Hello, I'm an assistant editor providing writing advice. SN specializes in superhero writing advice, obviously, but most of the advice here applies to fantasy and sci-fi as well.

This isn’t as awesome as Janet Reid’s rejected-author-turned-nutjob, but I think I have my own pet loony.

Earlier today, I received the latest e-mail from a particular troll asking to be unbanned.  See if you can guess why he got banned.

SUBJECT: Shut up and listen for once. A master of diplomacy, this one.  Here’s a brief snippet:  ”You only really have experience at getting almost everything (including this) wrong without actually getting around to realising it… While you may have experience in your field, I study literature at a professional level.”   I’d like to preface this by saying that I don’t think credentials are terribly important in writing.  However, if you’re going to make an appeal to authority, perhaps you could come up with something more impressive than being an English major.  Thanks.

If you’d like to do your own, please go here.

I’ve linked this before, but it’s worth seeing again.

According to Lulu’s Titlescorer, “Superhero Nation” has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title.  Here are some titles that beat “Superhero Nation.”

• The Romance of Vampires (69%)
• The Vampire of Darkness (69%)
• The Magical Elf (69%)
• The the of of (41.4%)–what, you don’t like it?
• Dark Vampire (41.4%)

Darn it.  Next time, I’m writing fantasy.

It’s not quite a superhero comic book, but

please check it out anyway.

Since this is a website mainly about superhero writing, I should probably tie this comedy video into superhero writing to make it relevant for you. Well, this video might help you write a superhero who’s really a journalist in The Matrix cutting off lighthouse operators’ heads with laser beams.  Relevant enough?  (Caution: the language is a bit rough).

READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES.

Courtesy of Miss Snark.

Dammit.  Lady-friends roped me into Twilight tonight.  At least something good will come out of this: a drinking game. 

1. Take a sip every time someone broods.  (Small sip– save some room for #4 and #5). 
2. Take a drink every time there’s a product placement.  (I counted 7).  
3. Take a drink every time someone uses the word “understand.”  Take two drinks every time someone uses the phrase “you don’t understand” or “you can’t understand.” 
4. Take a drink every time someone compliments Bella or declares his devotion for her. 
5. Take two drinks every time the audience cheers at a shirtless male or an expression of love.
6. Take a drink everytime the audience laughs at something so bad it’s funny.  Take two drinks when a sparkly Edward and a sparkly Bella take a romp through a Disney-like forest. 
7. Take a drink every time the audience laughs at something that’s actually meant to be funny.  Take two drinks during the Face Punch scene.

“I hate reality television. If I wanted to see conmen humiliate themselves, I’d watch C-SPAN.”

Overheard at a college tutoring center…   

No, the Underground Railroad was not the world’s first subway system…   I don’t care what Wikipedia told you. 

The author behind My Writer’s Block got off lucky with this one– it definitely wasn’t that easy for me to get rid of Vista. 

This reminds me of my freshman year, when Dell computers suddenly started melting (and at least once bursting into flames) across campus.  I signed on as a marketer for a team of computer guys who were selling homemade computers that were suddenly desirable.  Our motto was “one melted computer is a tragedy; a hundred melted computers are an opportunity.” 

It’s pretty funny.  By the way, if you replace “quantum flux” with “Speed Force” or “Pym particles,” it applies just as well to superhero stories as it does for sci-fi.

I’m pretty sure this picture was taken from Green Lantern #9.  Batman gets a GL ring.

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This redubbing of a few Darth Vader scenes is pretty funny.  Caution: highly profane.

In particular, I found 1:15-1:50, 3:20-3:50, 6:35-6:40 and 7:10-7:25 hilarious.

Joel Schumacher is a director best-known for his vicious crimes against Batman, including putting nipples on the batsuit. Earlier today, I was browsing through TV Tropes and found that one of the Batman cartoons had a hilarious scene mocking Schumacher.  (The idiot in the scene is named Joel and is standing in front of a sign that says Shoemaker).

The Washington Post reveals that Iranian’s crack spies are getting dangerously close to uncovering the conspiracy surrounding Iran’s democratic movement.

The governor of greater Tehran, Morteza Tamadon, a staunch Ahmadinejad ally, claimed Wednesday that 800 artists and academics who had visited the United States in recent years were trained to protest the election outcome.

I met one of them in Washington!  I don’t remember discussing how to protest election outcomes, or even how to statistically identify electoral fraud.  But then again, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

CNN reports that Iran has outed another party involved in this vast democratic conspiracy:  CNN!  A spokesperson for the Iranian government has more:

This is the CNN’s schedule. They officially trained the people to come and hack Iran’s government Web sites. This is the English text, I can give it to you. This is a cyber war.”

I cannot remember what I was doing last Saturday.  Perhaps I was getting drunk as a Mormon in a barrel of rum*.  Or perhaps I was actually training hackers to destablize the Iranian government and the CIA kindly implanted fake memories of $6 margaritas so that I couldn’t give up any information under torture.

