Oct 13 2009
Can You Describe Your Protagonist’s Superpowers in 1-2 Sentences?
A recurring problem for young writers is that we are more likely to try crazy-complicated sets of superpowers. Don’t waste paragraphs describing each character’s powers. That’s space you could be using to develop personalities, character traits, the plot, relationships, etc. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend keeping it simple– if you need more than 20 words to describe a character’s powers, there’s probably too much going on.
Here are some of the popular characters that have been introduced in the last ~30 years.
- Wolverine has claws, regeneration and agility.
- Cyclops has an eye-beam.
- Spiderman has agility, spider-webbing and danger-sense.
- Storm can fly and control the weather.
- Deadpool has regeneration, agility and sometimes strength.
- Hiro Nakamura can stop time, teleport and travel through time.
- The Haitian can erase memories and nullify powers.
- Pretty much every other character on Heroes has a single power.
- Reed Richards is smart and stretchy.
- The Invisible Woman has telekinesis and forcefields. And, umm, invisibility (though you hopefully knew that one).
- Ironman is tough, smart, and armed with lasers and conventional arms.
- Hellboy, Hulk and Ben Grimm (among many others) are just super-tough.
- The Human Torch, Iceman and Static Shock (among others) control an element, often with flight or another travel ability. (Well, ice and electricity aren’t elements, but they’re very similar as far as superhero writing is concerned).
In conclusion, pretty much every popular hero introduced in the last ~30 years could be summarized in ten words. (Can you think of any exceptions? Spawn, Sandman and possibly Invincible are the only ones that came to mind).
Almost all of the modern characters that have really caught on have only a few powers that are easy to explain. This is particularly true–perhaps almost necessarily true– when the story is about a group of superheroes rather than an individual. You probably don’t have enough space to develop three powers each for a group of five. When you’re dealing with a cast as large as X-Men or Heroes, I’d only recommend giving 3+ powers to characters that are unusually important.
[EDITOR: After a brief run-in with a persistent troll]
Great article, thanks, I’ve always tried to hold my powers to a standard close to this, but it is always tempting to stray so you can be more unique and lists like these are inspiration to stay true to that level of simplicity. Plus, it gave me an idea for a power; fire blood! an individual whose blood is highly flammable but contains no powers outside of that, forcing them to focus on creating conventional explosives taking advantage of it using stored frozen samples.
I can’t help but feel that this article is partially inspired by my revamping to a much more complex power. But that’s just me being conceited. Anyways, here’s my attempt(s):
(First, his former power)
Showtime is versed in alien technology and can control water. Ten words!
(Now his newer power)
Showtime’s suit allows him to summon alien technology at random. Ten words!
If I were to include a second sentence I would probably use it to explain the random factor. If I find writing his new powers to be a hassle, I’ll switch back.
What do you think?
Very nice article. Thanks for putting it up!
Ok, so let’s see how my characters match up… getting ready for NaNoWriMo!
Lerin is mildly telepathic and can transform into a dragon late into the story. (14 words)
Ronnie is telepathic and invulnerable. (5!)
Griff manipulates metal. Later in the story, he will be able to absorb it. (13)
Kyle knows when and where a phone will ring, before it happens. (12 and yes, it’s a lame power. So what.)
Yay! Thanks again for the quick quiz!
Meg manipulates and stores electricity. (5)
Connor has aura-based abilities including force fields and force blasts. (10 or 11, depending on if aura-based is considered one word or 2)
Ian can fly and heal physical injuries. (7)
Darren is telekinetic and can later levitate. (7)
Jazz shapeshifts into animals. (4!)
Pierce manipulates metal and uses it as armor. (7)
Darkstar turns invisible in shadow. (5)
Hikari manipulates light. (3!)
Synth can control and understand plants. (6)
Masochist manipulates blood. (3 AGAIN!)
(Instinct has no powers)
Hummingbird can fly at supersonic speeds. (6)
Woo!
- Wings
I think I’ll give this a try.
Knight-errant uses power armor, sword, blaster, and his bionic right arm. (12)
StarPower has Amulet of Light that gives flight, force fields, blasts, and healing. (13)
Night Angel has enhanced agility, reflexes, and can climb (almost) any surface. (12)
[In response to a discussion about a troll that has since been deleted]. I didn’t get a chance to read the troll’s post before it was deleted, but I’ve read a few of his comments before and I suspect I know more or less what he said.
“What is he, your nemesis or something?” I don’t think he’s competing in my niche.
We have a very different approach to writing. In particular, I think that he has a very strongly literary bent to his writing. He disdains popular fiction. In contrast, sales and audience size are very important to me and anybody else trying to become a professional writer. (Sales and sales projections are the single biggest factors determining whether stories get published and how much the authors are paid).
