1.  Can you explain the character’s powers in 1-2 sentences?

2.  Will you be able to easily challenge this character in a variety of scenes?  (If the character is invulnerable, the answer is probably no, unless you’ve set up challenges besides trying to kill the character.  Source Code was an effective example of that).

3.  Will readers understand what this character can do, or is it just like the author’s making it up as he goes along?  (If the character’s powers have “reality” in the name, it’s probably the latter).

4.  Are the character’s powers versatile?  (If your main character is a superstrong tank or a flying brick, it may help to give him a more exotic side-power to help keep his fights from getting repetitive).

5.  If you’re writing a comic, will this character’s powers give you interesting visuals? (If you’re writing a novel, this isn’t nearly as important).

Boxfire Press is looking for contemporary speculative fiction and is very receptive to gay characters. Its preferred genres include contemporary sci-fi, contemporary and urban fantasy, slipstream, supernatural, paranormal, alternate history and (of course) superheroes. Their preferred length for short stories is around 5000 words but can go up to 20,000.  They also do flash-fiction up to 500 words.  (Hat-tip: Aponi).

How to catch their eye: “Being clear and concise, using unadorned language, concrete modifiers (only when necessary) and strong, active verbs will send your submission skyrocketing to the top. On Writing Well by William Zinsser, while specifically about non-fiction, has great advice for anyone learning to write.”  Also, they are not fond of abusing substitutes for “said.”

They are separately looking for short stories to fill an anthology.  “The idea is pretty simple, all the stories revolve around a red scarf lying on the road and answer the question, in some way or another, how did it get there?”  (Note: This theme is just for the anthology).   Story length for anthology entries: 2000-20,000 words. The preferred genres are the same as above.

If you know of any other publishers looking for superhero short story submissions, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.  Thanks!

Kurt Wenner, a former NASA employee, now uses his mathematical skills on things that people actually care about. Like Spiderman optical illusions! Speaking of Spiderman…
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For some reason, a lot of the barbs that I find most memorable are British. Probably because Americans spend too much time learning how to cook and rock out on heavy weapons platforms.

• Journalist: “Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?” John Lennon:  “He’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles!”
• Oscar Wilde: “Here are two tickets to my new play. Please bring a friend, if you have one.”  Winston Churchill: “Sorry, I can’t make it to the opening night performance.  Please send me tickets to the second performance, if there is one.”
• Lady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife, I would poison your coffee.”  “Nancy, if I were your husband, I would drink it.”
• “He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him.”  — Forrest Tucker
• “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”  — Mae West
• “I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying ‘flee at once – all is discovered.’  They all left town immediately.” — Mark Twain
• “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”  — Oscar Wilde
• “Comparing Stephenie Meyer to JK Rowling is an insult to Chris Paolini.”  — Internet commenter
• “He is the best argument for contraception.”
• “The cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.”  — Edmund Wilson
• “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love and 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”  — Harry Lime, in The Third Man

William Shunn’s guide to manuscript formatting is the best reference I’ve seen on this subject.  If I could add some minor formatting points that should be obvious:

1. Please do not ever use more than one exclamation mark at time.  It looks awful!!!
2. Even if you’re writing a heated conversation, please don’t end a string of sentences with exclamation marks!  It will look really strange!  I wouldn’t recommend it! In a heated conversation, readers can infer that the characters are shouting at each other even if the sentence ends with a period.
3. If you’re inclined to capitalize words for emphasis, 1) don’t and 2) if you do, please do so super-sparingly.  (No, really, just a FEW times in the manuscript, PLEASE.  It’s SO HARD to read when AUTHORS just seemingly use all-caps AT RANDOM).

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor for Tor Books, wrote this list of the most common evaluations of novel manuscripts.  Where do you rank?  (The best I’ve ever gotten is #12, sadly).

1. Author is functionally illiterate.
2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don’t publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.
3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.
4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.
5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.
6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can’t tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.
7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.

(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)

 

8. It’s nice that the author is working on his/her problems, but the process would be better served by seeing a shrink than by writing novels.
9. Nobody but the author will care about this dull, flaccid, underperforming book.
10. The book has an engaging plot. Trouble is, it’s not the author’s, and everybody’s already seen that movie/read that book/collected that comic.

(You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions.)

