1.  Basic proofreading skills.  Poor proofreading skills raise all sorts of red flags about a prospective writer (such as diligence, attention to detail and sometimes intelligence).  In contrast, good proofreading skills suggest the writer will be easier to work with, will require less hand-holding and can be trusted with proofreading assignments.  In particular, editors have more important things to do than double-checking everything written by publisher’s assistants or interns.  In an especially competitive field, like the publishing industry, a candidate with many typos in his/her resume or cover letter has virtually no chance of getting hired.

2. Conciseness.  Almost all corporate writing is shorter than 1000 words and longer writing probably isn’t entry-level (e.g. legal contracts or Gallup survey results or long-form journalism).  Besides proofreading, the ability to convey information quickly and clearly has probably been the most important writing skill in my brief professional experience.

3. The ability to vary writing style based on target audience and purpose.  For example, Notre Dame’s marketing materials will sound different and will probably focus on different themes than marketing materials for West Point or the University of Chicago.  Promotional copy for Grand Theft Auto will probably sound different than copy for Nintendogs, unless Rock Star and Nintendo are working on a very unorthodox crossover.

(Before you laugh, there actually was a Punisher/Archie crossover.  We can only pray that they aren’t already working on Grand Theft Ausky).

3.1. A basic understanding of motivations and thought processes.  For example, if you’re trying to convince teens not to smoke, I would definitely recommend NOT leading with long-term health consequences like cancer because most of your target audience isn’t thinking that far ahead.  (And any teen that is thinking 20+ years ahead almost assuredly does not smoke, regardless of your writing).  Instead, I’d recommend focusing on mundane, immediate concerns like bad breath/godawful kissing, stained teeth, a shortness of breath/athletic handicap, the financial costs, etc.  (For example, smoking one cigarette a day over the course of high school works out to something like $700, which is enough for maybe 25 high school dates or 10 pairs of Abercrombie pants or 50 meals out or 20 used copies of Grand Theft Ausky or whatever else teens like to spend money on).

4. The ability to maturely respond to professional criticism/advice.  It would be hard for an editor or another supervisor to work with someone that gets defensive or despondent whenever revisions are suggested.  Relatedly, quiet confidence is really helpful.  If the author is not convinced that he/she is (or at least could be) a talented writer, it will discourage anybody else from getting enthusiastic about his/her work.  DO NOT KNOCK YOURSELF IN YOUR COVER LETTER.  In some ways, it is even more dispiriting than addressing a supervisor as “Hey Homeboy.”  With substantial work, I might be able to teach someone about basic business etiquette, but there is absolutely no chance that I can convince someone to be confident in their work if they aren’t already.

4.1. A commitment to learning and improvement.  If your writing actually is perfect, I would recommend starting your own company and/or self-publishing rather than working for people that know less about writing than you do.  Otherwise, I would definitely working on improving your writing as much as possible.  As much as possible, try not to make the same mistake twice.  Entry-level writers aren’t expected to be master craftsmen, but are expected to be able to learn from setbacks.  When interns fail, it’s less because they don’t have the skills and usually more because they aren’t making enough progress learning the skills.

5. Appreciation for (and preferably knowledge of) the company’s products/services and industry.  Please spend at least a few minutes checking out the company’s website and Wikipedia page before writing your cover letter, because otherwise it’ll be pretty obvious.

6. The ability to anticipate and address objections and obstacles.  For example, if you’re writing a cover letter but don’t have much experience in the field, one obstacle your application will face is whether you’re qualified to succeed in the job.  It would really help to talk about something you’ve done that’s vaguely related to the field because (particularly in this economy) you might be competing against applicants that have some experience.  For example, if the job description mentions that the job is very fast-paced and that the deadlines are tight, it’d be helpful if you could give a concrete example.  For example, “Over my two years as an editor for our college newspaper, I didn’t miss any 3 AM print deadlines.”

7. A basic grasp of business etiquette and professionalism.  For example, if a writer’s cover letter is addressed to “Hey Homeboy,” then that person is probably not ready to write professionally.  I would recommend “Dear Ms. Smith” or “Dear Mr. Smith,” unless Dr. or Professor fits better.   (If you’re looking at a position that involves correspondence with government officials, I’d recommend reading this protocol guide–some officials take protocol too seriously).

1.  Names of characters and teams/organizations.  Character names are pretty easy to change, so publishers probably won’t reject an otherwise publishable manuscript because the names aren’t good enough.  Nor would I expect incredible names to convince a publisher to accept a manuscript that would otherwise have been unpublishable.

