This writing analyzer is fun. It’s totally useless for anything but amusement, though. It claimed that a passage actually written by Hemingway most resembled the work of P.G. Wodehouse, which is a bizarre choice for a passage about a man that killed a lion. Wodehouse mainly wrote comedies about foppish dandies more likely to use a club for golf than for anything interesting. (In the program’s defense, alcohol does play sort of prominently in both the Hemingway passage and Wodehouse’s work).
In most superhero stories and some urban fantasy, the protagonists know at least one friendly police character. Here are some ways police characters can help the heroes.
1. Alerting the heroes when there’s a problem too large for the police. Common examples include superpowered robberies, jail breaks, and supernatural/occult/magical serial killers.
2. Crowd control (clearing out civilians during or before a superpowered brawl). This helps explain why civilians don’t get killed in the crossfire and gives the police something to do besides watch the fight.
3. Helping the heroes avoid legal trouble. Or, if the cop is REALLY friendly, helping them break out of jail.
4. Helping superheroes maintain a secret identity. “This picture of Superman turning into Clark Kent is obviously fake. At the time it was allegedly taken, I was with Clark Kent on the other side of town.” Alternately, this might help any protagonist avoid a case of mistaken identity/imposters. “That bank robber wasn’t the real Harry Dresden! I was discussing a case with Dresden, so the the robber must have been a shapeshifter.”
5. Passing along messages and packages to the heroes, particularly from a villain. When the Joker wants Batman to see something, the easiest middleman is the police because it wouldn’t make much sense if the Joker knew where to find Batman.
6. Delaying and/or thwarting hostile police officers. In many cases, some police officers are against the heroes, particularly if an antagonist impostor has torn up the town or the heroes are not very careful about collateral damage. In urban fantasy, some police officers may be uneasy about working with a sorcerer, werewolf or other supernatural creature. (“I went through six days of testing before I could take my firearm into the field. How about your wand?)
What’s the subgenre? (Are we talking about an action with… Superheroes? Military/espionage? A natural disaster? Adventurers? Vampires/supernatural creatures? Mythological figures? etc).
What’s the inciting event? (What event throws the main character out of his status quo/comfort zone?)
What’s the main character like? (Anything that makes him more interesting to prospective readers or suggests his role–please note that using the character’s name in the title does not necessarily accomplish either)
What’s the main antagonist like? (Same as for the protagonist)
What’s the setting like? (Time and/or place)
What’s the central goal of the main character and/or what’s at stake if he loses?
What’s the author’s style like?
Is there an interesting contrast between elements of the title?
If the title doesn’t nail at least three of these, I’d recommend rewriting it and/or starting over. Here are some examples that I enjoyed.
Unwacky: Brett Favre’s first completed pass was to himself.
Barely wacky: Austria’s World Cup team threw a key match to West Germany to screw Algeria. The game got so bad the announcer asked viewers to change the channel.
Wackier: “You were like 50 feet away. How could you be so sure that the ball crossed into the German goal?” “Stalingrad.”
Outlandish: “The Band Is On the Field!”
1. Be careful about needlessly long titles, particularly ones loaded with separate phrases. They’re typically less inviting to prospective readers and harder for people to remember. Unusually bizarre titles, like Saddam Hussein and the Hippies from Space, have more latitude here. (Regardless of length, they will be memorable).
2. If your title does not appeal to prospective readers, start over! Some words that rarely mean much to prospective readers include fictional character and place names. Alternately, some authors use puns. If the reader immediately makes prospective readers smile, fine. If readers will only understand the pun after reading the work, they won’t ever find out how witty the pun is… because they won’t open the book.
If we accept the premise of your story, whether that’s heroes getting superpowers from unlikely insect bites or gaining magical powers, does the rest of the story make sense? For example, you could get readers to buy into a guy getting magical powers and using them to fight a magical mob. But if the story is mostly realistic, like a cop infiltrating the mob, it’ll really disorient readers if a mobster starts using magic on page 200. If you’re planning on using unrealistic elements, introduce or foreshadow them early so that readers won’t be surprised when they show up. (For more on this, please see Holly Lisle and the Case of the Exploding Cat).
Realistic: the premise occurs or could easily occur in real life. Cops infiltrating the mob or students dealing with school, for example. Most superhero stories don’t have very much realistic stuff going on, and that isn’t a problem. Many premises give a superhero superpowers/capabilities through supernatural means such as science fiction, magic/occult, religion, etc. The only thing that matters is whether the reader can maintain the suspension of disbelief.
I was rereading through comments and found this one very sharp.