 

11. Someone could publish this book, but we don’t see why it should be us.
12. Author is talented, but has written the wrong book.
13. It’s a good book, but the house isn’t going to get behind it, so if you buy it, it’ll just get lost in the shuffle.
14. Buy this book.

Here are some excerpts from my comments and reviews over March 2011.

• “The only reason a guy would go to see Titanic is if he loves his girlfriend more than his dignity. That’s why ladies make their boyfriends watch Titanic–to test their commitment.”
• “Moral of the story: Beanie Babies will make you a felon.”
• “[There are ways for characters to distinguish themselves besides having different superpowers]. Like how they use their superpowers or the quests they have to complete to attain their superpowers. For example, both Heroes’ Sylar and the Invisible Woman have telekinetic/force-projection powers, but the Invisible Woman uses hers to keep the team alive, whereas Sylar is a serial killer that psychically decapitates his victims to access their brains. (He doesn’t eat the brains, though. ‘That would be gross,’ he explains).”
• “For example, if we’re supposed to really feel how tough these drills are for her, maybe you could talk more about something like the heat or humidity or the air or sun or ground or whatever? (For example, the heat and humidity at Alabama’s Maxwell Air Force Base are almost bad enough to make a Marine cry, and the Marines training at Parris Island have lost enough boots in the muck there to stock a shoe store).”
• “I’m slightly amused that 3 people have shared my oral surgery post with their friends on Facebook. Slow week at work? 🙂 “
• “’Technically, Okie was a derogatory term, but it was crafted by those that hate Okies’ awesomeness.’ Like Steinbeck. He hated on Oklahoma so much he wrote a book about it.”
• “ ‘[He’s] a bit of a hick, but smarter than he acts… which generally results in him getting beaten to within an inch of his life. He doesn’t really have a secret identity, although he does have a codename/nickname. He’s… not super-buff like Superman or the Hulk, and he’s a little on the short side.’ That sounds so much like me it’s sort of scary. 😉 “
• “Number 4’s villain was neither interesting nor scary. He doesn’t even get a name! Come on. Even Godzilla got a name. You know who else didn’t get a name? The enemy commander in Battlefield Earth.  Name your villain or surrender to suck.”
• “Your sci-fi setting builds an interesting contrast between the calmness of the trees and the whip flowers strangling each other. I think that helps develop the characters because they react in such a different way than how I would (namely, freaking out–‘omgwtfarethoseflowersdoing’).”

If you sent me something to review or a question before March 20 and are still waiting on a response, please resend it.  Right now, I have Scott C., Harry,  Aaron J., Stacy B., Matt, Emily and Greg M. on my assignment list.  (Generally speaking, I usually respond to questions within one week and do chapter reviews within 2, so if you haven’t heard back by then, please send me a reminder).  As always, I can be reached through my contact form or by emailing superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.

1. First drafts always suck.  Nobody writes publishable material on the first go.  It takes rewrites to make the story coherent and stylish.

2. Your first draft has permission to suck (hat-tip: Linda Gerber).  When your first draft sucks, as every first draft does, you have not failed as an author. You have succeeded in creating a scaffolding for a better story–maybe even a publishable story.  Excellence emerges only during rewrites, and you need to give yourself something to rewrite.

3. When writing first drafts, I would recommend focusing on getting it done rather than trying to get it done excellently. I find Tiffany Reisz’s take on this to be very helpful.  “I don’t view my first completed draft as my book any more than I view a bunch of ingredients as a meal. The first draft is just the groceries still sitting on the counter. But at least I’ve got the stuff to make the meal now. Once I have a first draft, THEN I start cooking. Cooking is the hard part. People are impressed I can write a 100K book in six weeks. But I can’t. I can write a draft in 6 weeks, but that draft, those ingredients, takes another three or four months to become the book. I don’t stress about the first draft, just throwing it down, anymore than I stress about buying groceries. I might stress over the cooking, but not buying the ingredients.”

4. Doing extensive preparation/outlining may help, but will not prevent the first draft from sucking.  Also, please don’t get so embroiled in your planning that you never feel ready to actually start writing the story.

5. I would recommend holding off on most research until you’ve finished the first draft (unless the research is absolutely integral to the story–e.g. historical fiction or nonfiction). You’ll have a better idea of what you need then, so your research will be better targeted and more efficient then. For more details on research and increasing your productivity as a writer, please see this.

