1. A lack of money.  Superheroics can result in injuries, but anybody with a secret identity probably wouldn’t want to reveal those injuries to an insurance company.  (Otherwise, they’d need to lie to the insurance company or reveal their secret identity).  Second, a lot of superheroes spend what must be substantial amounts of money on their superheroics.  For example, Peter Parker is practically on the verge of starvation (and has been evicted at least once), but even he’s buying high-grade flame-retardant fabric for costumes. Even a wealthier team like the Fantastic Four could have financial difficulties sometimes.  Their headquarter alone would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year (in financing/interest, property taxes, maintenance, insurance to protect nearby buildings from FF science, building upgrades, etc).

1.1. Troubles at work and/or school.  Superheroes don’t have very much control over when supervillains attack, so they frequently have trouble maintaining a regular work schedule.  Superheroes can take some steps to minimize the damage to their day jobs, but a worker that’s frequently late and/or absent without leave will probably get in trouble with his/her boss and/or school.

2. Physical stresses of a highly dangerous job.  For example, injuries stemming from fights or overexertion, a lack of sleep and/or time to recuperate, exposure to highly dangerous chemicals or alien symbiotes, mild aging (Batman’s at least in his 40s), etc.

3. Pressure from friends/family/loved ones to give up or minimize superheroic activities.  They may be concerned about the superhero’s well-being because it’s such a dangerous job and/or the superhero might not be well-suited for the job.  Alternately, a spouse or lover may feel that the toll on their relationship is getting too high, particularly if he/she has been kidnapped or nearly killed before.

4. Disagreements with other protagonists (superpowered or otherwise).  For example, Lucius parted ways with Batman over philosophical differences.  Superheroes might privately and/or publicly hold each other accountable if a mission goes awry. Alternately, if there’s a crime or disaster where multiple superhero groups respond, the groups might have trouble cooperating–the teams might be very different philosophically, tactically, demographically, etc.  If a super-SWAT team and a team of superpowered high school students both respond to a hostage crisis, there are a variety of reasons the SWAT commandos would not want to trust the students with any responsibility.  Peter Parker is good at many things, but he’s not extremely methodical and probably doesn’t have much experience with hostage situations.  Alternately, the high school students might have trouble cooperating with the SWAT team, if they’re convinced that the SWAT team is so gung-ho they’re going to get a lot of hostages killed and/or the SWAT commandos don’t have the right superpowers for this situation and/or are using a more standard set of strategies against a completely unpredictable adversary.

5. Impermanent superpowers.  In most superhero stories, superpowers are permanent.  Some stories take away superpowers for short periods (for example, Kryptonite temporarily drains Superman’s powers), but you could also make the problem more long-term.  What if the character’s powers are naturally fading away because of aging, overuse or a weakening of the power source? Maybe the price of recharging his powers is so high that the character isn’t willing to go through with it?

6. Superpowers that don’t handle low-level situations well.  For example, some superpowers would be tricky to use in a situation that wasn’t life-or-death.  If the Human Torch tries to stop a minor scuffle like a bar brawl, he’d have to think creatively about how to get involved without torching someone that is probably more of a nuisance than a superpowered threat to humanity.  He’d probably also want to think about any potential harm to bystanders.  It’d be highly risky to break out fire in a crowded building because it could trigger the fire alarm and set off a fatal stampede.

6.1. Imprecise superpowers.  Most people aren’t 100% accurate at anything.  What would make one person less accurate/precise than another?

• Some characters might not have as much fine control as others do, even though their powers might be similar.  For example, one telekinetic might be able to mentally pluck bullets from the air or turn a screw, whereas another telekinetic might be more powerful but less precise.
• Some superpowers are naturally harder to aim, especially at a distance.  If a criminal is 50 feet away and running, a superstrong character would probably have a harder time stopping him than a psychic or an elemental controller would.  Even at point-blank range, a superstrong character might have trouble exploiting a tiny vulnerability (like, say, the clasps on Juggernaut’s helmet).
• Some superpowers have splash damage that is hard to control.  For example, a superstrong attack is likely to cause reverberations that could be dangerous to passersby.  Even if a fire-based attack is aimed perfectly at a hostage-taker, the hostage would probably get burned even if the fire doesn’t touch him.
• The superpowers may require concentration and/or careful aim.  In a stressful situation, it’s easy to get distracted and/or nervous and/or make unsound split-second decisions.  A character with less training and less experience is more likely to make interesting mistakes here.
• Other factors that might matter: whether the shooter is moving, whether the target is moving, whether the target has cover and/or a human shield, distance, visibility, weather conditions, whether there are superpowers in play that interrupt or disrupt other superpowers, etc.

7.  Unreasonably high expectations on the part of the hero and/or other protagonists and/or public at large.  Superman or not, Metropolis will have murders.  Even Superman can’t be everywhere.  That said, a hero might have trouble looking at it like that without feeling like he/she was writing people off and/or making excuses for failure.  Members of the public may get bitter if a loved one gets killed because they might (justifiably) feel there’s a double standard at work.  Let’s face it–if murder victim Jane Doe had been dating a superhero, the superhero would have prevented the murder.  “Superheroes may say they don’t have time to save everybody, but they always seem to have time to save the people they care about.”  Alternately, a more powerful and/or skilled superhero may expect too much of other characters.  A superhero that has the ability to summon a horde of celestial super-beings might be disappointed if his partner the BMX Bandit can’t keep up.  Alternately, the BMX Bandit might get annoyed because he feels like he’s getting shown up by his partner and/or isn’t getting enough of an opportunity to put his skills to use.