I’ve never understood the appeal of the power to speak all or several languages in works of fiction, I’ve seen it numerous times in fan fiction, but it never really made sense to me. The whole point of characters going to places where the language barrier is an issue is, well, primarily because the language barrier is going to be an issue, with a few exceptions in a few plots, and discounting fantasy works. Why send Captain Superior to China if the fact that he is an American-born superhero isn’t going to matter? Couldn’t he just stay home and skip a panel or two of flying? How is it exotic if he can just wander into any McDonald’s and order like it was any other Friday?
I agree that it’s important to cut out extraneous elements. However, I think there are some situations where foreign languages would add something to the story even if the main character can speak them.
While a criminal may have put some thought into creating a coherent story that’s hard to disprove, probing questions can move the conversation into areas where he has to make up a lie as he goes along. The more you push for details, the harder it is to keep up a lie. Here’s an excerpt of a fictional interview between an investigator and a criminal suspect.
Novelist Jessie Mac: Why Supporters are So Important–this is important enough that I’ll probably write my own article about it. Some authors start out doing signing events where only 0-5 people show up, and unfortunately that’s probably a waste of time. Besides the quality of the work, supporter dedication is probably the biggest factor affecting a new author’s sales success.
If you’re writing for readers that are mostly of the other gender, it may help to conceal your gender by using a pseudonym or your initials. Here’s a list of unisex pen names.
Bullies are a very common, almost ubiquitous obstacle for young protagonists. More often than not, I feel they’re stale, one-dimensionally malicious characters with incredibly thin motivations. (Hell, even Galactus has a better reason for consuming the Earth, and he’s apparently a cosmic dust cloud now).
If you’d like to use a bully, one alternative I’ve never seen would be to do a bully as a protagonist. I’ve never seen that before. You may be thinking something like “of course, because such a character would be so unlikable, you dumb ****.” Granted, likability would be a challenge. However, if Kickass’s tween serial killer and adult serial killers like Sylar or Dexter can be likable, and I think they are, a likable bully is feasible. (However, making the bully likable might be harder, because it’s harder to give a bully good intentions, whereas you can have the serial killer prey on bad guys). So our writing exercise today is to come up with as many possible story hooks for a bully protagonist, preferably one the audience likes even if they don’t want him to succeed as a bully.
Jim Hines did a survey on how novelists break into the industry. His ~250 respondents are skewed towards fantasy, romance and sci-fi, but I suspect that it’s not wildly different if you’re writing superhero action or historical or historical zombie, etc. Here are several main points I took away from his survey.
Especially early on, end your chapters or comic book issues with a cliffhanger to keep readers hanging on. That doesn’t mean that you have to place a character in grave physical danger. Here are some other options to convince readers that something interesting is just around the corner.
A new character makes an exciting entrance. Somebody that enters a scene doing something unusual will probably pique our attention more than somebody that just sort of ambles on stage. For example, if Amy is working for a debt collection agency, it probably wouldn’t be very interesting if her new partner just walked up and introduced himself like anybody else would. But if the partner walked into her office wearing a bulletproof vest or SWAT gear, then we’d wonder what Amy had gotten herself into.
The reader and/or character(s) learn or find something shocking or fascinating. For example, you can reveal the tip of a new iceberg. “Detective Smith had been so sure the butler was the killer, but he had to reexamine that hypothesis after discovering the butler’s decapitated body stuffed under the kitchen sink.” What we learn for sure (that the butler is dead) is not quite as interesting as the questions it raises: If he’s not the killer, then who? What else did we get wrong about the case? Why kill the red herring? Seriously, who stashes a body under a sink? It’s what we don’t know that will make us want to keep reading.
Foreshadowing danger. Detective Smith finds another decapitated body, but this time the killer has painted a message on the wall with the victim’s blood. YOU’RE NEXT, JIM. Who’s Jim? Why does the killer want him dead? Can the detective save Jim in time? Why would the killer leave a message? Please note that this danger does not have to be physical–it just needs to threaten something really important to the character. For example, if the protagonist is the new girl at school, you might end a chapter with her inadvertently causing some grave slight to the head cheerleader. We’ll worry about how the cheerleading squad will get back at her.
A character is placed in immediate danger. In silent films, this meant tying up the damsel to the train tracks, but it doesn’t have to be physical or involve an antagonist. For example, if Ironman’s flying around and suddenly his jets cut out. Or if a recovering alcoholic (like, ahem, Ironman) reaches for a beer.
Something interesting is about to happen or starts to happen.
The characters are on the verge of doing something interesting. After Caesar crosses the Rubicon, heads are gonna roll. The only question is whose.