If you’re worried about the names in your story, I’d recommend using generic placeholders until something you like better comes to mind.   (If you write John Smith, Super-Lad or another despicably bland name a few hundred times, your dissatisfaction will force you to come up with a better name).

1.1. Copyright considerations.  If the issue is just that your character has the same name as a fairly obscure Marvel or DC hero, this is probably not a huge problem.  The publisher might ask you to change the name, but that’s such an easy change that it would probably not scare away publishers.  However, publishers might pass if the copyright issues are more integral to the plot and cannot be changed as easily, particularly if the concept is very similar to a well-known character.  The easier it would be to change, the less likely it is to scare publishers.  (Alternately, you’re fine if you’re covered by “fair use”).

2.  Superpower selection.  If you stay away from superpowers that make it too hard to challenge the characters, pretty much everything else can work.  The story will be a bit easier to write if the superpowers are versatile and it’ll be a bit easier to read if the powers require little explanation.  Besides that, I don’t think superpower selection matters very much.  It probably won’t make the difference between a story that’s worth reading and one that isn’t.

I’d recommend focusing more on how to use the powers to create an interesting story.   For example…

• What are some ways you could use your story’s powers to create interesting experiences?  (For example, maybe John gets hit in the face by Kansas at a million miles per hour rather than “John teleported to Kansas”). Please see #3 and 3.1 here for more details.
• How can you use the powers to show us things we haven’t seen before?
• How do the character’s powers affect his perspective and/or personality?

3. Costumes (in a novel).  Costumes will almost assuredly not affect the reading experience in a novel in any substantial way.  You could assign colors by throwing darts at a color wheel and pretty much nobody would notice. Unless the costume is extremely bizarre (like something made out of human flesh), it definitely won’t affect the publishability of a novel manuscript.  In a comic book submission, a really hideous costume might raise questions about your artists’ style, which is a more serious problem.

4. Minor demographic details, like hair/eye color, weight, race, etc.  Unless these details are significant to the plot or developing the character or otherwise used to make an impression, they don’t matter much.  I’m a bit alarmed when authors agonize over things like hair color.  Unless the detail actually matters, don’t worry about it.  Just pick something and go with it.

A parting thought: If you’ve put more thought into the main character’s costume and/or superpowers than personality and defining traits, I’d recommend going back to the drawing board.  When editors and publisher’s assistants evaluate a novel manuscript, their reader’s reports will usually mention the characterization, the plot and the quality of the writing, etc. Superpowers and costumes, not so much.

1. Have the character(s) put the superpowers to different uses.  If you’ve already had your characters stop a bank robbery, it might be more interesting to have them prevent an assassination or conduct a high-speed chase or solve a difficult crime that has already happened than, say, stop a robbery at a jewelry store.  Varying your scenes gives you a better chance to leave readers guessing about what will happen and how.

2. Please try some different obstacles and hazards, hopefully something the character isn’t used to.  For example, if a character can fly 100+ miles per hour, an ordinary car chase probably won’t be very interesting because there’s so little challenge.  For example, what if there’s a massive windstorm (either natural or controlled by a superpower or magic)?  Chicago had 50+ mph winds a few days ago and it was hard enough to walk without getting knocked over, so I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to chase someone in the air.  If the character is used to using his powers in a very deliberate and methodical way (e.g. like a telepath might benefit from concentration or Batman might benefit from preparation), what will he do in a fast-moving crisis that caught him by surprise?*

*Don’t try to tell me that “OF COURSE BATMAN WAS READY FOR A SHARK ATTACK–THAT’S WHY HE HAD EXPLODING SHARK REPELLENT.”  Only madness lies that way.

2.1. Please keep low-risk uses of superpowers to a minimum.  For example, the scene where a character first tries using his powers is usually pretty low-risk (e.g. Peter Parker testing what his webs can do).  As a brief scene, that’s not a huge liability, but if you have 3+ characters with superpowers, I wouldn’t recommend spending pages putting each character in such a situation.  I feel that one character just testing out his powers tends to come off surprisingly like any other character just testing her powers out, even if the powers are different.  One possibility is that the characters learn and/or test their powers in a risky situation.  For example, maybe the characters are tested for something like admission into a superhero team shortly after developing superpowers.  If the character really wants to make the team, the learning process will probably be higher-stakes and more interesting than just webbing around town.