*Not likely, given that I don’t drink.  If you think I can afford $6 margaritas on a writer’s salary, you must be factoring in the CIA/Mossad stipends I get every month.

Dark comedy aside, I wish the best to the people of Iran, but unfortunately protests against undemocratic regimes are rarely successful in the short term.  In the heat of the moment, the government has several major advantages, including all-but-unmatchable firepower.

This is strikingly funny.

Bleach’s writing is not terribly inspired and it introduces its premise in a fairly awkward fashion.  However, this visual from episode 2 made me burst into laughter.  The hero is at school and meets someone that is obviously the girl he saw dice up a demon the night before.  (Because of secret identities, he can’t say anything to the people around him, though).  He starts to freak out and she turns to shake his hand.

If you’ve ever been to Arlington, VA, you know how accurate this is. Down to the bad rappers.

Ok, that settles it.  I’m getting cremated.

You deserve to lose if…

1. …you have access to every Russian and American ICBM and still cannot exterminate the human race.

2. …you make a human into a cyborg and then show him where to find his control chip. You deserve to have him tear out the control chip and kill you.

3.  …you make a cyborg with a control chip, and the control chip does not prevent him from ripping out the control chip.  What was the control chip doing?

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“Please enjoy our authentic tapas.  I am afraid they are not like that Taco Bell stuff you Americans like so much, sir, but if you want I can smother them in sour cream and you will hardly be able to tell the difference.”

Hat-tip to our Japanese correspondent.

I found this dangerously amusing. “Ah, excellent. Simmering sexual tension is my specialty.” Please look past the awful production values; they’re part of the humor.

Also, I like that they casted Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes) as Spock.  Except for  James Lee (Ando), he’s the only Heroes actor that strikes me as remotely talented. However, Quinto will probably go farther in Hollywood because he has the crucial advantage of being non-Asian.  Nobody’s Asian in the Movies, except for kung fu stars and ninjas. 

Summer Fun Cthulhu! Speaking of summer, it looks like that guy in the back of the photo could use some extra sunlight.

From Dr. Horrible.

1.  Your protagonist is Rick Blurry, a cigar-smoking, eyepatch-wearing superspy.  When Marvel’s lawyers call, perhaps you should have a better defense ready than “but he wears his eyepatch on his right eye!”

2. Your pitch includes the line:  “This is just like your other series, but good.”

3.  You are aroused by any of the characters.  (Yes, we can tell).

4.  It involves time-travel.

5.  You’re not sure whether you want a protagonist to live or not, so you put it to a vote.

Spill.com did a mock script showing how Michael Bay (the guy who did Pearl Harbor and Transformers) might have tried The Dark Knight.

I recommend that you read all of it, but this is my favorite part.

BRUCE WAYNE is standing in front of a mirror, flexing his sculpted, shirtless torso.

BRUCE: Let’s do this.

Cue AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”  A series of quick shots show BRUCE gearing up: putting on the boots, slapping on the gloves, a brief glance across those beautiful pecs.  Finally, there is no longer BRUCE WAYNE, but BATMAN standing before us.

BATMAN: Back in black.

Pyrotechnics erupt in the distance.  Wailing guitar solo.

(PG-13 for minor nudity)

1.  Mentioning Dragonball Z eight times would be questionable for any query, but maybe there’s a better analogue for your historical romance.

2. You think the only thing between you and getting published is that publishers misunderstand your spelling and grammatical choices.  If only they appreciated your style!

3. Your writing teacher told you to “write what you know,” so you write the story of a tragically unappreciated author who finally snaps and starts murdering editors.

4. Your writing teacher told you to make your characters sound realistic, so you write your teen romance as a series of text-messages.  You receive a cryptic message from the publisher: “nothnxbai.”

5. Your main inspiration is Eragon.

I’d like you to watch 3:50-4:05 of this clip. There appears to be a noticeable plot hole here. Can you spot it? (Answer below).

Got it?

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I recommend that you look at the entire list on Bookgasm, but here are some of the highlights.

8.  The market for Iron Chef slash-fiction isn’t quite as broad as you may have assumed.  “Oh, Morimoto,” Chef Batali sighed.  “Stuff me like a pepper!”

31. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.

32. Be thankful that they merely refused to publish it.  After all, submitting a manuscript that ends with the protagonist realizing that it was just a dream (or was it?) usually causes the publisher to edit your face with a pair of brass knuckles.

36. God may have told you to write this book, but he apparently forgot to tell you how to give it a decent ending.

47. The entire point of your book has already been more satisfactorily made in a single strip of Family Circus.

Penn State recently released a workplace orientation video about potentially angry students, such as veterans. But which angry students did they miss?