This article on the response to the Japanese earthquake will put a damper on my plan to have more readers than my tech guy by the end of the year. (He was already ahead by at least a bajillion). He’s also reportedly the best contributor on Hacker News, which he assures me is less interesting than it sounds.

The Wily Writers site is looking for superhero stories between 1000-5000 words. Deadline: April 30, 2011. Thanks, Aponi!

From The Amulet of Samarkand:

“The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out. The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled. From far away came the sound of many voices screaming. Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing. It bulged inward, the timbers groaning. Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk…

Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him.”

A few observations:

• The book has two rotating points-of-view, the ancient djinn here and an eleven year old magician.  It was refreshing and brave to start with the character that wasn’t the audience stand-in.
• I like that the author implies (rather than exposits) what’s going on here.  He never explicitly says that this is a magic ritual, but it’s pretty obvious even before you get to the invisible mouths whispering nefarious things.
• The atmospherics and sensory details did a really good job foreshadowing the plot and setting the mood.  The description of the magic is a lot more sinister and evocative than, say, the Harry Potter series.  (Quickly distinguish your story from competing works, particularly if your main character is a tween British magician).

1.  Think outside the box. When you’re writing, the first thing that comes to mind is usually the most conventional (and forgettable).  It probably came to mind first because you’ve seen it (or something like it) so many times before.  If for some reason you need to try something that’s very conventional, at least have characters respond in a different way or build to a different outcome or try a different angle.  For example, killing off the parents in a superhero story gets used more often than a taser at a hippie convention, but it was still extremely effective as dark comedy in Kick-Ass.  (Instead of leading to a “MOTHER, I WILL AVENGE YOU!”, it was a deliberately random aneurysm).  Likewise, instead of another scene where a protagonist saves a love interest, the fugitive protagonist of Point of Impact breaks into an FBI-guarded morgue to reclaim his dead dog.  It’s a memorable scene because the character is putting himself on the line for something that wouldn’t matter to pretty much anybody else.

2.  Let your characters act unusually compared to other characters in their genre(s). If the characters only make decisions and do things that 90%+ of other characters would do in the same situation, they’re probably going through the paces of a pretty banal plot rather than anything we will want to remember.  This is most immediately noticeable for protagonists, but distinctive villains can also excel.  For example, who else but Darth Vader or Hannibal Lecter could get away with psychically strangling one of his boss’ subordinates in front of him or taking down two cops with his teeth?

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The surgery to remove my wisdom teeth went unusually well. I should be responding normally to comments/emails by tomorrow (Tuesday).

If you’re waiting on a response, please post a comment below to remind me.

What would you like to talk about?

I’ve added these three publishing markets to my list of publishers that want superhero short stories:

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1.  Proofreading problems, such as spelling, grammar, punctuation and/or poor word usage. Failing to catch these sorts of mistakes in a manuscript or query will almost always lead to a quick rejection.

2.  The plot sounds too banal. Your query has one page to give us enough details to show what’s at stake and make your plot come alive.  For more on quickly getting to the point, see this article on two-sentence summaries.

• REJECTED: “A man has to save the day.” The only way this could be more generic is if you replaced “man” with “person.”  Next time, say something about what he has to do to save the day, who he’s saving it from, etc.
• STILL PRETTY BAD: “A detective has to solve a case.”
• BETTER: “A poisoned detective has 48 hours to solve his own murder.”  I like the sense of urgency here.
• SWEETNESS: “A killer who believes himself an artist of unmatched talent is incensed by being placed last on the FBI’s most wanted list.  He begins killing off those fugitives above him in twisted manners that serve his creative vision.”

3. The manuscript isn’t finished yet! I’m not aware of any novel publishers that work with first-time novelists that haven’t completed the manuscript.  Unproven first-timers prove themselves by completing the manuscript, and until then nobody will know whether you have it in you to finish the job.  The publisher can wait.

4.  The characters come off banal. What are their personalities like? How are they different from other protagonists in their genre?  (Personality? Key traits? Flaws? Hard decisions? Unusual choices? What’s at stake for them? What are they trying to accomplish? What mistakes do they make?)