The characters are introduced to an exciting (often mysterious) new location. Something that makes us wonder “what’s gonna happen here?” For example, if the characters discover a secret room in somebody’s house, what will the characters find there? Why was it being hidden? What else is the character hiding? How far would the hider go to keep it hidden?
Cliffhangers are even more important for comic books, I think. A comic book writer needs to push readers to find and buy the next issue, which takes more effort than flipping to the next chapter of a novel.
The difference between “anyone” and “any one” is simple but frequently missed. “Anyone” is a synonym to “anybody,” so use “anyone” in a situation where “anybody” would also work. If anybody does not fit, use “any one.”
Any one of Jim’s girlfriends would murder him if she found out.
Anyone could have told Jim that having four girlfriends was probably an unwise move in terms of not getting murdered.
Also, please keep in mind that both are singular. “Jim’s girlfriends would murder him if they found out” vs. “Any one of Jim’s girlfriends would murder him if she found out.”
In your first few paragraphs, do we learn anything interesting (particularly about the main character or critical elements of the setting) that will make us want to keep reading? Is it something that differentiates him from other protagonists in similar stories? If not, it is probably not very interesting. For example, telling us that Johnny goes to school blurs your book with roughly a bajillion others. Telling us that Johnny goes to a school for reformed pyromaniacs does a much better job of differentiating the book from its competitors.
In the first few pages, how do your characters and writing make themselves stand out? (As opposed to, say, just another picked-on student that becomes Spiderman a superhero). For example, Kickass starts off with a bit of dark comedy. On the first page, we see a superhero about to fly and we’re led to believe it’s the protagonist taking a bold step towards a glorious future. Instead, the guy hits the pavement and the main character adds something like: “That’s not me, by the way. That was a guy with a history of mental illnesses.” Right away, you know we’re NOT talking about another Spiderman series.
Okay, so starting with a wannabe superhero accidentally committing hara-kiri probably wouldn’t fit your book. What’s something you could do to launch your story with something truly distinct to it? (HINT: Unless the character’s morning routine involves something truly bizarre and interesting, DO NOT START WITH A CHARACTER WAKING UP). One way to differentiate yourself is to freshen familiar material by using an unexpected tone or putting it towards a different goal. For example, the comic I’m working on is hardly the first to open with the protagonist narrowly avoiding an assassination. But it’s probably the first to do so for comedic purposes.
On page 100, does anything interesting happen? What about page 212? Don’t let your book stall in the middle. Keep developing characters, adding plot wrinkles, unexpected complications, etc. On page 230, is anything at stake? Do characters pursue their goals with the same (or greater) intensity as on page 1?
One thing I see often is that the author successfully sets up the hero’s journey in an interesting way but then the journey itself is sort of bland. Plot coupons are probably the most common problem there. (The heroes must collect __ pieces of ____ to do _____, like destroy 7 Horcruxes to defeat Voldemort or collect 8 badges to become a Pokemon master). Using plot coupons makes sense in a video game, sort of, but it tends to weaken suspense by making the plot predictable. For one thing, it’s pretty much 100% guaranteed that the heroes will destroy the first six Horcruxes because the plot would break if they didn’t. To some extent, you can generate suspense along the way to destroy the first six Horcruxes, like leaving readers asking which minor characters will die or who will get romantically involved, and kickass execution has saved many poor concepts before, but it is almost assuredly not the best concept you can come up with.
If you’re interested in length guidelines for graphic novels, please see this LinkedIn discussion. By the way, if you’re interested in getting published, I’d recommend getting on LinkedIn. It’s like Facebook for professionals. For example, right now I’m in discussions with other writers about how best to build up a writing platform to impress prospective publishers. I think it’s even better for comic book teams: I posted a request for feedback on a group for comic book illustrators and received feedback that was very useful and informed.
PS: Based on the graphic novels I’ve seen recently, I think anywhere between 132-200 pages would be publisher-friendly. However! Each publisher has its own preferred length, so check out what they’ve been publishing lately. If your length is significantly outside of the range of what they’ve published in the past few years, I think that bodes poorly for your chances there.
One final note: As a measure of comparison, comic books are usually 20-26 pages of content (not including ads). As always, check out what the publishers put out, but Marvel and DC usually publish at the shorter side of that, compared to Dark Horse and Image.
1. In most cases, I think that it’s probably best to ask your editor about a pseudonym after getting the offer. For one thing, it’ll reduce the chance that you make a poor first impression with a goofy-sounding pseudonym. The only time that I think that a pseudonym may be necessary prior to getting published is if the author shares a name with a celebrity. (“Who’s this guy pretending to be Steven King?”)
