How long should a superhero story be? Generally I would recommend submitting at a length comparable to other works the publisher has printed.  That’s usually around 80,000-100,000 words for an adult novel manuscript and ~24 pages for a comic book, but check your publishers.  If you’re writing for children or YA, please see these length suggestions.

How do I make my openings interesting? Please see Surviving to Page 2.  Also, I would highly recommend religiously reading Flogging the Quill’s series of first page critiques.

Which font do comic books use? Umm, a lot of them.  If you’re submitting a comic book, I think most of the fonts at Blambots (many of which are free) will suffice for your sample pages.  After you’ve gotten published, most companies can provide you a letterer pretty easily.  Rule of thumb: If a font came pre-installed on your computer, it probably isn’t well-suited for comic book lettering.

Am I supposed to capitalize my main character’s name the first time I use it in my manuscript? I’ve seen editors go both ways on this.  Unless the publisher specifies all-caps or standard-caps in its submission guidelines, either JOHN SMITH or John Smith is fine.

Comparing your novel to a movie in your query letter. I would recommend against this.  The best-case scenario is that you’re “telling” rather than “showing” what the manuscript is like.  Giving details about the story is usually more emotionally effective.  The worst case scenario is that you come off as a wannabe screenwriter writing a two-bit knockoff.  Additionally, you may make a poor first impression if the editor doesn’t like the movie you’re comparing it to.

What’s a character that can be described in a few words and doesn’t have a lot of traits? Probably an archetype or stock character but possibly an extra or throwaway character.

How to save a Mary Sue. Good question!  Usually the main problem is that the character is insufficiently challenged.  I gathered some possible solutions in this article.

How to write an intense scene.

• Intense scenes usually have shorter, more fragmented sentences.  It helps accelerate the pace.
• Put a lot at stake.  This could be the character’s physical safety (like in a chase scene or combat) but it could be anything the character values highly.
• Confrontation usually contributes to intensity but isn’t necessary.

Lolgators.

1.  Unless your plot has changed dramatically, I’d rather not review a rewritten chapter, especially before the manuscript’s first draft is completed.  Generally, it’s a lot more productive for an author to keep moving forward.  I’d love to review your next chapter!

2.  Unless you’re really, really stuck, I’d recommend holding off on any heavy rewriting before the manuscript’s first draft is complete.  You’ll have a much better idea of where the story is going once you have the first draft done and that will make your rewrites vastly more effective.  It will be much easier to organize the story and determine what is worth keeping or accentuating or removing after the first draft is complete.  Before that, trying to do a rewrite is like drawing up a map to somewhere you haven’t been yet.

3.  In most of the cases where I’ve reviewed early rewrites, the authors got demoralized because things weren’t improving as much as they had hoped.  But it wasn’t their fault or a reflection on their talent.  Before the first draft is completed, everything will suck, regardless of your talent level or how many times you rewrite a chapter.  The only way to break out of “first draft hell” is to finish the first draft.

I can now be reached through my online contact form here.  (Thanks, P. Mac!)  If you’d like to send me a formatted e-mail (such as, say, a comic book script), I can still be reached at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.

Joel Wyatt just finished his 41st issue (chapter) of his free superhero story.  It strikes me as sort of a Seinfeldesque take on superheroes.  Here’s the protagonist reflecting on a fight between a superhero and a villain.

But you would be mistaken. Centrifuge, man: this guy’s got class, style… that certain je ne sais quoi that makes him the perfect dark horse for your super-group. His body’s center of gravity shifts wildly when he’s under stress, like the beads in one of those South American rainsticks, making the guy FLIP OUT, like a Topsy-Turvy Titan.

Now that is a freakin’ subtitle. Market analysis my balls.

“But Joel,” you say, “He didn’t even win the battle. Deacon Struck got away.”

“You, sir,” I retort, “are a dildo.”

Tales from the Bully Pulpit was 84 pages of this.  Teddy Roosevelt steals HG Wells’ time machine and meets up with Thomas Edison’s ghost to stop Argentinian Nazis from conquering Mars.

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I’ve responded to all of the review requests, comments and e-mails in my inbox.  If you are still waiting on a response, please re-post the comment or re-send your e-mail (to superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com).  Thanks!

The U.S. Army bought about 100,000 M4s last fiscal year, improving the nation’s zombie readiness levels from “doomed” to “screwed.”  In your face, zombies! Also, the Navy is working on a electromagnetic railgun.  When the zombie dolphins are upon us, we’ll be ready.