8. Side-effects of superpowers. Whatever caused the character to get superpowers could also result in obstacles down the road.  For example:

• Physical–for example, maybe the person’s body can’t handle the superpowers and/or the body changes in some way that causes complications.  Tony Stark has medical issues related to his origin and Slate is far too heavy to use an elevator or chair.
• Mental–for example, the person’s personality shifts or he has a Hulk-style personality split.
• Social–for example, discrimination against mutants.

9. Team-related conflict.  It’d be impossible to design a company where there wasn’t some sort of potential friction between employees and/or leaders.  In a highly stressful field like superheroics, the media would create some even if there weren’t much to begin with.

10. Conflict with society at large (the public, the police, the press, government as a whole, etc).  Superheroes tend to commit many felonies, so you have room to run with this if you’d like.

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. The author is working on too many projects to finish one. It’s far better to complete one manuscript than to go halfway on two. Most publishers won’t consider an unfinished novel manuscript from an inexperienced author.

2. The author is unwilling and/or unable to set time aside for writing. Alternately, perhaps the author sets aside a regular time, but is not consistent about actually using it. If you put aside one hour per day for writing, you can pretty easily write 1-2 pages. (Actually, I’d like to phrase that more confidently. If you can sit down for an hour and do nothing but write, you WILL write at least 1-2 pages. If you can do 1-2 pages a day, you will have a manuscript drafted within 6 months). If you’re writing at your computer, I’d recommend turning off the Internet because I find it tends to reduce productivity.

3. The author gives up on the manuscript and starts another. Moving on could be a good idea if you’re more likely to finish the next one, but are you?  What will be different about this next one?  (I know too many authors that switch from one to the next to the next without actually finishing any).

I feel that one of the most common reasons an author will give up on a manuscript is if the main character doesn’t seem to be working. If that’s the issue, you could probably salvage a substantial portion of the story by working in a second point-of-view character (either a new character or an interesting, preexisting one). After you’ve finished the first draft, you can opt to remove the original main character altogether or do some rewriting so that the two perspectives mesh together more coherently. (A caveat: I would not recommend lightly deciding to do 3+ points of view. If you already have two POVs and want to add a third, when you come to the end of the first draft, I’d recommend carefully considering whether one can be removed and/or merged into another).

3.1: When is the best time to give up on a manuscript?  If you’re just in the brainstorming phase, I don’t think it costs very much to shelve a premise and try something else.  The more time you’ve put into it, the more I would encourage you to try to salvage it rather than toss it out altogether.  For example, one possibility is to consider a new main character (as above).  You could also consider a different genre.  For example, you could probably switch from superhero action to detective/mystery or vice versa–the story will feel radically different even though most of the plot events could remain.

PERFECTIONISM

4. The writer constantly rewrites chapters before the first draft is complete. Generally, I’d save major rewriting until you’ve finished the first draft (unless, perhaps, you want to overhaul the plot and it would be really confusing to push forward with what you have). Rewriting before the first draft is complete strikes me as a mostly-hopeless venture because you probably won’t have a very good idea of where the story is going before you get there. (Even if you outline—there’s no way to predict which ways you will adapt and change your outline over the course of writing the book until you actually do).

5. The author sends it out for beta-reviews too early and gets discouraged. Unless you’re desperately stuck, I wouldn’t get reviewers involved before the first draft is complete. Reviews are usually written with the mindset of “How can this be perfected?” and a story early in the development process might have hundreds of issues that could be perfected.  Getting a review that points out these issues early in the development process could shake the author by convincing him/her that the story doesn’t have much promise.  Please don’t worry about that—when you’re ready to rewrite, you can execute darn near anything better.  I’ve seen too many really strong stories start out as sort of crappy drafts to believe that a draft’s crappiness is something to get discouraged about.

Until the first draft is complete, I think “How can this be completed?” is a much more pressing question. Don’t worry about perfection until you have a draft completed. (For one thing, I feel it is nigh-impossible to perfect a piece that hasn’t been drafted. Finishing the draft gives you a scaffolding to build on or ingredients to cook with).

DIFFICULTIES WITH PLOTTING

6. The author loses track of where the story is going and allows that to discourage him/her. Don’t worry about it, just keep writing. It’s okay if your first draft has rough and/or nonsensical transitions, plot elements that are introduced but totally neglected, etc. It’s much easier to deal with those when you have the full draft in front of you. (Then you can examine which plot threads didn’t quite pan out and can be removed, which plot threads should be developed more fully, how to create smooth transitions between your scenes, whether to reorder the scenes, etc).

7. The author writes out of sequence and gets horribly discouraged when the story fragments turn into an incoherent wreck. I’d recommend writing chapter one and then chapter two and then chapter three and only skipping around as a last resort. If your manuscript is giving you anxiety, I think it’ll help a lot to focus on what’s coming next chapter rather than worrying about what could happen 10 or 20 chapters down the line.

8. There are too few goals, obstacles, character growth and/or consequences to propel the story past writer’s block.  For more details here, please see this article on writer’s block and this one.