5. The author has stumbled into a highly-developed niche without trying hard enough to stand out in a good way. In particular, if the author has only read a few books in the genre, it’s probably going to feel like a ripoff of them.  Read extensively and try looking for unusual choices you could give the characters.  For example, Peter Parker is more human than purely heroic, so it makes sense that he pettily declines to stop the robber that later kills his uncle.  Bob Swagger is so loyal that, even after being framed as an assassin, he breaks into an FBI-guarded morgue so that he can bury his dog properly.  In each of these cases, the unusual choice leads to a major negative consequence.  (Peter’s uncle dies and Bob gives away his position to the FBI).

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Bounty hunters may be a useful point of reference for your superhero story:

• Like most superheroes, bounty hunters have a non-government job that entails some violence.
• They hunt criminals without all of the assets of a police force (authority, the ability to threaten prosecution for noncooperation, forensics labs, generous access to state records, virtually unlimited backup, etc).

Learning more about bounty hunters may give you some ideas about how to write superheroes cracking cases, so I’d recommend checking out this Washington Post article (hat-tip: Contra Glove).  In particular, I liked the tactic of calling the fugitive’s cell phone*, posing as a FedEx dispatcher and then asking the fugitive if he will be available tomorrow for a package delivery.  “Can you confirm the street address?”

(I also found the use of MySpace pretty hilarious, but I’m sort of hoping that your Lex Luthor isn’t on MySpace).

*You can get somebody’s number by asking family members,  friends, disgruntled exes or sometimes the cell company.

Some tips for fixing a Mary Sue, a protagonist that is insufficiently challenged by his or her story.

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).

When you’re writing the first line of your story, try to accomplish at least one of the following:

1. Show us something interesting about a major character (ideally the lead protagonist).  

• If you were going to give a gold medal to the least delightful person on Earth, you would have to give that medal to a person named Carmelita Spats, and if you didn’t give it to her, Carmelita Spats was the sort of person who would snatch it from your hands anyway. (Austere Academy).
• There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. (Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
• I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. (Notes from the Underground).
• Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting ‘v’ under the more flexible ‘v’ of his mouth. (Maltese Falcon).

2. Set something unusual and interesting in motion. YES: A drug-fueled trip across the desert or an execution by firing squad. NO: Waking up and doing a mundane morning routine.

• They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
• The telephone was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was nobody in the room but the corpse. (War in Heaven).
• We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).
• It was cold at 6:40 in the morning in Paris and seemed even colder when the man was executed by firing squad. (Day of the Jackal).

3. Establish the setting with a striking detail, ideally one that sets the mood.

• Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. (Silence of the Lambs).
• It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. (The Bell Jar).
• The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. (Neuromancer).
• You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. (Bright Lights, Big City).
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984).

4. Introduce an unusual relationship for the main character (with other characters, himself, his surroundings, and/or the readers).

• All this happened, more or less. (Slaughterhouse-five).
• Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. (The Stranger).
• The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. (The Napoleon of Notting Hill).
• I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. (Infinite Jest).

5. Introduce problems and/or conflicts.

• A screaming comes across the sky. (Gravity’s Rainbow).
• Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror. (Herbert West, Reanimator).
• Justice? – You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. (A Frolic of His Own).
• The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years–if it ever did end–began, so far as I can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.  (IT).

6. Subvert expectations and/or set up eye-catching contrasts, like exploding grandmothers.

• High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. (Changing Places).
• It was the day my grandmother exploded. (Crow Road).
• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
• One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. (The Crying of Lot 49).

What are some of the best opening lines you’ve encountered?

Writers Wanted

Beta City Anthology is looking for stories of superheroes and/or supervillains staving off an alien invasion.  “The forces attacking from Gehenna are diverse and cosmopolitan, so any alien rabble you can dream up can be used.  Their methods are up to you — classic spacecraft assaults, subtle sorcerous schemes, and unspeakable horrors let loose in dark alleys are all fair game.  Whether your preference leans toward science fiction, fantasy, horror, or something else entirely, your story can find a home here.  Similarly, while we love well-written superpowered action, we don’t want to fill the book entirely with tales of hero vs. alien combat.” Deadline: January 31.

• I submitted a horror story about the aliens and humans banding together against Canadians, but I haven’t heard back yet.  Too edgy?