Other exciting military technology that could mess some zombies up:

• Nuclear rifles
• Flying jeeps
• Chain-saw robots.  Brilliantly, these would be powered by biomass furnaces, which would keep fallen humans and plants from turning into enemy combatants.  (Also, gasoline would surely be in shorter supply than bodies).

Here’s a wacky writing challenge inspired by Sporcle.  Write a plot synopsis as a haiku.  Here’s my favorite, one for Don Quixote:

Delusional man

Partner rides on a donkey

Terrorist windmills

Post yours below!

Top Ten: “A killer who believes himself an artist of unmatched talent is incensed by being placed last on the FBI’s most wanted list, and begins killing off those fugitives above him, each in a twisted manner that serves his creative vision.”  Hopefully your two-sentence synopsis is that interesting!

Hat-tip: J.A. Konrath.

Here are some questions I got from letters and Google queries.

How long should a comic synopsis be? For a series, 2-5 double-spaced pages.  For a single issue (a standalone/one-shot), one single-spaced page.

Does a hero need a love interest? No, but it’s a nice change of pace for the hero to do something besides superpowered brawls all the time. Romances are one option.  Other options include the protagonists’ work, school, family, protecting one’s alternate identity, relationships between teammates and/or relationships between the heroes and side characters, etc.

How to write an synopsis for comics. The hardest part is condensing your story into an interesting and easily understood form.  In addition to the advice of Warren Ellis, I’d highly recommend checking out Query Shark and Flogging the Quill for examples of how novelists condensed their stories.  Once you have that down, the synopsis should be easy.  Other notes: Focus on the main elements, rather than getting bogged down in peripheral details, and I think the main character is usually the best point-of-entry for new readers.  (If you need to lay out the premise or setting before getting to the main character, please make it quick).

Can a carrot be a protagonist? Survey says no.

How can I get published with DC Comics? Like Marvel, DC doesn’t accept unsolicited scripts. Most of their writers started for other publishers and then got an offer from DC or Marvel.  Alternately, you can start working for DC (or Marvel) in some other capacity, like editing or sales or promotions or whatever, and then move laterally within the company.

How do I write for Marvel Comics? Same as DC: Get known somewhere else, OR start working for Marvel in another capacity and move laterally.  Unlike DC, Marvel has a ton of (unpaid) internships, so that’s one way to get started there.  I’d particularly recommend looking at editorial and editorial operations internships because those involve the most work with writers.

How can I get DC’s attention? + comic writting. I think most of the people that have a chance at a career in writing (for any company) are so good at basic writing craft that it’s purely instinctive.   You’ll obviously put more thought into your professional work than a Google query, but misspelling “writing” may suggest that brushing up on your mechanics would help.   As for getting DC’s attention, I think the easiest ways are to publish elsewhere (preferably a superhero comic, since that’s their focus) and/or work at DC.

How do first-time novelists get their books published? First, finish the manuscript and rewrite as much as necessary.  (The ideal length for an adult novel’s manuscript is ~70,000-90,000 words). After you’re ready to submit, you can send out queries (page-long proposals laying out your project) to literary agents or directly to publishers.  For more advice on the querying process, I’d highly recommend Query Shark’s reviews of queries and Flogging the Quill’s reviews of first pages.

How long should a comic book be? It depends on which publishers you’re looking at, but usually something on the order of 22-24 pages of content. (Some pages of comic may need more than 1 page to script, so the script may be a bit longer).

How many chromosomes would a superhero have? 46 if he’s a human, 18 if he’s a carrot, and almost certainly irrelevant regardless.

Give me an essay on if I were a superhero. Write your own, hippie.

Why are so few homeless people found in Canada? Because the moose eat the bones.

The TSA purportedly confiscated a pair of nail-clippers from a soldier on a military charter where some 230 soldiers were carrying (unloaded) rifles, pistols and machine guns, because the nail-clippers could be used as a weapon.  Apparently the TSA is the only thing standing between the world’s unluckiest terrorist and a surefire Darwin Award.

This reminds me of The Boondocks’ (highly profane) trailer for Soul Plane 2…
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Through the first several chapters, I’m amazed by the quality of the writing of Bitter Seeds, a paranormal 1920s-1940s novel not merely straddling but making sweet, sweet love to the line between superhero fiction and urban fantasy.  I hope it will retain the charm after we get move heavily into the paranormal WWII stuff.