Some other twists you can throw in:

• The character’s goals change.  A character might “fail” at a goal because he decides that it is no longer worth pursuing.  (More commonly, failures are caused by external opposition).
• The character is initially unsuccessful but keeps trying.  (For example, the Captain America movie would have been pretty boring if Rodgers had given up after the Army told him no the first five times).
• A problem or obstacle could be self-inflicted.   For example, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, there are external villains (the 7 Evil Exes) but the biggest obstacles to Scott’s relationship with Ramona come from Scott himself, like his irresponsibility and immaturity.  (He, ahem, cheats on her with a high-schooler, which is not the best way to win a 24th birthday).

For another style of plotting, please see Organizing Your Story with Cause and Effect.

1. The most basic superhero story structure is that a supervillain needs to steal a few related MacGuffins to enact his evil plot.  This gives the superheroes several chances to try to stop the villain, building up the stakes for a climactic struggle with everything on the line.

1.1 Alternately, perhaps the supervillain is trying to kill several people with a common connection, like the heroes, cops/prosecutors, judges, jurors, witnesses and/or scorned caddies that put him away last time or somebody else he has a grudge against.

2.  The villain has some sort of fitting thematic connection to the hero.  For example, if your hero’s main flaw is his trust issues, maybe the villain is an Iago that plays on his mistrust/paranoia.

3.  A character receives a mysterious and potentially dangerous gift, like an artifact or an encoded message or a key or a free ticket to Detroit.

4.  Something or someone from the heroes’ past comes back to haunt them.  For example, Batman: The Animated Series had an episode based around Alfred’s commando experience long, long ago.  Alternately, perhaps it’s something from the villain’s past.

5.  Someone the heroes really look up to and/or respect is in trouble.  For some reason, superhero TV shows often cast this person as Adam West, the lead actor in the horrible 1960s Batman show.  (Who the hell looks up to Adam West?)  More soberly, Dark Knight endangered Harvey Dent.

6.  A major villain is introduced.  A villain’s origin usually lays out his motivation for becoming a villain and establishes an initial conflict with the heroes.  It may also explain where his superpowers and/or supernatural abilities came from, if applicable.

7.  Someone that’s not quite a villain just developed superpowers, and it’s up to the heroes to keep these new and difficult-to-control powers from ravaging the town.  There may also be a personality shift involved: “Have you tried not being a rampaging monster, Dr. Jekyll?”

8.  Normally good friends and/or partners have a rough spot and decide to go their own ways.  Unfortunately, this usually snaps back to the status quo–they learn how much they need each other and then the reason that caused them to part never comes up again.  Alternately, you could have the characters split more permanently.  Either way, hopefully the characters are lively and interesting–otherwise, this is probably a Plot That Needs to Die.  It also helps if the audience is emotionally invested in the partnership.

9.  Someone has been mind-controlled or impersonated by a shapeshifter.  The victim is usually a protagonist, but it could be a MacGuffin character like a mayor.  Alternately, are there any villains in your series that somebody might want to mind-control?

10.  Bruce Wayne is held hostage.  (Well, not the Bruce Wayne, unless you’re writing for DC or don’t plan to sell your writing.  Otherwise, it’d be copyright infringement ).

11. Somebody’s been framed of a crime.  Who’s been framed?  Which crime? What did the framers have to gain from this?  Did the victim do anything to get in the way, or was he just chosen at random?   As with most of these plots, the target here could be an antagonist rather than a protagonist or side-character.  (For example, perhaps a villain frames another villain to distract the heroes.  After all, another villain is certainly a more believable suspect than a hero, right?).

12. An adversary starts making trouble for the protagonist based on a grave misunderstanding.  For example, perhaps the villain fed a false lead to a private investigator or mercenary or a journalist or police officer saw the hero do something vaguely suspicious and misconstrued it as a crime.  For example, if a cop follows Bruce Wayne and observes him secretly meeting with a major criminal, it might look like Bruce is involved in a criminal conspiracy, even though the criminal is actually trying to blackmail the richest guy in town (big mistake).  What starts out as a misunderstanding might evolve into something more.  For example, after the cop finds out that the criminal was trying to blackmail Wayne, he might wonder why Wayne didn’t go to the police.

13.  An antivillain is pursuing a vaguely sympathetic revenge plot against a shady operator.  The hero’s goal here might be to keep innocent people from getting caught in the crossfire and perhaps attaining justice against the shady operator through more legitimate means.  Please see Heart of Ice and/or season 5 of Dexter.

14.  The superhero loses his powers and/or has them stolen or is otherwise incapacitated.  This is usually short-term but doesn’t have to be.  For example, Barbara Gordon gets paralyzed by a bullet and some superheroes struggle with fading superpowers.  (See Batman Beyond, for example).

15.  A victim comes to the hero directly for help, usually because the regular authorities are helpless and/or unavailable.  This is helpful if you want to use the victim as a character rather than just a MacGuffin.  Maybe the victim lies about some relevant details (perhaps to hide his own criminal activities or because he doesn’t trust the hero completely). Maybe the hero suspects the victim is lying and/or trying to use him.

16.  For whatever reason, the hero is forced to work with somebody he/she detests.  It’s apparently standard operating procedure for police departments to stick every by-the-books cop with a loose cannon.