Gods of Justice is another superhero anthology looking for submissions.  They’re looking for stories that “can be dramatic, exciting, action-packed, scary, funny, romantic or a combination.”  The protagonists must be superpowered heroes.  Preferred length: ~6500-8000 words.  Deadline: January 2.  [UPDATE: The deadline has passed–I hope you made it!]

If you’re interested in more publishers that print superhero short stories, please see my full list.

Readers Wanted

A Thousand Faces, a quarterly anthology of superhero stories, has its autumn edition out.  Enjoy!

Hat-tip: Matt Adams, whose short story In Memoriam made the Thousand Faces anthology.  Congrats, Matt!

Bartenders Wanted

For every Chicagoan that watched the last Bears game.  Good God, we nearly beat the Packers with a third-string quarterback.  The only person who deserves liquid amnesia more than we do is Brett Favre.  (Too soon?)

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I think it really helps superhero and urban fantasy stories when the supernatural abilities come across as special.  Here are some ideas to help yours stand out.

1. Use them less often. The more scenes there are with superpowers, the more diluted their effect will probably be.  For example, you could use fewer filler fight scenes or resolve more action scenes without superpowers.  Perhaps the powers have limitations, such as their duration.  Or maybe outside circumstances force the hero to resolve his problems in other ways (maybe he can’t use his superpowers without risking his secret identity, or he needs to avoid friendly casualties, etc).

2. Increase the costs of the powers. If the decision to use the powers is notable, the powers will probably be more exceptional and interesting. Here are some examples of costs that might fit your story.

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I’ve already done a list of general-interest publishers that occasionally handle superhero novels, but here’s a list of publishers that mention superheroes in their submission guidelines for short stories and/or flash fiction.   (If you’re interested in searching for different types of publishers, try Duotrope’s Digest).

Damnation Books wants realistic portrayals of metahumans and superpowers for its Corrupts Absolutely Anthology.  “Modern pop-culture is brimming over with stories of bright, polished heroes with indestructible moral codes, who throw themselves into a life of public service after being graced (or cursed) with cosmic powers. I call BS…. How about people with flaws? People with serious psychological issues? People that have been looking for a ticket out of their circumstances and finally lucked into it?… To some, this just screams ‘supervillain,’ or ‘antihero,’ and in many cases, you’d be right. But usually, these are stock characters without much substance. They’re the ‘bad guys.’ Real life isn’t that simple…”

• Length: 3000-5000 words.
• Deadline: December 1, 2011.  
• Hey, ladies!  The editor mentions that he’s looking especially carefully for female authors and/or female leads.

Hyperpulp wants literary stories that “demonstrate a concern with writing, not only with plot or characters.”  It specifically mentions fantasy superhero and sci-fi superheroes on its Duotropes page.  “The idea is to harbor stories that exceed expectations, surprise the reader – also regarding the form – and are not afraid to subvert clichés and conduct experimentations… We’ll give preference to a prose more poetic and surprising.”

• Length: Up to 10,000 words.
• Hey, Brazilians!  Hyperpulp publishes in both English and Portuguese.
• Hey, procrastinators!  No deadline.

Jersey Devil Press prefers “funny, weird, and, above all, entertaining” short stories.  “Here are a few things we wouldn’t mind seeing more of: strong female voices, a light-hearted view of the world and truly bat-**** insane fiction.  If you’re worried that what you just wrote is too ridiculous to be published, send it… We like dark, we like ridiculous.  We like funny and we like ‘what the **** was that?”  On its Duotropes page, it lists superhero fantasy and superhero sci-fi as subgenres of interest.  For submission details, please see this and this.

• Length: Up to 4200 words.
• Hey, procrastinators!  No deadline.

Title Goes Here wants “dark stories with some sort of an imaginative twist… we’re not as concerned about genre as about tone.”  Its Duotropes page specifically mentions superhero fantasy and superhero sci-fi, among others.  Please read the submission guidelines here.

A Thousand Faces prefers character-driven superhero short stories “that rise above stereotypical BIFF-BAM-POW superhero stories that exist solely as a framework on which to hang a lengthy fight scene. We want strong, character driven pieces. The superhero element may be slight, but it must be present. If you’re not sure what this means, picture your story minus the superhuman element. Does it still work as a story? If so, we probably won’t want it…”

Powers wants superhero stories of any genre.  “Seeking original stories of superheroes. This can be pure comic-book style heroes, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc but the central theme / characters in the story MUST involve superheroes.”

