In my list of common day jobs for superheroes, I forgot soldiers.  Ack!  How did I miss that?  Anyway, I just added them.  What sort of tips would you recommend for an author writing a story about a superhero soldier?

We’ve already done a general article on the dangers of using children as side-characters, but this article will discuss only the most dangerous kind of child character: The Scrappy.

Generally, a Scrappy is a character that is hated by readers, usually because he’s exaggeratedly inept in a way that is meant to be funny.  For example, instead of having a slight speech impediment, he’ll be Jar-Jar Binks.  Instead of being a bit younger than the other characters, he’ll be Scrappy Doo.  This character usually distracts from the more competent characters, often so much that he becomes a hate figure.

Here are some common misconceptions that lead authors to use Scrappies…

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Sometimes a minor character will “steal” the scene from the main character, taking so much of the spotlight that the main character just seems to disappear.  Here are several scenarios that often to lead to scene-stealing.

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“Keep the change, ya filthy animal.”  Indeed!  If your character changes in some way , it’s usually a good idea to “keep the change” rather than undo the change later on.  Backtracking often makes the characterization feel unsatisfying and usually suggests that there was no reason to make the change in the first place.  If the hero moves from psychopathic to mostly sane, it probably won’t feel right if he suddenly jerks back to psychopathic two episodes later.  (I’m looking at you, Sylar!)

In a novel or comic book, backtracking is best-handled as a major failure for the main character.  For example, it might be a decisive event that sets up the climactic struggle.  As an immature kid, Simba runs away when his father gets killed.  That sets up his return to fight Scar in the climax, establishing that he has finally become responsible.  Alternately, the hero backtracks because the hero loses at the end.  For example, if The Lion King were a dystopian tragedy about Simba failing to become mature, Simba gets hunted down and eaten by the hyenas shortly after fleeing to the desert.  That’ll teach you to try to run away from your problems!

Backtracking is generally not well-suited for traits that aren’t particularly important, or for minor characters. Backtracking tends to take a lot of space (to clear up potential confusion), so it probably isn’t worthwhile unless the character and trait are crucial to the story.

Now I’m going back to watch Home Alone.

Generally, character overlap is problematic.  If two characters are interchangeable or perform the same role in your story, removing one is probably wise.  Having a smaller cast-size tends to save space, improve characterization and facilitates tighter scenes.

Twins (and triplets and quadruplets, etc.) tend to be either indistinguishable copies or slightly modified versions of the same mold.  If they’re indistinguishable, then the second twin is heavily redundant with the first and either can be easily removed.

On the other hand, some twins have only a slight difference, usually along a single character trait.  For example, one is optimistic and the other is downcast, or quiet vs. loud/outgoing, etc.  There are a few problems with that.  First, one-dimensional differentiation is typically flimsy and shallow.  Why not just make them distinct characters?  Second, it’s generally harder for readers to keep twins apart, particularly identical ones.

Giving your characters urgent goals will help make your story dramatic and interesting.  For example, let’s say John wants to go to prom, but his parents won’t let him unless he does well on a chemistry test.  Will he actually go to prom?  That’s a dramatic question.

Unfortunately, many manuscripts introduce the character without a goal, hoping that readers will trudge along until the character actually has something to do.  Don’t trap yourself into something like this.

CADET DAVIS:  In this first chapter, your hero doesn’t do very much except for walking across town and chatting with another character.  What’s the point?  What’s he trying to accomplish?

AUTHOR:  He’s introducing himself and the setting.

CADET DAVIS:  That’s what you’re trying to accomplish.  What’s his goal?  What’s at stake for this character?

AUTHOR:  Well, nothing, not yet anyway.  In a few chapters, he’ll find out that he has to realize his destiny by going on a quest to stop the villain.

CADET DAVIS:  If nothing’s at stake now, why will readers find this chapter interesting?

AUTHOR:  *silence*

Unfortunately, if publishers or readers find your manuscript’s first few pages boring, they will not keep reading.  From the earliest part of your story, your main character needs to have a goal.