17.  A hero gets absolutely screwed by a boss or teammate.  Perhaps he’s the fall guy when something goes wrong.  Perhaps he wasn’t given enough resources/time/backup/whatever to succeed at something.  Sometimes the hero actually deserves the fallout coming his way because the mistake is largely his.  For a humorous subversion, please see Hot Fuzz, which relegated a star SWAT officer to the middle of nowhere because he was making the other SWAT officers look bad.  (I highly recommend it–if you can suspend your disbelief that Simon Pegg is a star SWAT officer, it’s remarkably competent).

• BAD: John talks with his romantic interest in scene 1 and fights with his boss in scene 2.  This will probably feel awkward because the two scenes don’t appear to be connected in any way.
• BETTER: John has a spat with his girlfriend in scene 1 because she thinks he’s not making enough money.  The fight makes him late to work (scene 2).  At work, John’s boss gets upset that his personal issues are affecting his work and informs him that he won’t be getting a promotion/raise.  This is more coherent because we can see much more clearly how the two scenes are related.

3.  The first scene somehow foreshadows the next one.  For example, if Spiderman finds some OsCorp gear at a crime scene (like a Power Rangers mask or something), it’d make sense if the next scene had Spiderman trying to figure out how Norman Osborne (the Green Goblin) was connected to the crime.  If you’re not ready to have him leap into that part of the case yet, maybe it’s just a side-element of the second scene.  For example, maybe Peter Parker goes to school the next morning and thinks more about the case in the background, while the focus of the second scene is him doing something else like talking to Mary Jane.  Maybe his conversation with Mary Jane somehow leads him to realize something about the crime he’s looking at and/or is somehow otherwise thematically appropriate for some issue he’s dealing with as a superhero.

4. I would generally recommend keeping your plot arcs more related than not.  For example, if the book is about John, his romantic side-arc shouldn’t feel like a completely different story than his job struggles.  One way to fit them together into a single story is to do scenes where they both come into play.  For example, in the above example, John’s late to work because he got in a fight with his girlfriend, so we can see how the problems from one arc bleed over into the other.  The solutions can also bleed over.

5. The trickiest sort of scene-transition is probably between different point-of-view characters that have not met and aren’t obviously connected yet.  Let’s say you’re writing a novel where the two point-of-views are a superhero and supervillain that haven’t interacted yet.  Even though they haven’t met, you could still probably make the separate narratives feel coherent by having them deal with some common issues.

• Common themes: For example, maybe both characters are dealing with being really special and/or having more power than the average person could dream of.
• Common events: For example, maybe both characters have been influenced by the same event (or very similar events).  If the origin story features the villain’s father dying to save the future hero, the villain might grow up bitterly thinking of the father he never had and the hero might regard his sacrifice as a noble example to try to live up to.
• Foreshadowed relationship: Well, it’s pretty obvious in this case that a superhero and a villain will clash, but foreshadowing the relationship might be helpful if it’s not patently obvious to readers. (For example, if the second character only gradually becomes villainous, readers might get bored with him if they don’t get some impression of why he matters).

1. Give the character flaws, ideally one he’s accountable for. Most unchallenged characters have a bevy of strengths but few well-developed flaws.  One approach is to play up the character’s strengths so much they sometimes become liabilities.  For example, in Point of Impact, Nick Memphis is unfailingly loyal, even though it ruins his career.  Virtually any strength taken to an extreme could create obstacles for the character.  For example…

• Being too smart could create social obstacles for the character (see Flowers for Algernon or House), impatience with less intelligent people, overconfidence, a willingness to jump to erroneous conclusions on too little information, etc.
• Being too nice could lead to gullibility/naivete, a reluctance to confront someone even when a confrontation is necessary, or a handicap against tougher (and maybe more brutal) foes.
• Being too honorable could result in situations where the character loses because he/she refuses to take the most effective course of action available.  At its most cliche, perhaps a superhero stops chasing a gang of villains so that he can defuse a bomb or free a hostage from a deathtrap.  But that only affects a scene.  More significantly, a villain can manipulate a hero’s sense of honor so that he/she does something that shapes the plot.  For example, Cassius draws Brutus into the assassination plot in Julius Caesar by exploiting Brutus’ honor.
• Being too brave could result in reckless mistakes.  The character’s overconfidence might get him hurt, and possibly bystanders as well.  For example, if a superhero tries to rush a hostage-taker without any sort of plan, hostages will probably get shot.
• Being too committed to one’s goals (even honorable goals) could result in obsession and/or a willingness to sacrifice friends, morals, bystanders, and anything else to achieve the goals.

2.  Have the character make some decisions the audience won’t approve of. If the character is so purely heroic that readers will probably approve of every decision he makes, he probably doesn’t have much moral complexity.  Usually, that’s not as believable or interesting as giving the characters some human edges.

3.  Have the character make difficult decisions. Difficult decisions distinguish the character.  If the character is just making banal decisions that 90%+ of the genre’s protagonists would make in the same situation, the plot probably isn’t giving the hero enough room to distinguish himself.  Let your hero show how different he/she is with some decisions that most other heroes wouldn’t make.  For example, the protagonist in Point of Impact, Bob Swagger, is on the run after he’s been framed for an assassination attempt on the President.  The people framing him planted incriminating evidence in his house, but they had to kill his dog to sneak inside. Almost every action protagonist in this situation would probably have started by trying to take down the conspiracy.  Swagger starts by breaking into the FBI-occupied morgue where the dog’s body is being held as evidence so that he can properly bury it.  It really helps develop his character: the dog is the closest thing he had to a friend and he feels honor-bound to return its loyalty.  It also gives the villains reason to panic and ratchets up the tension.  If this guy is suicidal enough that he’d risk a high-speed chase with the FBI over his dog, his dead dog at that, what’s he gonna do to them?