2. If you do use a pseudonym, please write something like “[YOUR REAL NAME], WRITING AS RODDY BARBER” on your title page. For tax reasons, the publisher has to know your real name. (Otherwise, the IRS will get surly and then everybody is screwed).
1. Please establish the voice and personality early. One possibility is having the character and/or narrator make an unusual observation about something important to the story or giving some unusual personality trait about the character. For example, “It was a pleasure to burn” (Fahrenheit 451) or “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter” (Huckleberry Finn).
2. Another option is having the character start with an action that is typical to him, but NOT typical to most other protagonists. This is why opening a book with the character waking up is usually ineffective. It rarely launches into the unique/interesting aspects of the character and the story quickly enough. You didn’t write a story about this character to show him waking up, so just skip to the part that we WILL care about.
I hate it when characters that are experienced and/or (supposedly) competent fail to plan ahead.
1. Does the character try to plan for the superpowers and capabilities of their opponents? On Heroes, allegedly competent and well-equipped organizations routinely stumbled into slaughterfests because they used SWAT-style raids to try to overrun targets with crazy powers. Let me lay this out right now: any plan that involves close-range combat with somebody that can outrun a fighter jet or stop time is idiotic! As soon as the target sees anything, (s)he turns on his/her superpower and everybody else dies. A better plan would be something like killing the target by long-range, perhaps by sniper rifle or bombing the house while the target is asleep. Alternately, you could interfere with the character’s ability to use his powers. (On Heroes, it is amazing how rarely the Company uses the power-nullifying Haitian).
1. Whenever possible, give details instead of general statements. For example, a general statement would be “Tommy LaRouche is a brutal criminal.” Generally it’s more effective to give the readers the evidence and let them reach their own conclusion. For example, “Tommy ‘Powerdrill’ LaRouche is wanted for twelve kidnappings, eight counts of torture, five murders, and at least one kidnapping that resulted in murder by torture. And don’t even think about how he got his nickname.”
2. Put extra scrutiny into adjectives. Do they help establish a character or the plot? Do they help the reader create a mental image? Generally, I think adjectives create more interesting imagery when they describe a detail or action than when they describe something larger, like a character. For example, saying “Batman is careful” is harder to visualize than an adverb phrase like “Batman carefully checked the door for wires and other signs of booby-traps.”
3. “Showing” all the time is probably not possible. For one thing, it takes more space. Calling somebody graceful is shorter than taking a sentence to describe something graceful he does. However, if the trait is important to the scene, it probably deserves the extra space.
4. In most cases, I’d recommend finding more specific alternatives for bland modifiers like “good,” “well” and “nice.” What kind of good are we talking about? For example, if you say somebody is a good writer, it’s not clear whether you’re complimenting her sense of humor or attention to detail or superb wordplay or something else entirely.
1. I would recommend using your symbols in unexpected ways. For example, fire is most commonly used to symbolize destruction and/or Hell. However, there are so many more options that are creative and fresh. For example, fire represented ignorance (and possibly political correctness) in Fahrenheit 451 and civilization in the story of Prometheus. If the symbolic meaning you’re going for is the first one that comes to mind with that symbol, maybe you could be a bit more creative.
1A. If you got your symbol from a list somewhere, it’s probably too obvious. For example, tree -> life, fire -> destruction/Hell, spring -> rebirth/life, apple -> loss of innocence, water -> atonement or cycles, etc. Think on it some more and you’ll probably come up with something that fits your story better than these. For example, the recurring symbol for destruction/doomsday in Watchmen is a ticking clock. In The Godfather, death is usually preceded by an orange. (!)
2. In a comic book script, make sure that you tell your artist how you want the symbol to appear. Otherwise, the artist may inadvertently mangle the meaning of the symbol. For example, if technology is supposed to be a sign of progress and civilization in your story, you’d probably want the cars to look shiny and new rather than grimy and decrepit. Unless you specify otherwise, it’s up to the artist’s judgment.
Your superheroes will probably stop crimes at some point. So how do they find it? Here are a few options.
1. The most common option is just going on patrol. Most readers and editors will give you the benefit of the doubt that a modern city has so much crime going on that a hero can stumble upon armed robberies without too much trouble. (Even though that’s probably not realistic–see #12 here for more details).
2. The hero may have access (authorized or otherwise) to what the police know. For example, maybe he has a police scanner, has hacked police radios, has a friend on the police force, or is otherwise contacted by the police on particular cases.
3. The hero might be contacted directly by a victim. For example, if a company has some reason to resolve a crime without getting the police involved, maybe it’ll contact a hero instead. This would make sense particularly if the police in your story aren’t particularly competent or honest. Or maybe the victim was somehow involved in some illegal activity (like a prostitute, an illegal immigrant, etc).