So what do you do if your hero doesn’t know what his main goal is yet?  For example, at the start of Harry Potter, Harry doesn’t know that his primary goal is to “go to Hogwarts and thwart Voldemort.”  He doesn’t even know that he’s a wizard.  J.K. Rowling used temporary goals to tide us over.  For example, “read the letter that Uncle Vernon is trying to hide from you.”  Those goals made him interesting even though we didn’t know anything about his magical destiny.

What sort of temporary goals work? Anything that has high-stakes for the character.  It doesn’t have to be life or death, of course. (Harry Potter only needed to obtain a letter!)

What sort of temporary goals don’t work?  Joy rides.  If a character is trying something just for kicks, or to have a good time or just because he’s curious, the stakes are probably not high enough for him for us to care.  One main exception to the rule against joy rides is that sometimes, deep into a superhero story, you can briefly show the character trying out his new superpowers.  That will stall the plot, but that’s mostly OK because we need to know what the hero is capable of.  Also, by that point of the story, you better have convinced readers that you have a plot or you are screwed anyway.

Homo superiors are characters that are just like humans, but better.  That usually makes them bland and two-dimensional, like Superman or Legolas.  This quiz will help you diagnose the problem and fix it.

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A Chosen One is a hero that is passively chosen for greatness, like Eragon.  Readers typically prefer characters that make their own destiny.  This quiz will help you diagnose and fix the problem.

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Mary Sues are characters that are overpowered and too perfect.  This test will help you diagnose and fix the problem.  It typically takes around ten minutes.

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When I’m reading a novel manuscript, immortal characters make me roll my eyes.   

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Occasionally, an author will breathlessly offer some revelation about a character’s origin.  (Luke and Leia are siblings!  Sylar is actually a Petrelli! That mysterious old man is actually a god!)  Secret origin stories are rarely effective.  If you’re doing a secret origin, here are the biggest potential concerns.  If you can avoid these, I think the secret has promise.

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Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I’d say the start of chapter 2 at the very latest.

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One of the signs that your villain doesn’t suck is that he’s interesting enough to handle a scene on his own.  No, we don’t need to hear about his pathetically traumatic family history or the byzantine machinations of his evil organization.  Readers just need some sign that your villain has the competence, style and/or ambition that mark a good villain.

Competence

Your villain should not be out of the hero’s league. In fact, for most of the story, the villain should probably be winning against the hero.  One common misconception is that the hero will seem less impressive or likable if the villain beats him a few times.  No!  A hero that defeats a crazy-competent villain will resonate more.  For example, the only reason anyone remembers Luke Skywalker is because he defeated Darth Vader.

Fortunately, you can make your villain competent fairly easily. When your hero attempts some course of action, take 15 minutes to list anything that could go wrong.  Then list anything that your villain could do to make the hero fail even more spectacularly.  Your villain only has to exploit one glaring weakness in the hero’s plan to look competent.  Does the hero’s plan require logistical support from his Batcave?  Whoops. Even if your villain can’t take down the Batcave, he could try something like an EMP or sunspots to interfere with communications signals. Is the hero unable to teleport around town?  Throwing him off with a decoy could buy the villain enough time to carry out his real plan.

Style
Style is harder to pin down than competence, but there are still a few discernable signs of style.  A stylish villain tends to dominate his scenes, even if he doesn’t have many lines.  For example, there were a few scenes in the first season of Heroes that Sylar dominated even though he wasn’t actually present.

One scene that particularly sticks out is when Parkman and his FBI partner were fumbling around one of Sylar’s icy murder-scenes.  First, there’s the horror factor.  Sylar is obviously an extremely depraved killer.  But more importantly, the gruesomeness of the murder is contrasted with the incompetence of the cops.  They have no idea what’s going on.  Sylar was more of a presence because he was obviously playing out of their league.

Ambition
I recommend giving your villain an overarching and genuinely sinister plan.  If your villain’s plan is only to get revenge against a few people, the stakes of your hero failing will be very low.  For example, the first Spiderman movie dropped the ball on this one.  What would the stakes of Spiderman not fighting the Green Goblin have been?  Pretty much nothing, unless you were on the board of directors of OsCorp.

