hear the shouting once again and began running after them.

Dunimas could finally see a chrome blue light at the end of the hallway when suddenly the shouting stopped. “God, please don’t let me be too late!” Dunimas prayed aloud. He then heard a loud metal door slam much closer. He could see the silhouette of someone walking away from a door, probably just locking it. Dunimas stepped to the door and attempted to open it. “Locked.” Dunimas noted. Although Dunimas was only a eleven year old he was very analytical and began feeling around the door knob. Dunimas smiled to himself as he felt a screw. He pressed his thumb in and looked at it. “It’s a two-prong.” Dunimas noted. He then pulled out his pocket knife and began unscrewing the screws.

Dunimas stopped unscrewing the last screw and remembered that once he unscrewed it the knob on the other side would fall and make one heck of a noise. He then took off his dress shirt revealing an undershirt. He stuffed his dress shirt under the door and finally unscrewed the last screw. Dunimas quickly grabbed the outer doorknob as the inner knob fell silently.

Dunimas pushed the cold, heavy door open and beheld a strange biology lab. There was a huge cylinder chamber in the middle of the room, lined at its base with countless buttons, computers, and flashing lights. Dunimas paced around the cylinder and wondered where that man and that girl were. He then looked up and became disgusted. The girl was floating high above in the blue liquid unconscious, her red dress looking purple instead. Dunimas picked up his dress shirt and hurled the metal knob with all his might. The glass began to crack, fluid spilling out creating a bigger crack.

The chamber finally burst, computers began sizzling and the room quickly filled up with the blue liquid. Dunimas swam over the girl and suddenly a loud alarm sounded. The cyan lights flashing blood red with Dunimas trying to swim towards the door and hold on the girl, swimming with one arm. Dunimas finally opened the door by kicking the door and was pushed out by the escaping liquid. He picked the girl up, fireman’s carry style, and ran up the long hallway. Dunimas loved to run; he was quite agile at it. If he changed his mind and decided to do anything else in the future, it would be running track. s

He finally got outside and he could hear that bald man once again. “Get back here you snotty little brat!” he roared, running into the sunlight as well. Dunimas tripped over his foot and fell into the tall weedy grass. Dunimas and the girl began tumbling down the hill as the bald man pursued them. Dunimas and the girl finally stopped when the reached a more level terrain. The girl staggered up regaining consciousness when Dunimas grabbed her wrist and headed back off again.

The superpower fits your second definition of lemming. It affects the mind. At least one world peace is real, albeit with side-effects. And compassion is the ultimate weapon in the fight against evil, not just what they learned. I left it to the imagination how that might unfold.

Nowhere does the story ask, “was it the superhero’s fault” – that is simply a summary of your post and my plot. Nothing I’ve written here so far quotes from the text. But I’ll post some someday, hopefully soon.

Meanwhile, I’d be happy to check out your own story. You have a forum here?

Cheers, Milan

A hero struggling with his rodent-like powers accidentally gains a vengeful orphan, fated to restore humanity’s lost innocence. Although at a rocky start, their growing compassion for each other withstands a series of unreal world peaces.

I took out the last part because that basically told the reader that they would pull through. If the reader knows they will win, it kills the point of you developing the reader’s compassion of the protagonist and the only reason they will read it is to see how they pull through. (If you ask me that’s a thin line to go across. If the reader is impatient they’ll probably close the book and pick up a new one. D: ) Not to brag, but in my story (Portentous: The Last Hope) my protagonist loses just about every fight he get’s into or at the very least runs away. Because of this I made a fail-proof so that if he does chicken out in the end, the whole world will be destroyed. (I can let you read it if you want)

Also,
Q: “Was it the superhero’s fault?”
A: DON’T ASK THAT! When you do it signals that you would make your characters think what you would think and do. It ends up a 1 dimensional cliche. (I’m re-writting mines now) Ask some friends, or even strangers. Sometimes, make them react vice-versa to what you would do.

Oh and um like I said, if you want to read some of my story, just ask!

Nicholas, your understanding of the sidekick is remarkably prescient. The sidekick’s father dies after rescuing the hero from an assassin, but she was knocked out at the time by a drug – given to her by her father. The sidekick seeks to find out what really happened, so that she may carry out her revenge. Was it the superhero’s fault?

I agree with your word change too. As for the vocabulary, the two-sentence challenge is partly to blame. As I get chapters reviewed in future I will try not to alienate my audience with words (excepting perhaps the dialogue of the evil scientist). These sentences are only for an editor/publisher. A back cover blurb might be simpler, with more than two sentences.

B. Mac, thanks. I’ll definitely keep writing this story. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, but the chalk-and-cheese partnership that makes it intriguing is only a recent twist. The whole thing now needs a lot of rework but this feedback suggests I might finally have a tale someone would want to hear. Unorthodox beats banal, right?