Some early highlights:

• The author, Ian Tregillis, is preposterously good at handling settings and scene-building.  Even if you read the first chapter for nothing else, I would recommend checking out how Tregellis uses setting details to set the mood and develop characterization.  (Hint: those kid-sized burial mounds outside the Nazi laboratory?  Not influenza victims).
• The writing is remarkably tight.  Nothing is wasted.
• The main character establishes himself pretty early.  Even as a child, he’s sort of interesting.

Caveat: Both companies have thousands of characters, so obviously there will be exceptions to every generalization. That said, here are some general differences between the two.

1.  Marvel characters are more likely to come from relatively ordinary backgrounds than DC characters.  For example, Spider-Man, Captain America and most of the X-Men had largely unremarkable lives before developing superpowers.  In contrast, the three most prominent DC characters are a billionaire playboy/ninja, an extraterrestrial, and an Amazon princess that may be a CEO.

2.  DC usually uses more epic superpowers.  For example, Superman doesn’t just have eye-beams or incredible strength or incredible speed or the ability to fly, but all of those and more.   In contrast, a lot of Marvel characters get just one (think Cyclops, the Hulk, Quicksilver, Angel, etc).  Most Marvel characters usually have somewhat more ordinary capabilities.  (The Sentry is a notable exception for Marvel).

3. DC characters were usually created earlier. Most of Marvel’s main characters date to the 1960s and 1970s, whereas most of DC’s date back to the late 1930s and 1940s.

• This is one reason Marvel has characters named [Modifier] Man/Woman/Boy/Lad: Iron Man, Spiderman and the Invisible Woman vs. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Aqua Lad, Hawkgirl and Hawkman, etc.
• Many major DC characters were introduced before superhero teams became commonplace*.

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A lack of intense fight scenes kept Jane Austen from making the big time.  An oversight finally corrected!

Here are some questions and Google queries I’ve gotten this week.

–I’ve gotten rejected by every literary agent. If we’re talking about fewer than 20 rejections, I’d recommend that you keep trying.  If you’ve tried 20 times and haven’t heard back anything after a few months, I’d recommend checking out websites like Query Shark and Evil Editor (which evaluate proposals/queries) or a writing group like Critters or a review forum here.  That can help you determine whether you need to rewrite the query, overhaul the story, or both.

–(This one’s a Google search that’s apparently a synopsis excerpt).  Ultimately, I am a superhero out to save the city from criminals. With every kill, the world gets better. There are still many people out there.  Little do they know I am right there waiting for them, and they will rememb… This story does not strike me as promising. I think giving this protagonist more moral depth and/or empathy would probably make him more likable and interesting.

—What’s the number one reason manuscripts are rejected? I’d say spelling/punctuation/grammar. For authors that clear that hurdle, I think it’s that the main characters and/or plot are not that interesting. For example, check out the previous paragraph. If you were an editor with 100 revenge stories on your desk, do you think there’s any chance that would be the best one?

—How to humiliate a superhero. “That’s the third time this month you’ve gotten your ass kicked by the Sentry, the Golden Guardian of Suck! What next, Squirrel Girl?”

—Will publishers reject you for typos? I think a query with more than 1-2 typos is dead on arrival.  Editors might be able to look past something minor, like mixing up “hoard” and “horde.”   In contrast, mixing up common words like “you’re” and “your” or “its” and “it’s” suggests that the author doesn’t yet have basic writing craft down.  Publishers want works that can succeed with a minimal amount of manpower.

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I read this on a discussion board today: “There are no bad or uninteresting characters, only characters that are written badly or uninterestingly.” What do you think?

Here are some questions and Google queries I got this week.

“Why are there no good superhero novels?” I disagree with this premise–I’d recommend checking out Wild Cards, Dark Cloud Rising and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.  However, let’s say for the sake of argument that there aren’t many good ones.  I think that’s because superhero novels are very rare.  Probably fewer than 50 unlicensed adult superhero novels have been published over the past ten years.  With so few books on the market, there couldn’t be tons of  good ones.  PS: Besides presidential memoirs, I doubt that any subgenres have a higher proportion of Pulitzer winners than superhero novels.

Action novels–not enough story. Even an action story needs a central plot and character development.  And not “development” in the Dragonball Z sense, charting how much more powerful a character becomes from one chapter to the next. How does the protagonist’s quest change him? What sort of difficult choices does he face?