4. Challenge the character! Raise obstacles high enough that it will be interesting for the character to overcome them.  For example, if your character is the most powerful superbeing in your story, the potential for interesting straight-up action is probably pretty low because he’s more powerful than his opponents.  For example, The Watchmen couldn’t have done much with a straight-up duel between invulnerable hero Dr. Manhattan and semi-powered villain Ozymandias.  Instead, Ozymandias challenged the heroes with his stealth and subterfuge, buying time so that he could make his survival so valuable to the heroes that they wouldn’t dare to kill him.   Another approach would be to try challenging the character in a sphere where his superpowers aren’t very useful.  For example, in a superhero romance, a guy that’s used to solving his problems with violence would have to try a very different tack to wooing the girl of his dreams.

5. Have the character face some morally gray obstacles. I would really recommend against making everyone that opposes the hero a straight-up bad person. For example, maybe the character’s friends aren’t 100% supportive of everything he does, maybe his coworkers/bosses have reasonable disputes with the character, or maybe there’s an antagonist whose intentions are pretty pure, etc.  If there’s no approach for a character to disagree with the hero without coming off as a bad person, the hero is probably not morally complex enough to feel fully believable.  (Hey, even Gandhi and MLK took some flack over their pragmatism).

• Person is (metaphorically) at point A and wants to be at point B. The character walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
• Weird things happen, but it turns out they’re not real.  (“It was a dream” or “It was insanity” are bad enough, but “It was a story the character was writing” is uniquely loathsome).
• The main reason for the main female character to be in the story, and to be female, is so that she can be raped.  (Can I add “or so that she can fall in love with the protagonist?”)
• People whose politics are different from the author’s are shown to be stupid, insane, or evil, usually through satire, sarcasm, stereotyping, and wild exaggeration.
• Story is based in whole or part on a D&D game or world.  (Or any video games, unless you’ve been licensed to create a licensed work).

I’d like to sort of dispute Strange Horizons’ complaint about works that “[claim] that superhero stories never address the mundane problems that superheroes would run into in the real world.”    Yes, many superhero stories do handle such mundane, everyday situations, so such a claim is obviously incorrect.  But I don’t think it would be cliche, or otherwise problematic, to address everyday life in a superhero story.  Hell, at least one publisher (This Mutant Life) specifies in its submission guidelines that it’s looking for such submissions: “Stories which deal with the everyday lives of people with unusual abilities or physical characteristics are ideal [for us].”

1. List the 25-50 most important events in the plot.
2. Place one event each on a post-it note.
3. Organize as many of the post-it notes into a cause-and-effect chain as you can.

For example, here’s a political thriller with two main plot threads. (I wouldn’t recommend more than 3 plot threads).

For more information on how to use your map to tighten up your plot, see below.

Most manuscripts are incoherent. The plots aren’t very tightly connected and events seemingly happen at random or because the author got bored. One warning sign that your plot is not coherent enough is that mapping out the major plot threads leaves many post-it notes orphaned from the main plot threads.  I’d recommend reconsidering the plot items that didn’t seem to fit into the main threads. Are they necessary? Could they be shortened? If they don’t tie into the main plots, why have them? Alternately, try altering the plot so that they tie into the main plot more. (Maybe a hero gains a trait that is very important down the road).

Do the main threads connect? If not, I suspect that the story will feel disjointed–moving one plot thread shouldn’t stall the others.  For example, in Scott Pilgrim, winning the girl and beating the villains are very closely related, not only because the villains are the main obstacle to the romance but because the relationship between Scott and Ramona is both developed and strained by Scott’s uneasiness about getting constantly attacked.

Some other insights you may draw from your map:

• If a different order strikes you as more logical, go for it.
• Are there any points where you could jump from A to C without B?  If so, read through B carefully to see whether you can get rid of it.

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?)

7. Pointing the heroes to strange things that they should look into, particularly if regular police efforts have failed.  For example, maybe the police chief has axed an investigation into Lex Luthor because Luthor is a close friend of the mayor.  Alternately, perhaps the suspect is working some sort of supernatural or sci-fi voodoo.

8. Possibly lending the heroes resources and equipment they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.  A protagonist could probably buy a police-grade tape recorder (designed for concealment) for under a thousand dollars, but that wouldn’t help him much if he were a pizza delivery boy in junior high school or a wizard without a full-time source of income.  Other technical equipment that might be helpful: a police scanner, video equipment, seized weapons or drugs (for setting up stings), maybe a helicopter ride, and specialized equipment like bomb defusing gear and maybe Geiger counters.  Depending on police-hero relations, the police officer’s assistance may be off the books–if anybody asks the officer, he can say he lost the equipment and is still looking.  Note: this explanation will probably not work for a helicopter.  Not even the police union could protect a cop that lost a helicopter.

9.  Providing access to police evidence. This is particularly useful if the story is more action-oriented and you want to focus on the combat rather than the mystery.