This doesn’t mean that the villain’s plan has to endanger the world or universe.  That gets cheesy very fast.  But this goes to competence: a villain that’s only playing for small stakes (like trying to kill a few OsCorp businessmen) probably won’t seem very competent or frightening.  In contrast, Dr. Octopus’ plan was more ambitious and interesting even though it wasn’t particularly evil.  He wanted to perfect a crazy-ass scientific theory to redeem himself for killing his wife the first time.  Octopus’ plan had significantly higher stakes for Spiderman because he endangered many more innocent victims.  (Sorry, ruthless businessmen, but readers just don’t care about you).

Yet Another Comics Blog argues that origin stories are mostly a distraction from the real action.

The origin is not the interesting story; it’s background information. If the information in the origin is important to the story you’re telling, then you can go back later and fill in for the reader. But don’t start with an issues-long origin…

Think of all the good genre movies you’ve ever seen. How many begin with a long origin sequence? Did Raiders of the Lost Ark start with 45 minutes of young Indiana Jones getting his PhD in archaeology? Did Star Wars begin with the origin of Darth Vader?

I disagree.  A character is usually the most human and relatable during his origin story.  Additionally, for most superheroes they also provide an irreplaceable opportunity to introduce the audience to the character.  For example, an author couldn’t explain who Spiderman is without showing why his uncle died.

Also, Star Wars did not begin with the origin of Darth Vader, but it did explain Luke’s origin at length.  Over the course of three movies we saw a farmboy grow into the savior of the universe.  It worked quite effectively.  I’d also venture that the first Matrix movie benefitted from Neo’s origin story.  If it had started with Neo after he had been released from the Matrix, it would have been horribly confusing.

The author praises Batman but criticizes Spiderman and Superman for spending too much time on origin.  But these are exceptional cases.  Usually, the audience is completely new to the backstory.  If so, then explaining the character’s origin is probably essential to introducing the audience to the world and/or the character.

Not sure what to name your superhero’s alternate identity?  This name generator can give you hundreds of suggestions based on US census data.  Also, its names are surprisingly ethnically-diverse.

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If you’d like a writing exercise, try to apply one of these to a character.

1. Surly
2. Robust
3. Feeble
4. Majestic
5. Anemic

Let’s say you’re writing a book about a candidate trying to join the Navy SEALs.  Unless there’s something holding him there, he can always walk away if it gets too hard.  That’s a lousy plot.  There’s no consequence for failure!  If failure is an acceptable option, we probably won’t care whether the character succeeds.  You can make this story more dramatic by adding personal urgency.  For example, perhaps the SEAL candidate had a brother or father that died as a SEAL and he sees it as his life’s mission to finish the job.

Here are some other suggestions to keep your characters in the story.

1. There is nothing to return to. The Empire killed Luke’s family.  (Careful, this is a bit cliche).
2. Too much is at stake to walk away. In The Day After Tomorrow, the protagonist doesn’t have to trek from Philadelphia to Manhattan, but it’s the only way to save his son.  Alternately, the characters in LOTR have no choice but to fight their genocidal enemies.
3. The character physically cannot walk away. If your character is in prison, he can’t avoid the local thugs.  His only choices are submission and resistance.  Alternately, she may be trapped on a spaceship with a killer alien.

One of the easiest ways to create comedy is to use a double act.  You set up a comedic conflict between two characters– usually, one character is sober and the other is crazy or one is savvy and the other is clueless.  This is a very flexible setup that can handle most genres.  For example…

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Many villains do gratuitously bad stuff to remind us that they’re EVIL. For example, the nerdy antagonist in Live Free or Die Hard coldly executes his hackers even though there’s surely enough money to go around (ahem… hundreds of billions of dollars). Not only was it unnecessary for him to kill the hackers, but it was also out of character (he didn’t seem otherwise psychopathic). There’s no reason he should have been that evil– it didn’t gel with his main objective, which was to show his old agency that it was wrong to cast him aside.

Authors usually write their villains as gratuitously evil to make them badass. That rarely works. Except for Dark Knight’s Joker*, superevil villains are rarely as badass as their more restrained peers (such as Darth Vader, Dr. Octopus, Naomi Novik’s Napoleon and Dr. Doom). Why are superevil villains insufficently badass? A villain that feels more evil than his plot requires is probably cartoonish. In contrast, a badass villain is almost always serious and sober.