How to copyright a comic book. Your comic book is automatically copyrighted as soon as you write it. You’re fine.
How to copyright a superhero. Likewise.

Is “superhero” a genre? Not any more than “vampire,” I think.  To be considered a genre, I think that a concept has to say a lot about the main goal of the author and/or main character.  For example, detective stories are always about solving mysteries and romances are always about finding and/or protecting love.  I’ve seen too many superhero stories that have nothing to do with beating up criminals to think that “superhero” meets that description.  I would consider “superhero” to be a subgenre, usually of the action genre.  Another indicator that “superhero” is not a genre is that bookstores rarely, if ever, designate a shelf (or online search category) for superhero stories.  Genres usually get their own shelves.

How to tell if your superhero story sucks. Well, we’re too polite to put it like that, but having your story critiqued on  a review forum on Superhero Nation or Critters can identify potential problems and solutions.

Unused superhero names. Heh, good luck with that.  If you want original names, you probably need to come up with your own or brainstorm privately with a friend. If you use a name posted on the Web, you’re running the risk that someone else might have used it.

How to write a superhero story like [a particular series]. You are capable of better writing than glorified fan-fiction. If not, I would recommend looking into other career paths.

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What are some interesting books or movies where a character struggles to adjust to a new job?  (Any genre).  Thanks, I appreciate your suggestions.

I would highly recommend against including a copyright notice when you submit a story to a publisher or review group.

1.  It’s totally unnecessary. “Copyright notices have never been required on unpublished works.”  Also, stories are automatically covered by copyright as soon as they are written, so we already know it’s protected.

2. It suggests the author is somewhat paranoid. If your ideas/manuscript impressed a publisher enough that the publisher would actually want to use them, it’d be much easier and more professional to hire you than to give the ideas to someone else.

3. It indicates the author holds the reader/publisher in low regard. If you are so uneasy about the professionalism of a publisher or a review group that you feel the need to tell them it’s illegal to steal your ideas, don’t submit there!

Try writing a scene with a character trying to sell something to a buyer that doesn’t actually need the product.  For example, how would you convince the Swiss government it really needs the latest in doomsday technology?  (Sell it as a high-energy particle physics lab, of course).

One of the things that strikes me about her organizational scheme is that she kept track of the month of each event, information that’s was rarely referred to in-story but is very important to maintaining coherence.  If you’re not sure which month you’re depicting when you’re writing a scene, even the weather becomes a potential continuity hazard.  She and her editors were freakishly good at keeping everything logically consistent.  (The closest thing to a continuity error I found in the HP series was a student showing up at Hogwarts the year after she should have graduated, and some religious texts have pages with more continuity errors than that).

The Great Geek Manual linked to a potentially helpful Writer’s Digest article about how to identify your genre and deal with ambiguous situations. In summary:

• Identifying a genre in your query can help show the editor what sort of audience you’re aiming at and what sort of  “experience” you’re offering to them.  (My addition: identifying too many genres suggests that the author isn’t really clear why people would want to read the book).
• Sometimes the genre isn’t 100% clear.  For example, Spiderman could be action, science-fiction or maybe romance, and Batman could be action, detective/crime, maybe horror and maybe science-fiction.  Pick a main genre.  For example, in most Spiderman stories, there’s romance and some scientific shenanigans on the side, but the main plot is usually violently stopping a villain.  In such cases, the main genre is probably action.

Some more suggestions from me…

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I’ve responded to all of the e-mails and comments in my in-box.  So, if you e-mailed me at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com or left a comment and are still waiting on a response, please resubmit.  In other news, midterms went pretty well, except for an English class in which I had to illustrate several characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God. I now have even more respect for artists that are actually good.  (When I get the assignment back, I’ll upload it, but I’m almost as bad as the average 10 year old SheezyArt user).

When a patient gets stabbed or shot, they’re usually sent to a trauma ward.  So I think this article in The Detroit News might be useful to you if you’re writing a story where a character gets violently injured.  (Ahem–such situations are not exactly uncommon in superhero stories).

“Feeling is believing,” [the head trauma surgeon] tells a glassy-eyed intern as he fishes around in a knife wound in the back of a man’s knee, trying to augur whether its damage to the vein or the artery.  Watching [the doctor] operate shatters the illusions of TV medicine….