10. Alerting the heroes to potential targets for crime and/or asking for help. It seems like some New York museum is always holding a poorly-guarded exhibit featuring magical artifacts.

11. Interfering with minor antagonists and doing cleanup work. For example, the hero subdues the criminals and leaves them for the police to arrest.   This is particularly helpful for protagonists that lack a vast paranormal organization equipped to handle supernatural trials.  Most superheroes don’t have anything like Harry Potter’s Ministry of Magic or the sects of the Vampire Masquerades universe to do the cleanup, so the police are a good fallback plan.

12. Providing an occasional cover story for the heroes. Peter Parker can’t admit to his aunt that he missed curfew because the fight with the Green Goblin took longer than usual, but Nick Fury could “explain” that Peter witnessed a mugging and had to provide a witness statement at the police station.  Note: this works best if the officer knows the hero’s secret identity.

13. Boxing in the villain (early).  Early in the story, many villains need to pretend to be legitimate businessmen (or scientists or whatever), so police involvement can temporarily limit the options available to the villain. For example, a villain under police suspicion may have to avoid outright assassinations in favor of more subtle (and less reliable) staged accidents.  Once the protagonists know what’s going on, secrecy matters much less to the villain and the police become much less useful.

UPDATE: I originally wrote this article with superheroes in mind, but Marilynn Byerly points out that it could be useful for urban fantasy as well. Good thinking! I’ve rewritten some of the points accordingly.

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.

1.  Some plots would not be believable without multiple languages. It would probably strain the reader’s suspension of disbelief if every alien in a space opera just happened to speak flawless English. One easy solution is to give the characters universal translators.  (If you later decide that you’d like to use linguistic barriers as an obstacle, you can have the translators malfunction or introduce a language that has not yet been decoded).  If you’re writing a novel about a CIA assassin, he’s probably not working in an English-speaking country (unless U.S.-Canadian relations are far more interesting than they appear).  Because of his background, it’d make sense that he knew a local language.  If you’d like, you can work in linguistic barriers later by introducing characters that speak a language he doesn’t know.

2. Character development. At one point in Justice League (roughly 7:15-7:30 here), Batman tries interrogating a Kasnian terrorist.  The Kasnian says (in subtitled Kasnian) “You can’t understand what I’m saying and I wouldn’t tell you anything even if you did.”  Batman says, also in subtitled Kasnian, “I can… And you will.”  Besides being funny, this helps develop Batman as someone who is frightfully well-prepared for even the most unexpected scenarios.

In contrast, I find it more bothersome when a character randomly knows an obscure and/or difficult language even though it’s not consistent with his character.  For example, Chris Tucker’s character speaks Mandarin at the end of Rush Hour, which is strange because it doesn’t fit the character and he didn’t use Mandarin before, even though he had many opportunities to.  (The character is probably not cunning enough to explain this as feigning ignorance).

3. Some (but not all) of the main characters know the language.This would probably change the flow of conversations without making it extremely hard for the team to communicate in that language.  This could lead to interesting situations, particularly if they have to rely on a spectacularly undiplomatic character to speak for them.  (If you’d like to introduce linguistic barriers later, maybe the team has to split up at some point and one group has to work without a translator).

4. The language in question is not used in conversation. For example, if the character is an archaeologist who only uses his linguistic skills to read Babylonian tablets, you probably wouldn’t find yourself in an awkward situation where you have to repeatedly specify who is speaking which language, such as a conversation between two groups that are also conversing amongst themselves in their own languages.

“Before we build a factory in Kenya, we must have your assurance that your country can keep our employees safe,” said the American executive.
“Can we keep the losses below a hundred?” the mayor asked his police chief in Swahili.
“Low hundreds,” responded the chief in Swahili.
“Security will absolutely not be a problem!” said the mayor in English.
“Not our problem, in any case,” he said to the chief in Swahili.

What do you think?  What other costs and benefits are there for working many languages into stories?

INCITING EVENT

• cheated on
• kidnapped
• impaled on a national landmark
• thrown out of a window
• mentally mutilated
• disowned
• fired
• hired
• drafted
• mugged
• kicked down the stairs
• put in the poor house
• brutally murdered
• psychically ravaged
• drop-kicked in Times Square
• publically serenaded
• mistaken for a felon
• exiled
• sent on a one-way trip to Djibouti
• interrogated
• sold a [adjective] pet
• implicated
• sold into slavery
• deceived
• misidentified
• sued
• infected
• ruined
• mistakenly tackled
• swindled
• blacklisted
• judo-chopped through a wall
• poisoned
• framed
• drunk under the table
• thrown into a pit of carnivorous gophers
• beaten in the World Series of Poker
• outed as a superhero
• humiliated
• betrayed
• forced to read Twilight
• thrown into a wood-chipper
• blackmailed
• tricked
• nearly decapitated
• rear-ended
• magically turned into a man-eating llama