3. Show us an experience, preferably one we haven’t seen before.  It might help to try forcing the character to occasionally use his powers in a way they are clearly not meant to be used.  For example, a character that has wings might have some success using them underwater (i.e. like flippers).  What would it be like to try flying underwater or, umm, maybe activate flame-based powers underwater?  What would it be like using forcefields as a makeshift telekinetic power?  (Probably more messy than actual telekinesis, I’d imagine).  If a fire-controller needs to cross a 10 foot chasm, would it be possible to use his powers to create enough recoil to send himself sprawling over the chasm?  How does a guy with a massive laser rifle deal with a situation that requires a more gentle touch than killing everybody, like dispersing rioters?

4. If there are any limitations to the characters’ powers, maybe they come into play.  How does the character get around these limitations?  For example, in the third X-Men movie, the soldiers prepared for Magneto’s metal-controlling powers by getting rid of anything metal.  Magneto got around that by bringing the Golden State Bridge with him.  Alternately, perhaps the character’s powers are unusually unreliable or unavailable during the scene.  For example, maybe your powersuited character runs out of fuel for his jets, so he either has to scrap together some alternative (fast food grease: I’m lovin’ it as an extremely primitive fuel?) or figure out how to save the day without flying.

5.  If you have several superpowered characters, you might try different combinations of characters on various missions.  For example, if you have a team with a fragile psychic, a marksman, a tank like the Hulk, and a ninja, the marksman will probably be in the same sort of relatively-safe support role, letting the tank take the hits.  Mixing up the rosters on various missions helps give characters chances to test skills they probably wouldn’t use much otherwise.*  If the next mission pairs up the marksman with just the psychic, the marksman’s role would look pretty different.  For example, he might be a lot closer to the action so that he takes fire and/or distracts the enemy, which would be totally unnecessary if his partner were the unjolly green giant.  Alternately, what does a ninja do if his partner is the Hulk?  Should he just assume that stealth is out from minute one or try to do something stealthy on his own before giving the tank the signal to come in?  (Good luck getting the Hulk to wait that long, though).

5.1. Here are some reasons the team might mix up the roster rather than use everybody on every mission. 

• There’s more than one emergency and the team had to split up to deal with all of them.
• Some of the members may be too far away at a particular moment to respond to an emergency.
• Heroes might be physically incapacitated or otherwise unable to help.
• The situation might call for a smaller team.  For example, maybe it’s a stealth mission or transport space is limited.
• Some members have other responsibilities and are only available during particularly grave situations.
• Some members might be deemed liabilities on a particular mission.  For example, you’d probably want to leave the Human Torch behind for a mission in a chemical plant or the Hulk for a mission anywhere.  Alternately, in a more bureaucratic organization (like a police organization), members might be on administrative leave if they’ve done something to annoy the boss.  (Like threatening to eat a district attorney).
• The organization might want to leave somebody in reserve in case another disaster strikes, particularly if supervillains have done diversionary attacks before.
• The organization is large and coordinating all of the members is complicated.  Bringing along everybody could result in more collateral damage than necessary.
• The organization might split up the members into smaller units to be more efficient.  For example, in real life cities, the police will typically patrol in pairs, but might deploy hundreds or thousands of officers in a large-scale conflagration like a riot, a hippie convention or a 49ers game.
• Keeping the heroes with the same few teammates as much as possible helps them build camaraderie and practice effective teamwork.  For example, in the military, I think soldiers are more likely to feel really close to their teammates on their fireteam (population: 4) than other members of their company (population: ~150).
• Splitting into smaller groups gives the organization more opportunities for developing leaders.  For example, when the police need to replace a captain, competent lieutenants frequently get the nod.  In contrast, if your organization only works as one unit, then it would probably be gratuitously difficult to replace the leader if he leaves or gets temporarily incapacitated, because nobody will have much leadership experience besides the first guy.

UPDATE: He’s having second thoughts about the romance.  He thought that the two characters had about as much reason to fall in love as an abusive ~100-year old vampire and a vapid teenager without any redeeming qualities.

What does a good superhero story include?  

• Interesting characters.  I’d like to see some personality traits (or combinations of traits) I haven’t seen before and some unusual decisions that most other superheroes wouldn’t make.  In particular, when the character gets superpowers, I think that a character’s decision to become a superhero will be more interesting if it doesn’t come right after the character gets superpowers.
• Particularly if your target audience is older than 13, I think it would really help to give the characters something exciting to do outside of combat.  Depending on your genre and personal preferences, that could include investigation/crime-solving, relation-building , scenes from the superheroes’ regular lives that develop them, etc.
• A hard-to-predict plot.