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A Berlin woman divorced her husband for cleaning too much.  “The wife got through 15 years of marriage putting up with the man’s penchant for doing household chores, tidying up and rearranging the furniture.”  One of the advantages of marrying me is that this will certainly not be a problem.

You can see more Dinosaur Comics here.

evilHow is an amusing resource for supervillains-in-training.

• Notre Dame just announced that the President is doing our commencement speech this year.  I’ve always been opposed to the idea of commencements and do not plan to attend mine, regardless of the speaker.  This announcement merely makes it absolutely certain that my absence will cause my parents to flip out.  They’re still sore that I successfully missed my high school commencement, even though I had a valid excuse then.
• In other Notre Dame news, the police busted my St. Patrick’s Day party.  Very exciting.
• Over these past three days, we’ve been averaging 1000 visitors per day.  That’s about three times as many as normal.

(It is).

Comedy and humor are notoriously hard to teach, but here are some tips.

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A Harvard professor and a Texan start talking at a bar.  The Texan asks “Where ya from?”  The Harvard professor says “Where I come from, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions.”  The Texan asks “Where ya from, jackass?”

1. The hero would definitely be American.  And possibly a woman, but nevertheless the most acclaimed knight of all time.
2. The hero would find the Holy Grail halfway through the story.  Just because.
3. The official currency at King Arthur’s court will be gold pieces, and everyone will wear plate mail.  With leather pants.
4. Neither King Arthur nor Lancelot would mind if this knight started dating Guinevere.  After all, the hero is universally acknowledged to be the noblest and sexiest knight in all the land, so of course he should have the noblest and sexiest woman in all the land.  Duh.
5. After the hero effortlessly wins Guinevere’s heart, she never even thinks of pining for anyone else (even though she, umm, cheated on Arthur with Lancelot).
6. The hero would be of ridiculously high birth, probably the heretofore-forgotten eldest son of King Arthur.  Probably just back from the heretofore-forgotten American Crusade.
7. If male, the hero is about 50% likely to be a furry.  Bizarrely, this will not make it any less likely that he gets together with Guinevere.
8. Nobody will starve, get dysentery, get gangrene from a minor wound, or die of battle exhaustion.  What kind of medieval story do you think this is?
9. The hero may have a bizarre sexual fetish, like wanting to have sex while on fire.  Fortunately, he will discover that everyone else has the same fetish.
10. Other characters will not even try to apply prevailing social norms (particularly related to gender roles and sex) to the main character.  After all, he’s American.  Duh!
11. The hero probably has a dragon.  Depending on #7, he may be a dragon.
12. Any sort of religiosity, prayer, or references to faith will be notably absent.
13. Gallahad, the Green Knight, and a squire dressed as an ocelot are fairly likely to make you wish the knighthood took its don’t ask, don’t tell policy more seriously.

“Heroes is like looking at an ex-girlfriend. You know there was so much potential there, and you want to believe in it, but you can’t look past the scathing flaws that make you wrong for one another.”

–Jeremy Alonzo

From Ultimate Spiderman #10.

There is someone on my floor that is obnoxiously loud on his cellphone.  I am not exaggerating when I say that I feel like a part of his conversations even though he’s ten feet down the hallway and my door is closed.  After four or five of these conversations, I politely asked him to move down another 10-15 feet and let me sleep.  He said that he couldn’t because he had gotten complaints from the other side of the hall, too, and  he didn’t want to go into the stairwell because the echoes were too bad.  (Boohoohoo).

After another week of suffering through plodding descriptions of his bizarre sexual dilemmas and the many internships he’s considering for this summer, it was time for action. I convinced the residents of the floor to play obnoxiously loud music whenever he talks too loud.  I’ve only had to play the 1986 Transformers theme twice.  Problem solved.

I’ve noticed some uncanny similarities between Kurt Warner (Arizona’s quarterback) and Sylar from Heroes.

1. One has spent the better part of a season mangling his enemies in spectacularly gruesome fashions.  The other is a serial killer.
2. One wears white and red.  The other is white and usually spattered in red.
3. Sylar has superpowers that allow him to avoid any lasting injuries. Warner doesn’t need superpowers.

How does Larry Fitzgerald make all those crazy catches? Because he knows that if he drops a pass, his head is gone.

Champions Online (the latest superhero-meets-World of Warcraft game) has a quiz I found kind of amusing.

You are pure evil, and hate personified. You don’t care anything about your fellow man, and are guided only by your desire to rule over your inferiors, i.e. everybody but you. ‘Mercy,’ you ask, prior to grinding an enemy beneath your mighty heel, ‘What is mercy?’

Take the quiz!

I was browsing around Once Upon A Geek, which has a lot of amusing superhero content.  For example, I liked this blending of Peanuts and the Watchmen.

They also collected some interesting Christmas-themed covers.  Below the jump:  Spiderman lassoing a surly Wolverine with Christmas lights, and two shots of Santa packing heat.

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