For [one thing], when he operates it is not the stuff of daintiness accompanied by the subdued pings of the EKG machine. He is often elbows deep inside the victim’s cavity, tugging and rooting around as if he’s lost a set of keys. And then there is his bedside manner, which is not so much sympathetic clucking, but rather a combination of pugilism and cold-water truth that has an odd but soothing effect on the patient….

And in the pursuit of saving lives, [the doctor] has donated his life. At 46, he has consistently worked 100 hours per week for more than two decades, which would make him 70 years old in working years. He plays no golf, reads no novels, has few friends and spends more time at the hospital than with his wife and three children.

Probably not.

A professionally-published novelist usually makes only $1 in royalties per paperback sale.  Typically, I’d guess that a well-tailored cost-per-click Adwords campaign could get the costs per incoming reader to somewhere between $.05-.20.

If you’re selling a single book, you almost certainly can’t break even with ads*. If you spend $20 on cost-per-click advertising, you have something somewhere between 100-400 prospective customers and need to get 20 sales to break even.  That almost certainly will not happen.  If your material is good, I think you’d probably convert 1-3% of your readers into buyers.  So attracting 400 readers would probably generate between 1-12 customers.  You probably couldn’t break even with that.

However, there are several situations that might shift the numbers in your favor.

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This is pretty funny, especially if you’re familiar with I Have a Little Dreidel (Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel).

While planning out a disabled superhero, Liquid Comics asked a group of disabled Syrian and U.S. kids which superpower they would most want to have.

“I’ve asked that question in many different groups before and the typical answers are always the ones you’d expect — flying, reading minds, or being super strong,” [the CEO] said.

“The fascinating thing about this group was that I don’t think I heard any one of those three,” he said….

[The CEO] said it was noteworthy that none of the young people wanted the hero’s power to be something that cured their disability.

Amen to that. If you’re going to have a disabled hero, I think it sort of defeats the purpose (and makes the character more bland) if the superpower essentially removes the disability. For example, Matt Murdoch/Daredevil is technically blind, but pretty much the only indication of that is that he wears sunglasses all the time. His radar senses are so ridiculously fine-tuned that his blindness is rarely, if ever, actually an obstacle.  (Indeed, I think his superpowered senses present more of a challenge for him than his vision.  He sometimes sleeps with the music turned up to drown out the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen).

…

This reminds me of the song Save the Last Dance for Me. The guy who wrote the song, Doc Pomus, was disabled by polio and could not dance with his wife (a professional dancer) at their wedding. Instead, he had to watch his brother dance on his behalf. He wrote the lyrics to Last Dance on the back of one of his wedding invitations. (Oof).  I think that’s the sort of dramatic opportunity an author forgoes by using superpowers to essentially cure the character. How does a character deal with being unable to participate in a really special moment?  (Or, at least, unable to participate like most other people do).

FilmFodder wrote a comic book review, How Not to Write a Comic Book. Most of it is helpful–I agree that having too many team meetings or random fights can drive the plot to a screeching halt, as if the writer is trying to burn up time while he figures out where the plot is headed.

However, I’d like to offer a qualification for the following statement: “Here’s a hint to the writer and artist: if the writer has a person saying one thing, don’t show her doing the exact opposite.” Okay, it could be a problem if readers don’t understand why there would be a discrepancy. (I haven’t read the issue, but based on the review it sounds like there isn’t a good reason for the character to explain why she’s refusing to train as she is training). However, under some circumstances, having a character say one thing while doing another might be dramatically effective.

• The character is being hypocritical. For example, a character talking about the need for sacrifice at the same time he’s eating a lavish dinner.  In most cases, a hypocritical character won’t be aware of the hypocrisy, but perhaps he does know and just doesn’t care what the other characters in the scene think of him.
• The character’s perspective of the situation is off. For example, if a really angry guy gets asked to calm down, he might scream something like “I’m being perfectly calm.  Don’t ****ing tell me to calm down!”
• The character is lying from off-panel. For example, John might give Mark’s widow a sob story about the horrible “accident” that killed Mark, but as he says that the camera flashes back to John shooting Mark in the back.
• The character is using misleading language or a double-entendre. For example, if Mark’s widow thanked him for being there with him until the very end, he could say something like “I always had his back.”

If readers don’t understand why there is a discrepancy between what a character says and what you’re showing the readers, readers will probably get confused.