Interesting story blurbs.  I saw this synopsis on SuperheroNovels.com: “…aboard a late night flight from Tokyo to Portland, a disabled war veteran transforms into a werewolf. Now it’s up to a Japanese punk band, a Muslim terrorist, two stoner pilots, and a limbless superhero to subdue the hellhound.”  Hmm.  I like the wacky mix of “protagonists” (although I’m more likely to root for the werewolf over the terrorist–at least the werewolf gets better 29 days out of 30).

Are there any implants that give superpowers?  The most common superpower, definitely.  I’m not aware of any other surgically viable superpowers now, but I think some will be within 20-30 years.  One surgical implant I use in my own writing is recoil suppressors in the wrist and sound mufflers in the ears that dampen the sound of gunfire.  In terms of mental abilities, some sort of implant for technopathy might be viable within 30 years.

If you’re rejected by one agent.  Umm, keep trying.  I’d recommend revising your query if you’ve submitted to 10 agents and haven’t heard back from any within a month.

Most evil animals?  My picks would be platypi, moose, Norwegians, jellyfish and squirrels.

1. The character’s loved ones are mostly superpowered and/or not in harm’s way. For example, if the character is a superpowered alien, chances are his family members are, too, so protecting them from danger is a bit less essential. Alternately, in Booster Gold’s case, his family is hundreds of years in the future, so he doesn’t have to worry about them getting hurt.

2. The character has family/friends to worry about, but a secret identity is not an option. For example, Alicia Masters might be safer if Ben Grimm had a secret identity, but there’s no way for someone that looks as unusual as The Thing to pull off a secret identity. In The Taxman Must Die, one of the main characters is a mutant alligator that wants a secret identity (because anyone badass has enough enemies to need a secret identity, he reasons), but he surlily discovers that Clark Kent-style glasses don’t give a mutant alligator much of a disguise. (He attributes it to his poor acting skills).

2.1. The character’s origin story was caught on tape or otherwise too public to try a secret identity.  Perhaps the New York Times or Daily Bugle had someone covering that new exhibit of genetically modified spiders and happened to notice that one went missing–it’s not TOTALLY implausible that journalists might do something competent, right?*

*Despite CNN’s best efforts to suggest otherwise.  More on Casey Anthony at 9.

3. The character has loved ones, but is so scary that nobody’s brave enough to mess with them.  For example, if a criminal happened to find out the connection between Alfred and Batman, he’d have to be pretty damn nuts to take a shot at Alfred unless he was really looking forward to pain. Bad career move.  If you have a problem with Batman, it’d probably be less suicidal to gun directly for him (so that at least you’re not distracted when he comes for you).

4. The character might be so distant and/or alienated from others (particularly nonpowered civilians) that a secret identity would be besides the point.  For example, is there any civilian in Dr. Manhattan’s life that he’d actually care about losing? Does your superhero even want to protect his pre-superpowered identity or is that something that’s just totally irrelevant to him now? Alternately, Batman might fit in here, too. It’s not clear to me that he cares enough about Alfred or anybody else that threatening Alfred would achieve any desired effect for a criminal.  (Again, unless defenestration-by-Batman is the desired outcome).
 
5. For personal reasons (such as ideology, values, job, personality traits, etc), the character doesn’t use a secret identity even though he might benefit from one. Here are some possibilities that come to mind:

