Feb 20 2010
How creative do your superpowers need to be?
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.
1. It doesn’t matter much whether the superpowers you use are unique or not. It is virtually certain that several published superheroes will share the same primary power as yours, and possibly a few of the secondaries as well. The key to differentiating your characters is giving them a distinct personality, voice, attributes, flaws, goals, obstacles, background, etc. If you have those things, you don’t need unique superpowers. If you don’t have those things, unique superpowers won’t save you.
2. The superpowers are merely a means to an end (an interesting story). But the superpowers themselves are rarely interesting. When you’re picking powers, please focus more on whether the powers can make interesting scenes than on whether the powers are original.
3. I would recommend against spending more than a few sentences explaining a character’s superpowers in the submission. In most cases, each extra sentence spent describing a character’s superpowers (or, worse, how they work) is a sentence not spent on something that develops the story.
4. If you’re dead-set on using unique superpowers, it may be easier to use unusual combinations of well-known superpowers rather than really exotic powers. Readers are familiar with martial arts-based characters and a bajillion varieties of elemental controllers, but probably not too many martial artists that control an element (besides Avatar). One of the advantages is that you don’t have to spend much time explaining the powers and they may have unexpected and interesting uses. For example, the aforementioned earth controller/martial artist might hobble his enemy’s footing by messing with the ground and then beat him silly. In contrast, if you go with a power that’s very rare (like the ability to control something unusual like gravity), then you’ll spend more time explaining to readers what the character can do.
5. If your character’s powers include the word “reality,” tread very carefully. For example, “reality manipulation” or “reality warping” or “reality control.” To me, “reality” is code for “this character can do whatever the author wants,” which will make it very hard to challenge the character and/or explain the powers to readers. Will you be able to set up limits so that readers can understand what the character can and cannot do? Can you come up with enough ways to challenge the character? If not, please go back to the drawing board. It may be easier to plot the story if several characters have the ability to challenge the protagonist rather than just one.
Are you writing a fantasy or sci-fi? No problem! Replace “superpower” with “magic” or “supernatural abilities” or “the abilities of nonhuman races” as it fits your story.
My heroine’s power is basically a downgraded version of Static’s, though I did not set out to copy him.
Sometimes I forget that my heroine has superpowers at all — I’m usually more focused on her motivation for fighting.
My main character has a sort of “reality altering” power but in the sense that he is able to merge past and current events to suit his own vision. The thing is once his powers are active other peoples perception are also included in the “big picture”.
@ Brontes
You might want to work on that — “reality warping” sounds like something troublesome.
That’s rather complicated, Brontes…
Hello, Brontes! I have two main concerns about these sorts of powers.
1. Can the character be challenged? How would other characters beat him? (I think Sandman did a pretty good job of this).
2. Can readers easily understand what he can do? I feel like this is a pressing issue in your case. In particular, I’m having trouble envisioning how other peoples’ perception and “the big picture” tie into the ability to merge past and current events.
Also, I think his powers might make it harder to remember what’s going on because he may be able to radically change the past events of the book. For example, let’s say your book has John die and Lucy born fairly early. Can he merge past events of when John was still alive and/or when Lucy was unborn to bring John back and/or get rid of Lucy? If so, readers might have trouble keeping the story together. “There WAS a character named Lucy, but she’s gone now. Also, please try to forget that John died; that never really happened, either.”
This is actually a really comforting article to me, I’ve always felt insecure about my primary protagonist’s powers due to the number of superheroes with similar abilities, he is a Jekyll/Hyde type with lycanthropy mixed in for giggles, but I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to make his personality, backstory and the predicament presented by his powers unique. The thing that worries me is you’ve got Hulk, Wolverine, Timber Wolf, several Jekylls, the Astonishing Wolf-Man, Beast from X-Men, Wolfsbane and a few others all in either the Jekyll or Werewolf-y camp, which is quite daunting.
Not even mutant crocodilians are unique. They came up in TMNT, Elephantmen, and probably Batman depending on how you classify Killer Croc.
Also, there are so many comic book characters named Agent Orange (four) that it has its own disambiguation page on Wikipedia. And one of THOSE is another reptile (the Green Lantern villain).
My character is able to produce a virtual reality based upon his perception of time. The reality he creates is not concrete, but is a maleable substance. This is true only after his power is activated. It takes a independent course which can be altered.By each sentient individual
based upon their own perception of the past and their immediate time. He is vulnerable and dies because of the side-effect of another character’s power. When this happens reality is restored to its original state.
@ Brontes
I dunno…it still seems like it would be confusing.
I think it might be a short-story or small graphic novel from his description, not an ongoing series. I think there is a market for it, and without achieving months, years, or even dozens of pages of continuity that is constantly being remolded and needing to be kept in mind, most of the common concerns don’t really apply, as plenty of Philip K. Dick-ian type stories of altered histories, unreliable narrators and drug addicts have worked, even from first time writers.
Don’t forget this: readers are often even MORE thrown into the story if the see character struggle; that is, they’ll keep thinking: “Cool, but I wonder what’ll happen if the character has to fight someone who is good at there weakness?” Make sure the weaknesses balance out the strengths. One shining example is Ender’s Game . Ender was a born leader. But Bonzo cornered him alone in the bathroom. Yes, Ender kicked his jass, but the danger was, NOBODY ELSE WAS WITH HIM! Or Bean, a loner, buuuuuuuttt he manages to get five other people to witness Achilles’s confession.
In my ongoing…thing, I do use some standard powersets, but I also have some I think are unique:
The main character can manipulate momentum and inertia (if something is already moving he can change it’s direction, speed it up, stop it, etc.) of inanimate objects that aren’t moving too fast and aren’t too heavy. Sort of a limited telekinesis for mobile objects.
Other powers are:
Musclemass manipulation. The character can move his muscles around his body so if he wants to run faster he’ll make his legs more muscular, if he wants to hit harder he’ll increase his arm strength, etc. He can only work with what he has, so he can’t spontaneously create muscles.
Unlimited metabolizing of alcohol. Essentially the guy can drink all he wants and never gets drunk or impaired. He’s used as a sort of spy; he’ll infiltrate an organization, go partying with the people, and get them drunk to try and get information out of them.
And a few others.
I used to (and still do) suffer from the problem in #2. I’m always trying to come with inventive, original powers. I doubt it’s something I’ll train myself out of, though. I have a lot of fun coming up with unique powers. Although, water manipulation is a bit generic for Showtime, but I feel it’s very malleable to my creativity. Also, I added that he could control its properties for a little extra kick. I think a writer’s creativity is also a very important factor in writing powers. A good writer can take a generic power and use it interestingly.
Yo guys, as a possible strategy for those of us who like to come up with unique powers (like Ragged), how about using simple logic. Identify a problem, fix it. All you need is a basic knowledge fo scientific principles I say. e.g No fire underwater? YOu could use the lame excuse about how your character is SO powerful, or you could look at fire and what it’s all about. It’s energy, essentially. And if you could continue that energy… Okay, that’s not really my idea. (http://www.superheronation.com/ – look for energy continuation or something) but it works! Your ketchup/tomato sauce is too slow? Have a hero that can manipulate the viscosity of liquids (Then put some limit like what he is in physical contact with) and viola! He could do stuff like run on water, make his saliva sticky, swim faster than most, make water thick etc.
And how would you explain that in 2 sentences? “I can manipulate viscosity. Basically, my ketchup.tomato sauce is never runny – so long as I can touch it.”