*In case you’re interested, I argue below the jump that the DK Joker isn’t unnecessarily evil.

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In Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Clark Kent is written to be an idealized Red-Stater and Lois Lane is an idealized Blue-Stater. What I love about her, compared to the average damsel in distress, is that she adds something.  She completes him. Usually, fictional stories write love interests as cardboard characters designed to show that the protagonist has “arrived.”  These characters typically seem more like trophies than people.  If they are developed at all, it will be to show how desirable a trophy they are: really beautiful and super high-class! Enter Eragon, stage right.

Diagnosing the Problem

Homo superiors are characters that are like humans but better in every conceivable way. How would you describe how Superman differs from a human? “Well, he can do anything a human can, but a hundred times better.” He even looks like a human. Homo superiors are usually aliens or elves, but sometimes a human with enough superpowers or enhancements.

A homo superior is usually not merely better at fighting than everyone else, but also more sophisticated and savvy. If he has a character flaw, he’s probably arrogant because he knows he’s so much better than everyone else in the story.

Why Homo Superiors Wreck Stories

Homo superiors are usually undramatic. Superman never really struggles to do anything, because he’s the best at everything. But a struggling character is what makes stories interesting. If a police officer is in a standoff with a hostage-taker, that’s dramatic because we don’t know if the police officer will succeed. The police officer will only win if he’s wittier and craftier than the criminal. Perhaps he convinces the criminal to surrender. Maybe he convinces the criminal to lower his gun and then shoots him in the face. In contrast, Superman just uses his superspeed or eye-rays and stops the criminal. That’s quite boring, especially after you’ve already seen it a few times.

Homo superiors also usually lead to overpowered characters, which can make the plot feel unbelievable. Let’s say you want to write a fantasy story with a dragon rider. But why would the dragon take a rider? What does he think he gets out of having a puny human on his back? Why is Superman willing to risk his own life for humans? I couldn’t imagine myself being so charitable to ants and, from his perspective, we must seem something like smarter ants. Why would an incredible elven-mage be willing to join a ragtag band of adventurers? Etc.

Fixing the Problem

The best way is to try to explore ways in which the character is either mediocre or inferior. Maybe that elf, normally so elegant and well-spoken, completely goes to pieces in high-stress situations like combat. Maybe the dragon thinks that having a human might be useful in certain situations.

Here are some other ways in which a character might be different and/or inferior.

• Physical– strength, dexterity, stamina, reflexes, senses, coordination, precision, aim.
• Mental– logic, memory, cleverness, wit, associational reasoning, rhetorical skill, investigative prowess, gullibility, curiosity, adventurousness, bravery, education, magic.
• Social– teamwork, selflessness, diplomacy/tact, persuasion, subterfuge

Mary Sues are characters that are overpowerful, self-insertions of the author. This article will help you identify and fix some of the biggest problems with Mary Sues.

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This short article will help beginning novelists avoid another five common mistakes that will usually cause publishers to throw out a manuscript.

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Mentor characters are usually insufferably bad.

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Beginning authors usually try to visualize objects by describing their color. Their characters have brown eyes and black hair and inhabit a world of green bushes and brown tables and grey clouds. Or, if they have a thesaurus on hand, maybe the grass will be emerald and the sky will be azure.

Color hardly ever suggests anything interesting about the character or object. For example, let’s say that my villain’s eyes are blue instead of green or brown. Who cares? Do blue eyes suggest anything about the character or advance the plot? If not, then the the detail is irrelevant and should be removed. Most color usage is irrelevant.

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It is tempting to write historical celebrities into any historically themed work (“look, there’s Winston Churchill!”). If you do so, please avoid these common mistakes.

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The Associated Press describes a California town that is so xenophobic that it has a vigilante “Border Patrol” tear down all the road signs that might help motorists find it. What a delightfully gruesome detail. Would you like a writing assignment? Write a detail that describes a fundamental flaw of a place or character. The more flavor, the better.