• Someone that had more of an ego might want the attention. So he/she might not want to keep his identity hidden. For example, Tony Stark outs himself at the end of Iron Man.
• Someone that was unusually brave and/or foolhardy might care less about the potential risk of going public.
• Someone that was a real loner might have fewer people to care about.  See #4 above.
• Someone that was lazy and/or careless might not be willing and/or able to keep a secret identity going.
• Government employees might want to be open because they hold themselves accountable to the public and/or have problems with vigilantes that don’t. See Marvel’s Civil War, etc.
• Depending on the antagonists, protecting loved ones might not be an issue.   For example, maybe the hero deals mainly with villains that are not particularly likely to hunt down loved ones (like Godzilla, villains that are greedy but not particularly vicious, Iowans, etc).
• Depending on the character’s job, security for family and maybe friends might be less of an issue.  For example, if the character is a military officer and his wife and kids are stationed on a military base, they’d presumably be in less danger than the average civilian.  Which is not to say it’s all fun and games on military bases.  For example, most of the inhabitants of Parris Island and the outlying areas are man-eating reptiles and sharks, and you can only play a quality round of danger nut at sea.
• Someone that was unusually honest and/or Canadian might not feel comfortable lying to everybody. At the VERY least, maintaining a secret identity would probably involve lying to your coworkers and most of your friends quite often. (“Clark, the Daily Planet’s softball team needs you on Saturday. Wait, you’re busy AGAIN? What are you doing?”) And good luck explaining to your boss why you weren’t able to make the big meeting without getting fired.  Also, Canadians can’t lie, which puts them at a disadvantage in the double-life department.  (Maybe that’s why there are so few Canadian superheroes?)
• For whatever reason(s), other people are unusually supportive of the superhero’s work.  For example, if being a superhero is totally legal and the character’s friends and family don’t have any objections, then there’s somewhat less reason for the superhero to hide his involvement.
• In the comments below, O.R. mentions pride as a possible motivation not to use a secret identity.  For example, a mutant in X-Men might regard it as cowardice and/or kowtowing to non-mutant discrimination to hide with a secret identity.  Alternately, a mutant that COULD take a secret identity might opt not to out of team solidarity if some of the team members could not.

-: Your readers have probably seen secret identities used quite a bit before.  It’s arguably the most cliche, conventional aspect of superhero stories.  If you go down this path, I’d recommend having it play out in unusual ways.  For example, in Kick-Ass, the protagonist’s attempt to protect his superhero identity from his father leads to a touching and darkly comical scene where the father mistakenly infers that the son was a victim of a sexual crime.

+: It’s a fairly easy way to build coherence between the superpowered side of the story (e.g. what Spider-Man is doing) and the non-powered side of the story (what Peter Parker is doing).  Another possibility that’s pretty well-worn is showing how his superpowered side affects his non-powered life.  For example, Spider-Man 2 covered how hard it was to come up with time for both.  Another possibility would be showing how the strains (injuries, stress, other damages) of one affect the other.

-: Especially in stories where only a villain or two uncover the secret identity, secret identities tend to cause side-characters to act atypically dumb.  How many investigative journalists interact with Clark Kent or Peter Parker every day but can’t seem to ask the right questions about how exactly Peter Parker is the only photographer in the world to keep getting phenomenal Spidey shots and how Superman’s face looks awfully familiar.  If you do go with a secret identity, I’d recommend having the secret identity live or die based on whether the main character can successfully thwart the side-characters’ suspicions, rather than just having the side-characters be too dumb to get suspicious in the first place.

+: It adds an element of human-ness to characters that might otherwise be very hard to relate to.  Giving characters a life where people don’t know they’re super tends to give the writer easier opportunities to give them relatable things to do.  I feel Fantastic Four is an example of a team that has so little regular stuff going on that it’s harder to think of them as real people.  (In theory, the superhero team-as-family angle COULD create relatability, but I think it worked a lot better in The Incredibles than in most FF stories).

-: I think secret identities are exceedingly predictable, especially early on.  In the first half of the story, there’s pretty much no chance anyone will accidentally stumble upon the secret identity. Unless you have something unusual in mind to shake things up, I would not count on the secret identity to generate much drama early on.  (It could still be useful in other ways, such as making the character more relatable or enhancing plot coherence).

+: It could be a relatively rough edge for a hero that might otherwise be a bit too purely heroic.  Usually, people concealing their identity are neck-deep in shadiness.  The superhero’s attempt to conceal his/her identity could lead to otherwise sympathetic characters questioning his intentions and/or otherwise conflicting with the hero.  I feel that morally gray conflicts (i.e. conflicts with characters that are at least somewhat sympathetic) tend to be more complex, unpredictable and satisfying.

-: If you’re doing a comic book, be aware that a mask tends to be the goofiest-looking part of the costume.  Masks also tend to make it harder for the character to visually show emotion.  You can limit the damage there by leaving the mouth area exposed (like Batman) and/or using a mask that retracts or is removed outside of combat (like Iron Man).

-: I feel it’s more logistically difficult to work in individual secret identities into a team series than an individual series.  The more superhero characters you have to develop, the harder it is to develop their secret identities, particularly if their secret identities have substantially different side-casts.  I’d use Dynamo Five as a counterexample here.  Its five protagonists do have secret identities with different side-casts in different towns and nevertheless manages to do something interesting things with the secret identities.  That said, it spends very little space on those scenes.  If you’re going with a superhero team, one approach that might be more appealing is developing the characters off-the-job by having them do things together more than with side-characters that don’t have much to do with the other members of the team.