ANTAGONIST

• the CIA
• rogue elements of the Brazilian government
• a shadowy conspiracy apparently involving [ANTAGONIST] and [ANTAGONIST]
• a [adjective] cabbie
• a [adjective] pizza boy
• a [adjective] henchman of [ANTAGONIST]
• Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
• West Virginia’s Postmaster General
• a deranged scientist
• a [adjective] Mensa splinter group
• a [adjective] ex-lover
• a [adjective] caddy
• a [adjective] terrorist
• Benjamin Franklin, alive and [adjective]
• a [adjective] jury foreman
• a [adjective] American Idol semi-finalist
• three cheerleaders and [ANTAGONIST]
• a [adjective] mob of tween girls
• the town coroner
• a psychopath that believes himself to be Batman
• a psychopath that actually is Batman
• a [adjective] assassin
• a Playboy centerfold working for [ANTAGONIST]
• a [adjective] sorcerer
• the publishing industry
• a [adjective] mentor
• a [adjective] prosecutor
• a [adjective] businessman
• a notably [adjective] company
• the world’s most [adjective] clown
• New Guinea
• FIFA
• Oasis, the best British band since the Beatles
• Jerry Bruckheimer
• a [adjective] squirrel
• a [adjective] doctor whose medical studies were apparently limited to mass murder

PROTAGONIST

• a thinly-veiled stand-in for the author
• Dan Brown
• a [adjective] teenager
• a [adjective] plastic surgeon
• a [adjective] hippie
• Richard Nixon
• the [adjective] ghost of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• a [adjective] scientist
• two unlikely partners, [PROTAGONIST] and [PROTAGONIST],
• a [adjective] dinosaur
• a [adjective] Zamboni driver
• a [adjective] Squeegee master
• a [adjective] mailman
• the new kid at school
• a [adjective] whistleblower
• a British spy with major commitment issues
• a [adjective] ninja
• a [adjective] athlete
• a cruel but occasionally [adjective] blogger
• a [adjective] publisher’s assistant
• a [adjective] porn star
• a [adjective] academic who is not at all Dan Brown
• a [adjective] cop
• a [adjective] USAF communications officer
• a [adjective] priest
• a [adjective] zombie
• a rapper with a terminal case of Caucasianness
• a [adjective] New York Times columnist
• [PROTAGONIST] with a Ph. D. in pain
• an anachronistically hygienic Knight of the Round Table
• the cast of Friends
• a [adjective] chess star
• a spy living as [PROTAGONIST]
• a [adjective] State Department flunky
• a [adjective] accountant that hates alligators
• a [adjective] scientist that should have known better
• a [adjective] extraterrestrial
• Secret Service agent Tom Sawyer
• Samuel L. Jackson
• a badass cop who may or may not be Samuel L. Jackson depending on his availability for the movie
• a [adjective] politician
• a [adjective] vagrant
• a [adjective] politician that is also a vagrant
• a [adjective] hostage negotiator
• a [adjective] mistress of [PROTAGONIST]
• a [adjective] private eye
• a crack-dealing serial killer with a heart of gold
• a grade-schooler with a penchant for mischief and grand larceny
• a [adjective] student
• a [adjective] inventor
• Keanu Reeves
• a [adjective] fighter jockey with nothing to lose
• a [adjective] dog-catcher
• a [adjective] Senator
• a [adjective] princess
• a [adjective] hitman
• [PROTAGONIST] and an American Idol with a dark secret
• a [adjective] Ebola patient
• a [adjective] hacker on the run for his life
• a superhero with a secret identity as [PROTAGONIST]

GOAL

• leave a trail of bodies that makes Omaha Beach look like Candyland.
• discover that the love interest is the only other racial minority in the book.
• destroy all the evidence.
• solve his own murder.
• achieve revenge by becoming a [adjective] FBI agent.
• channel the soul of Chuck Norris to kick ass and take names.
• win the trial of the century.
• pray that the moral of the story does not involve him sacrificing himself for the greater good.
• save a notable metropolitan area from an improbably large reptile.
• disprove the Heisenberg Principle, preferably before he explodes next Thursday.
• get promoted from Vice President to streetwise pimp.
• kill everybody involved, preferably starting with the author.
• celebrate the untimely demise of a loved one.
• give up either his dog or the Newbery Medal.
• convince a skeptical publisher that there is some market for protagonists besides beautiful white women and the supernatural (and hawt!) creatures that adore them.
• land a lucrative contracting before the publisher realizes he and the author are actually Chris Paolini.
• drop more bodies than an epileptic pallbearer.
• woo the love interest without getting busted for sexual harassment.
• learn a new dialect of pain.
• convince Santa Claus not to conquer the world.
• defeat Santa Claus by fomenting a violent elfin strike.
• master the elements.
• learn that asking dinosaurs for help can only end with everybody dying.
• frame his sidekick for murder.
• defeat an [adjective] alien invasion.
• conquer Switzerland.
• acquire a time machine in order to [GOAL]
• acquire some thoroughly forgettable plot item in a country that’s been in the news recently.
• get somebody to notice that Switzerland has been conquered.
• beg readers for forgiveness.
• steal an advance copy of Grand Theft Automaton.
• convince the Rotary Club that it was all an elaborate setup.
• land a spot on Death Row in order to [GOAL]
• successfully disqualify himself from jury duty.
• lead the Free Ponies and Ice Cream Party to a landslide victory.
• win a White Castle eating contest.
• steal the identity of a dead man to [GOAL]
• save the Internets from a gremlin invasion.
• steal a piece of jewelry guarded by hundreds of cameras and lasers but curiously few guards.
• realize that it was all a dream.
• recover from the world’s worst hangover in time to [GOAL]
• save the President from a superpowered assassin, The Jackalope.
• convince Mossad that he’s not a suicide bomber, just a Dell customer.
• secure his place in a hall of fame, so that he can [GOAL]
• learn how to drive without splattering his brains across the sidewalk.
• repeal the law of gravity.
• recover the pants he was wearing last night in order to [GOAL]
• convince the American people that Lady Gaga is actually Phase 3 of an alien invasion.
• do battle with the villain in an iconic building in the public domain.
• become [adjective] in order to [goal]
• return to his home-world.
• pretend to be a Canadian to [goal]
• car-jack a dump-truck filled with baking soda in order to make a weapon of mass destruction.
• land a role in the school play.
• beat somebody with his own pimp.
• upload a virus onto his own iPod in order to [GOAL]
• defeat an occult conspiracy by deciphering a code hidden in My Little Pony.
• save the world by punching a polar bear in the face.
• convince the love of his life that he is not actually [ANTAGONIST].
• convince a casting director that he was born to play [PROTAGONIST].
• [GOAL].. using only a pocket wrench!
• [GOAL].. in Japan!
• [GOAL].. in space!
• [GOAL].. in New York City!
• [GOAL].. in an alternate reality with no seat belts!
• [GOAL].. with his own death!
• [GOAL].. with a plan he set into motion as he died!
• [GOAL].. in a submarine powered by baby seals!
• [GOAL].. in less than two days!
• [GOAL].. with two tons of cocaine in his trunk!
• [GOAL].. without violating the terms of his parole!
• [GOAL].. in a Guatemalan prison!
• [GOAL].. in somebody else’s body!
• [GOAL].. with only half a clip of ammo!
• [GOAL].. without forgetting where he left the money!
• solve the mystery of why 99% of NYC murders are apparently committed by white businessmen.
• convince his new driver that brakes aren’t for wusses.