• Deadline: October 31.
• Length: 2500-8000 words.  (Query first before sending something longer).

Metahuman Press prefers superhero serials (ongoing stories).  “Metahuman Press wants to develop super-powered fiction to the next level online, and one way we want to do that is to show a variety of writer’s creative visions online. Therefore, we have placed an open call for serialized heroic fiction…. While one shot stories are occasionally accepted, we prefer serials. Yeah, you can submit your short stories to us, and if they’re really good, we will probably publish them, but what MP is all about is serial stories. Think of just about every comic series you’ve ever read, then transplant it in to prose form. We want to provide readers with continued stories of new characters. These take one of two forms: the limited series or the ongoing series. Each form has slightly different guidelines to what you should send.”

Matters Most Extraordinary prefers supernatural powers mixed in with historical events. “Stories should be based on real history, and should feature historical characters and/or historical events. The outcome of these events cannot be changed… The reason for the supernatural powers is not to be definitively explained in your story, although characters may form their own opinions as to the source of their powers…”

• Length: Preferably 1000-15,000 words.  Stories shorter or longer may be considered but are not preferable.

Beta City Anthology is looking for stories of superheroes and/or supervillains staving off an alien invasion. “The forces attacking from Gehenna are diverse and cosmopolitan, so any alien rabble you can dream up can be used. Their methods are up to you — classic spacecraft assaults, subtle sorcerous schemes, and unspeakable horrors let loose in dark alleys are all fair game. Whether your preference leans toward science fiction, fantasy, horror, or something else entirely, your story can find a home here. Similarly, while we love well-written superpowered action, we don’t want to fill the book entirely with tales of hero vs. alien combat.”

Gods of Justice is another superhero anthology looking for stories that “can be dramatic, exciting, action-packed, scary, funny, romantic or a combination.”  The protagonists must be superpowered heroes.

• Length: Preferably 6500-8000 words.
• Content Limits: Up to PG-13.

Sword and Saga Magazine prefers inventive and adventurous stories. “We’re looking for stories that take genre fiction to the next level of imagination. Time travel, steampunk, experimental, sword & sorcery, hard & soft SF, futurism, medievalism, …  super hero, supernatural, contemporary-SF, SF Western….  Stories that show diversity in location and research a plus. New writers are welcome….  Stories should be lively and adventurous, demonstrating creative inventiveness. ”

• Length: Up to 7500 words.  Flash-fiction will be considered.
• Hey, poets!  Poetry actually is considered.

Disappearing Island Magazine prefers character-driven stories with “crazy imagination.”   “We are quite partial to stories where the character and their struggles are the most integral part. However, this doesn’t mean you can slack off with that crazy imagination of yours, either. Give us suspense, strange new worlds, and the colorful life on them….  Some subgenres of scifi we love are: Near Future, Distopian, Cyberpunk, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction Horror, Slipstream, Space Opera, Steampunk, and Superhero.  Some subgenres of fantasy we love are: Contemporary, Dark Fantasy, Fabulism, Magic Realism, Paranormal, Superhero, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy, and even Vampire (but if they sparkle, God help us all).”

• Content Limits: “Your material should be PG-13 or lower.”

Daikaijuzine prefers fun speculative fiction that challenges the reader.    “We seek diversity in content and storytelling. We publish primarily speculative fiction, from horror to hard science fiction to high fantasy to mysteries to magical realism to mainstream, but we have room for other types of fiction as well. If superheroes or zombies or giant monsters are your thing, that’s fine too. We want stories that are well told, with strong characters and storylines, demonstrate respect for the reader and the language, and which are fun to read. Challenge us. Stretch our horizons. Make us think. At the very least, give us a good laugh.”

• Length: 1000-6000 words.

Tower of Light Fantasy prefers character-driven fantasy short stories. “I will publish almost any kind of fantasy – especially stories that blend genres, such as dark fantasy, science fantasy, and superhero fantasy. Sword and sorcery and traditional fantasy are fine as long as they have fairly original plots and – more importantly – deeply interesting characters.  I might also consider stories that are closer to science fiction as long as they have a mystical or spiritual element.”