4. The hero may have access to what the criminals know. For example, maybe he has an informant, has bugged an important phone, interrogates a captured criminal, etc. Any one of these could indicate where and when an impending crime will occur.
Is Book Antiqua a good font for books? Personally, I feel it’s harder to read than comparable fonts. BA letters are taller, so you will be hard-pressed to fit as much space between each line. See this sample for more details.
Comic book villain who controls water that is a guy. Hydro-Man?
Why are so many superhero stories set in cities? Because superheroes need lots of people to save, and cities have more violent crimes that threaten lots of people. Most superhero stories have the heroes encounter crime whenever they go out on patrol, and that’s more believable in New York than New Hampshire. Also, cityscapes tend to look cooler than small towns.
I am on fire and need writing advice. I’d recommend dealing with the on fire thing first.
1. Be quietly confident. Ideally, confident enough to encourage prospective publishers and agents but not so arrogant that working with you sounds difficult.
2. You need self-confidence to drive yourself through an emotionally grueling publishing process. Getting published will probably take thousands of hours of writing, submitting, rewriting and resubmitting. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else can help you much.
3. Your query doesn’t need to say anything about you, and shouldn’t say much. Only talk about yourself if it makes you sound like you will sell thousands of copies. For example, if you’re professionally published (any medium), have professional experience relevant to what you’re writing (like a doctor writing a medical drama), already have a large audience (through a day job, perhaps), have worked in the publishing industry or have something similarly impressive, say so. If you don’t have any impressive publishing credentials, that’s fine–just focus entirely on what will actually impress the editor: namely, your book.
How to Survive a Publisher’s Google Check (by editor Meghan Conrad). Your publisher will probably Google you before offering a contract to make sure you’re consistently professional and easy to work with.
More Query Blunders (by agent Laura Bradford) — among other things, be very careful about mocking/insulting authors or genres the agent or publisher works with.
I get so many queries that read (literally, though this is made up for the purposes of this post) like this:
Character Name is living peacefully in Hometown. But then a life-changing event occurs that changes everything. Secrets are revealed that turn her life upside down. Character Name faces grave danger as she embarks on a quest to save her people. This novel is filled with humor and passion and suspense and romance, and there’s a shocking twist that leaves the reader breathless.
Being vague leaves an agent with so many questions: What are the secrets? What is the life-changing event? What is the danger she’s facing? What happens that is funny and suspenseful and romantic?
When all of these key details are kept hidden the query ends up sounding like… well, pretty much every novel ever written. And chances are an agent is going to move on to the next query.
The Batman was terrible. If you’re mainly watching this for comedic potential, I’d get as many Spanish-speakers or gringos as you can find, and let’s learn about the difference between “el” and “la” with Batman. –There’s a spectacularly strange scene where Batman tries interrogating Riddler and Riddler bursts into a soprano rendition of Ave Maria. […]
–There’s intense violence but not a lot of feeling here. It’s not a very exciting movie. But it’s functional. It’s frequently tedious but rarely boring. Only the political sermons and Weasel are viciously bad. It’s definitely a huge improvement over the first movie. –Most of what sucked about Suicide Squad 1 was an overfocus on […]
1:30 – 6:55: Cyborg sees his Mother Box acting up. Then Mera sees her Mother box acting up. Then Amazon guards see their Mother Box acting up. Also there’s a Lex Luthor flashback where the computer shows him that Mother Boxes are plot relevant in case you missed that. PS: In the first 8 minutes […]
–Wonder Woman 1984 is not nearly as good at the original. Pluses: the cast is still very charming, and a few of the fight scenes are effective. I did actually like most of the first hour of the movie. –Setting: In the original Wonder Woman, the WWI setting contributes to a hard bleakness which effectively […]
1. I don’t know where to start with Captain Marvel. So many things went so wildly wrong that we’d need a presidential commission to get to the bottom of it. It’s like the Chernobyl of superhero movies. 2. If at any point you feel like your action movie would benefit from a character whose main […]
1. This version of Spider-Man is a useless toolbox who actively avoids doing interesting things, and what he does attempt is usually wimpy and/or incompetent. 2. Unlike most main characters, his choices don’t matter much. For example, he chooses to leave his supersuit at home (but his aunt sneaks it in anyway) and he tries […]
We’re up to 72 superhero movies since 2000 (current as of November 2017). You can download the full data here. Some observations: R movies are making up the quality gap with PG-13 movies. Superhero movies are improving. Over the last 5 years (2013-2017), the average superhero movie is averaging 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, up […]