I have two goals for my writing: 1) Write the best I can and 2) Attract as many readers as possible. Nothing else matters. If you are proud of your work and it is popular enough to sustain you, it does not matter what anybody else thinks.
In contrast, if an author is proud of his work but has trouble finding readers, he won’t have work for long.
Hello, RB! “I can’t help but feel that this article is partially inspired by my revamping to a much more complex power.” Nah.
When you’re explaining just the powers, I wouldn’t recommend getting into the origin or source of the powers. You can handle that elsewhere.
However, I like the sentence “Showtime’s suit allows him to summon alien technology at random.” If I had written the sentence anticipating that I would describe the alien suit elsewhere, I’d say something like “Showtime can summon random alien gadgets–sometimes useful, sometimes not.”
Hello everyone. Yes, I know, another long absence etc. Haha, but the school holidays are over so my visits will be few. Heck, I’m only here now because I’m coughing my lungs up and can’t go today. Haha.
Isaac can fly, shoot energy blasts and will develop the power for shields. (13)
Kamari has the same powers as Isaac. (7)
Tristram has the same powers as Isaac, but is weaker, and can hack computers. (14)
Klemente can shapeshift. (3!)
Atalya can fly and has some martial arts ability. (9)
Requiem can roughly predict if someone (non-specific) will die, talk to the dead, and sense if someone has died in a room in the past. (25)
Livian can communicate with animals. (5)
Cain has ice powers (creation, manipulation etc) (7)
Out of all the powers, Klemente’s is the simplest to explain. Haha.
K, here we go:
Jake can control electricity, stick and climb to walls, and has super agility.
Karnak has the ability to absorb weapons into his skin, thus becoming a walking weapon. He also has the power of cellular regeneration.
Derek absorbs energy to teleport and create energy orbs. Said orbs have different functions (flame, grenade, tar, etc.).
Alan has superhuman accuracy and cryokinesis. He also has some form of enhanced vision, usually to spot targets too far away for others to see.
Dragon has elemental manipulation and martial arts.
Armory can use anything as a proficient weapon, marksman.
Titan manipulates energy.
Mage is a mystic with vast powers.
And Rogue Hawk has animal powers.
Hello, Tarik!
I’d recommend being more specific on Mage and Rogue Hawk. “Mage is a mystic with vast powers” is probably not clear enough to indicate to readers/editors what the character can do. In contrast, “Storm can control the weather” is easier to grasp.
Also, I think I know what you mean by “Rogue Hawk has animal powers,” but it might help to be more specific there, too. If his powers work like Vixen’s, then you could probably describe it as “Rogue Hawk can take on abilities and strengths of different animals,” etc.
Hmmmm…here goes:
Rue has super strength, healing, speed and agility. She is also relatively immortal.
There. Two sentences, w00t! Any other superior abilities she has are more the result of lifetimes of study than any supernatural power.
Dang! Another person with a Titan character!
Well, the name IS cool…
Here are the Darkstar Rising villains and second-gen Specials:
Frostbite can manipulate ice. (4)
Soothsayer can see the future. (5)
Sparta has mind control. (4)
((There is one more hero who I am still trying to create))
Remembrance reads minds and can bring memories to life. (9)
Harbinger/Infinite is an empath whose other power is random. (10)
Alcatraz is an escape artist. (Not really a power, but 5)
Scapegoat can cause pain to rebound upon the giver. (9)
Pathos gains different powers from emotions. (6)
Shift shapeshifts into humans. (4)
- Wings
Lets see… more specific.
Mage can do Alterations/transmutations, conjuring/summoning, enchantments, divination, evocation, Necromancy, and abjurations.
Rogue Hawk has abilties depending on what animal spirit he calls forth from the Native American Zodiac i.e bear, wolf, eagle.
Titan is a relative name and probably will no be used.
oh. hello B. Mac
Can change body heat and transfer it into objects (10)
Can manipulate shadows to be used as weapons and portals (10)
What to do you mean?
Cuz, I’m a Marvel fan and powers take paragraphs to truly explain? Limits, powers, ect? Do you mean basic?
Iceman would be create,control, and become ice. He can also manipulate it moisture and is immune to cold temperatures.
Is that what you mean by summing it down? If so, that makes sense.
Yeah, you’re summing it up for the benefit of editors (and maybe prospective readers) that want to quickly evaluate whether your story is interesting enough to read. In most cases, the details of the powers don’t matter. Realistically, you have a few minutes to convince an editor not to toss your script.
For the overwhelming majority of scripts, spending more than a sentence or two on the powers is unwise. “Iceman controls ice.” That’s all the editor needs to know about his powers. Anything more than that is probably a distraction from the details that will really make the story stand out. What’s his personality like? What are his style and voice like? What are the people around him like? What’s he trying to accomplish? Why will we care about him? Such questions are far more important than the details of his powers.