• Length: 500-4000 words. “This word count is firm.”

Anansesem is a Carribbean-centered publication accepting superhero stories for kids.  “Anansesem publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art by aspiring and established children’s writers and illustrators, and children (ages 8 to 16.) We give priority to persons living in or originally from the Caribbean region, but we also welcome work from around the world… We will accept children’s fiction in the genres of realistic fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, science fiction, super hero fiction, mystery, humor, and traditional (traditional = original work that fits the folk tale, fairy tale, or myth/legend sub-genres).”

• Length: Short stories up to 5000 words and flash-fiction will be considered.  Excerpts or chapters from unpublished books will also be considered if they can make sense on their own.

Freedom Fiction wants speculative fiction. “This consists of genres such as science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, alternate history, and all their sub-genres. Additionally we are into detective fiction, crime, gangster, hardboiled, noir fiction and very much into pulp fiction…. If your fiction is unconformist and maybe even not fitting the mentioned genres, do query us and we will see if we can find your story a home at Freedom Fiction.”

• Length: Please query before submitting stories over 3000 words.

Theory Train wants “edgy new speculative fiction.” “Speculative fiction is defined as anything that occurs in a world not our own. So we’re looking for well-written fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, superheroes, and horror…” Submissions for the upcoming issue are due May 1.

• Length: Up to 4500 words.

Hogglepot wants short stories with magic. “Hogglepot accepts fantasy of all sub-genres, including (but not limited to) dark fantasy, heroic fantasy, fairy tale, historical, gothic, light fantasy, magical realism, paranormal, science fantasy, superhero, supernatural, steampunk, sword and sorcery, urban fantasy, and such. Think anything from Lord of the Rings to Toy Story and everything in between…. The fantasy element must be present in the story, whether the characters be magical creatures such as vampires or dragons, or if the protagonist stumbles upon an ancient magical artifact, or if the characters mix magical potions, etc. There needs to be some sort of magical element within the story. We like magic.”

• Length: Up to 5000 words.   

Happy hunting!  Do you know of any publishers looking for superhero stories?  Please leave a comment or contact me, especially if you work for the publisher in question.  Thanks!

DEFUNCT OR TEMPORARILY CLOSED TO SUBMISSIONS

This Mutant Life prefers stories about the everyday lives of superheroes.  “We publish work which has some link to the world of superheroes, whether they be torn from the pages of classic four-colour comics, or the result of more introspective or unconventional approaches.  Stories which deal with the everyday lives of people with unusual abilities or physical characteristics are ideal, and there will be a definite preference given to stories which present interesting and well defined characters and situations…”

• Length: Up to 6000 words.

Umm, okay.

Strange Horizons has a list of stories it receives too often.  Here are some that I think are especially unpromising.

• 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].”

Virginia Postrel of the Wall Street Journal offers an interesting comparison: “The princess archetype embodies a feminine version of the appeal… The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay ascribes to superheroes. They express the ‘lust for power and the gaudy sartorial taste of a race of powerless people with no leave to dress themselves.'”  What do you think? Are the two that comparable? Any other observations, arguments or baseless insults?

I’m researching an article about how to write superpowered action scenes.  What are some of your favorite books that do supernatural action particularly well? Do any particular scenes stick out to you?  Some supernatural elements include:

• Superpowers
• Magic
• Nonhuman capabilities (for vampires, aliens, dragons, lawyer-eating dinosaurs, etc).
• Science fiction enhancements (like Starship Troopers’ powersuits)
• Other paranormal abilities (such as psychic powers)

I swear I’m not making this up.

• A pizza deliveryman robs a bank with a bomb attached to his neck and a gun concealed in his cane.
• The police catch up with him.  He claims that a bunch of black men accosted him and forced him into the bomb-collar.
• The collar detonates, killing the pizza deliveryman.  (Body count: 1)
• The police find a letter addressed to the “Bomb Hostage” in his car, directing him on a scavenger hunt so that he could give the bomber the money and get the collar off.

Continue Reading »

In case your protagonists are investigating a crime scene, here are some basic angles to check out: 10 Most Incriminating Types of Evidence.  For more detailed tricks, I’d recommend the rest of The Writers’ Forensic Blog. Hat-tip: Marilynn Byerly.