Step 2: If any of your selections mentioned an [adjective], use one of the following:

ADJECTIVE (if necessary)

• love-lorn
• master
• precocious
• roguish
• swanky
• arrogant
• washed-up
• brusque but lovable
• heterosexual
• enigmatic
• retired
• zesty
• unkillable
• accomplished
• legendary
• off-the-hook
• off-the-chain
• off-the-grid
• ancient
• tactless
• superpowered
• remorseful
• deranged
• contemptible but romantic
• secretive
• badass
• renegade
• disgruntled
• sexy
• reformed
• Amish
• Gypsy
• aristocratic
• vigorous
• wussy
• senselessly [adjective]
• luridly [adjective]
• improbably [adjective]
• obnoxiously [adjective]
• thoroughly [adjective]
• allegedly [adjective]
• inexplicably [adjective]
• spectacularly [adjective]
• insufficiently [adjective]
• implausibly [adjective]
• gloriously [adjective]
• unintentionally [adjective]
• startlingly [adjective]
• gratuitously [adjective]
• morbidly [adjective]
• magnificently [adjective]
• unusually [adjective]
• apparently [adjective]
• Canadian
• jittery
• bookish but rugged
• innocent
• cannibalistic
• bitchy
• sorcerous
• wry
• cheerful
• dynamic
• Russophobic
• Francophobic
• Switzophobic
• cultured
• athletic
• lazy
• rebellious
• bumbling
• old
• violent but otherwise amiable
• violent but charitable
• politically savvy
• streetwise
• fragile
• articulate
• soon-to-die
• truculent
• spry
• underachieving
• macabre
• rancorous
• shrill
• bankrupt
• graceful
• trusting
• naive
• bigoted
• terse
• glamorous
• grotesque
• cryptic
• silent
• ill-mannered
• dangerous
• burnt-out
• stylish
• erudite
• race-baiting
• villainous
• mature
• fanatical
• flaky
• cowardly
• generous
• dark
• egotistical
• felonious
• puppy-kicking
• desperate
• vengeful
• Matrix-obsessed
• clingy
• stealthy
• mystical
• wayward
• shell-shocked
• Eurocentric
• seedy
• petty
• wild-eyed
• supernatural
• magical
• occult
• cruel
• monocle-sporting
• screwed
• melancholy
• hypochrondriac
• homicidal
• blunt
• tragically [adjective]
• fast-living
• Southern
• shifty
• incompetent
• surly
• crude
• misanthropic
• philosophical
• confusing
• suicidal
• reckless
• occult
• anti-American
• fickle
• defiant
• pyromaniac
• greedy
• thuggish
• wandering
• drug-addicted
• human-like
• long-forgotten
• repulsive
• debaucherous
• high-rolling
• jolly
• wannabe
• prospective
• persuasive
• cunning
• inept

Step 3: If you have any remaining bracketed phrases to resolve, do so now. For example, if your villain was “a traitorous [PROTAGONIST],” randomly pick a protagonist.

Step 4: Use your words to make a sentence. “After getting [INCITED] by [ANTAGONIST], [PROTAGONIST] must [GOAL].”

Here are a few samples.

• After getting drafted by New Guinea, a reformed mailman must leave a trail of bodies that makes the beaches of Normandy look like Candyland.
• After getting cheated on by Jerry Bruckheimer, a renegade chess star must save the President from a superpowered assassin, the Jackalope.
• After getting impaled on a national landmark by a traitorous inventor, a curiously human-like politician must convince the American people that Lady Gaga is actually Phase 3 of an alien invasion.