Also, on a final note, I think that generally the vast majority of Marvel characters have powers that are easy to explain. for example, “Storm controls the weather” vs. a grab-bag of unrelated powers for Superman. “The Thing is supertough” vs. “Wonderwoman is supertough, can fly, and can force honesty.” This may be because the most prominent Marvel characters were built for teams (the X-Men, Fantastic Four, most of the Avengers, etc). In contrast, DC characters (particularly those written before the JSA was introduced in 1940) were more likely to be loners or partners rather than teammates. If the character is written as a loner, the author can afford to give him more complex powers because he doesn’t have to spend as much time on other characters.
Well yes but Iceman’s only power is not control of ice he has a secondary mutation? Ice is his first power, the other is very major and used quite often
So would you put Iceman’s powers” Thermokinesis,cryokinesis, moisture, and organic? (I said two but he has two powers with two side abilities)
Or would I just put the power he started with in volume one aka ice? Won’t an editor be upset if the guy has four powers and you claim he has one only? Or what?
I understand the details of the character are more important though, just curious.
“Or would I just put the power he started with in volume one aka ice? Won’t an editor be upset if the guy has four powers and you claim he has one only? Or what?”
I’d recommend covering only what appears in the first novel or comic book arc you’re trying to sell. Then, if you want to give him more powers as the series progresses, you can work that out with your editor. However, leading with the four powers will probably take a lot of time without contributing much.
For example, put yourself in the mindset of an editor trying to evaluate whether the story is interesting enough to buy. Does “Iceman can manipulate ice and control moisture and make slides out of ice” give you a better picture of the story than “Iceman can control ice”? Probably not– I think the extra words are a waste.
Generally, I’d recommend delving into the powers only if it would help set the mood/tone or you have some other solid reason to. For example, if your character can control fire but his powers are magically fueled by killing people, that sets a different tone that “he can control fire.”
Time to necropost…
Here are a few I can think of:
- Naruto can make temporary copies of himself, throw energy bolts, and call out a demon fox. (16 words)
- Ichigo Kurosaki can whip out a ghost-killing sword. (7-8 words, depending on whether “ghost-killing” is one word or two.)
- Sailor Moon can shoot purifying beams and throw her tiara to destroy monsters. (13 words)
- Static can shoot electricity. (4 words! Yay!)
As for my own character…
- Norma can shoot particle beams and withstand physical damage. (9 words)
Are there different types of flight? Here is an example. Superman flying power is controlled by his ability to manipulate gravitons, Wonder Woman i guess uses magic, and Martian Manhunter has telekinesis flying power. Are they basically the same or do they have there strengths and weaknesses?
The most basic flight could be called autokinesis, or the ability to spontaneously generate kinetic energy within oneself. You can actually set a specific amount of force that the person can generate per seconds (say, 1,000 newtons per second (per second?) ) and then calculate how fast the person could accellerate, how much they could lift.
Gravity is more complex, because gravity is attraction between masses. If you can reverse that, you get repulsion between masses. So, you can fly toward the heaviest thing around, or away from it. There might be other ways to use it to move in a complex fashion, but the only one I’m aware of is the Alcubierre drive.
If your hero can do that, its pure awesomeness.
Another flight type is the Meisner effect, based on powerful magnetic field manipulation. Can’t get you off planet, but works fine as long as you’re inside Earth’s magnetic field.
Of course, most of this is weaksauce scifi science that would make real scientists yell at me.
What if the flight was propelled by a type of heat energy and could the user be able to take that type of flight and fly as fast as a jet?
You’re talking pure thrust. It’s pretty common in comics. If you want to take a realistic spin on it, then consider that a jet relies on a nozzle system in order to direct expanding gas (fire) in a useable manner. So, to fly, your character needs either precise control or ridiculous power. If you opt for ridiculous power, then your character will scorch the ground every time they take off and be extremely dangerous to be around while flying.
Also, consider that jets are aerodynamic while people are not. When flying at low speeds this isn’t much of a problem. However, a person flying at high speeds will experience turbulence and serious physical stresses. A person attempting to break Mach 1… probably shouldn’t. All supersonic craft are extremely aerodynamic.
This is really helpful to me because I’m having trouble getting my heroes power skills set. I have one last question. Say that the person has a type of invulnerable like for example, dragon skin or another durable surface, would he then be able to hit mach speeds?
I don’t know the exact science. I just know that as an object approaches the speed of sound it builds up an increasing pressure wave in front of it that makes it harder and harder to go faster. When the object breaks that barrier there is a moment of extreme turbulences. I think additional speed gain becomes easier after that, but I’m not sure.
As a guess, think internal toughness as well as external toughness and LOTS of power. Your hero has to accomplish by brute force what modern aircraft require precision aerodynamic shaping in order to do safely.
Dizziness/disorientation from shaking might be a problem.
If your hero can do this feat, he has firepower to burn.
Thanks for the help. I’ll be back if i need more