1. Invisible jets will probably be feasible within 50 years.  We already have rudimentary cloaking devices and one researcher suggests that it could eventually be used on submarines.  (I wonder if anyone would bother applying this technology to a jet, though.  Isn’t the ability to see jets irrelevant if the battle is resolved from miles away?)

2. An Iron Man-style powersuit might be viable someday.  We already have rudimentary jet packs, military grade lasers, exoskeletons and a five-pound rocket launcher.  I’m not a scientist, but it strikes me as fairly likely that engineers could figure out how to refine and combine those elements.  Then a few questions remain (how to power it, how to stop concussive forces from killing the pilot, and why you’d bother spending all that money on a shell for a human when you could do more with a remotely-operated suit or a robot).

3. Technopathy might be theoretically possible.  According to Scientific American, “Signals channeled directly from the brain can already control computers and other machines.”  From there, I think it’s relatively easy to suspend disbelief that someone might be so capable at doing it that he can hack into machines with his mind.

4. It’s sort of believable that Batman could be a superb fighter even though he’s probably older than 30.  The average age of the members of Navy SEAL Team Six was 36.  In sports, a few football players have played deep into their 30s and Brett Favre had an elite season in 2009 despite being 40.  Emmitt Smith’s career lasted 4400 carries, and I’m guessing most of them ended with a tackle by at least one 300 pound defender.

LEGAL

5. Prosecutorial discretion gives authors a lot of leeway in how they cover the police’s relationship with superheroes.  American “prosecuting attorneys have nearly absolute and unreviewable power to choose whether or not to bring criminal charges.”  So, even though most acts of superheroics could be construed as felonies, it’s definitely believable that a prosecutor might pass on indicting a superhero, particularly if the hero is effective and/or popular.  (In the United States, district attorneys are either elected directly or appointed by an elected official, so indicting Superman for breaking-and-entering into a supervillain’s Fortress of Terror might be an unsound career move).

6. Some aspects of U.S. jurisprudence are decidedly conducive to hijinks and excitement.  For example, forcible personal jurisdiction.  There’s a scene in The Dark Knight where a criminal flees to China because China won’t extradite him to Gotham.  Batman kidnaps (shanghais?) him from China and turns him over to the Gotham police.  Assuming a prosecutor wants to file charges, a judge will hear the case.  According to Law and the Multiverse, “the Supreme Court has consistently held that ‘the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by the fact that he had been brought within the court’s jurisdiction by reason of a forcible abduction.’”  By the way, I can’t even begin to imagine what circumstances prompted the Supreme Court to address this issue often enough to have a consistent opinion on it.

1. What is the character’s personality like? What are his key traits?

2. What are the character’s goals/motivations like?  How do those tie into the character’s personality and background?  (I guess it’s possible that there’s a not-particularly-bright athlete out there whose burning life goal is to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but trying to make the varsity squad would probably be more intuitive).

3. What sort of unusual decisions does the character make that other superheroes (or superheroes-to-be) wouldn’t?  In particular, why does the character choose to become a superhero?  Is there anything in the character’s personality or background that influences this decision?  (I’d look at that especially hard if the character wasn’t notably brave or violent before getting superpowers).

4.  How is the character different from other superheroes-to-be?  

5.  How is the character different from other characters in the story, particularly other superheroes (if applicable).  

6.  Are there any ways this character’s background, personality and/or skills make him a good (and/or bad) fit for the plot?  Either could create drama.

• Sherlock Holmes is a good fit against a villain like Professor Moriarty because Moriarty is so dangerous that only someone as competent as Holmes could stop him.  That raises the stakes and makes it easier to challenge Holmes.  (Challenging protagonists is key to generating drama–if the protagonist easily outmatches his obstacles, it probably won’t be as interesting as it could be).
• If a character is a bad fit, he’d have to work harder to overcome obstacles.  For example, Chuck, Bad Company and The Taxman Must Die are about relatively normal people thrust into super-dangerous spy jobs.  The characters’ lack of preparation and personalities help create tension/conflict with teammates and helps writers wring drama out of obstacles that might have been mundane/forgettable for a spy with years of experience.
• It’s possible to do both.  For example, Dexter is a serial killer that works as a police crime scene analyst.  On one hand, he’s less likely to get caught because he knows what they’re looking for and can sabotage the investigation.  On the other hand, they’re unusually close to him and have started to ask questions about why he misses so much work.