Oct 23 2008
In the four weeks since we’ve added the Recent Comments widget, our comment-traffic is up about 800%.
Oct 22 2008
Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I’d say the start of chapter 2 at the very latest.
Oct 22 2008
One of the signs that your villain doesn’t suck is that he’s interesting enough to handle a scene on his own. No, we don’t need to hear about his pathetically traumatic family history or the byzantine machinations of his evil organization. Readers just need some sign that your villain has the competence, style and/or ambition that mark a good villain.
Competence
Your villain should not be out of the hero’s league. In fact, for most of the story, the villain should probably be winning against the hero. One common misconception is that the hero will seem less impressive or likable if the villain beats him a few times. No! A hero that defeats a crazy-competent villain will resonate more. For example, the only reason anyone remembers Luke Skywalker is because he defeated Darth Vader.
Fortunately, you can make your villain competent fairly easily. When your hero attempts some course of action, take 15 minutes to list anything that could go wrong. Then list anything that your villain could do to make the hero fail even more spectacularly. Your villain only has to exploit one glaring weakness in the hero’s plan to look competent. Does the hero’s plan require logistical support from his Batcave? Whoops. Even if your villain can’t take down the Batcave, he could try something like an EMP or sunspots to interfere with communications signals. Is the hero unable to teleport around town? Throwing him off with a decoy could buy the villain enough time to carry out his real plan.
Style
Style is harder to pin down than competence, but there are still a few discernable signs of style. A stylish villain tends to dominate his scenes, even if he doesn’t have many lines. For example, there were a few scenes in the first season of Heroes that Sylar dominated even though he wasn’t actually present.
One scene that particularly sticks out is when Parkman and his FBI partner were fumbling around one of Sylar’s icy murder-scenes. First, there’s the horror factor. Sylar is obviously an extremely depraved killer. But more importantly, the gruesomeness of the murder is contrasted with the incompetence of the cops. They have no idea what’s going on. Sylar was more of a presence because he was obviously playing out of their league.
Ambition
I recommend giving your villain an overarching and genuinely sinister plan. If your villain’s plan is only to get revenge against a few people, the stakes of your hero failing will be very low. For example, the first Spiderman movie dropped the ball on this one. What would the stakes of Spiderman not fighting the Green Goblin have been? Pretty much nothing, unless you were on the board of directors of OsCorp.
This doesn’t mean that the villain’s plan has to endanger the world or universe. That gets cheesy very fast. But this goes to competence: a villain that’s only playing for small stakes (like trying to kill a few OsCorp businessmen) probably won’t seem very competent or frightening. In contrast, Dr. Octopus’ plan was more ambitious and interesting even though it wasn’t particularly evil. He wanted to perfect a crazy-ass scientific theory to redeem himself for killing his wife the first time. Octopus’ plan had significantly higher stakes for Spiderman because he endangered many more innocent victims. (Sorry, ruthless businessmen, but readers just don’t care about you).
Oct 21 2008
Leading a series with a “pilot” that isn’t actually the first episode is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard of in any human endeavor. Even using “blah blah blah blah blah” as a sentence in a university fundraising letter is not that inane.
When a network decides at the last moment to use another episode as the pilot, it’s essentially admitting that the first episode is too awful to air. So they switch to something that was never meant to be used as a pilot in the first place. Smooth. That would be like an NFL coach telling his quarterback that he didn’t like the way he was throwing with his right arm, so he should play the next game with just his left. A surefire plan for success!
Oct 18 2008
I went to a pub tonight and ordered a glass of wine instead of a Sprite or Guinness. According to the menu, my wine was supposed to taste of “notes of white and black pepper with a forward fruit.” Hmm, not quite. It tasted more like someone stabbed my tongue with a cattle prod. I ended up getting a Sprite and a Coors to wash the taste away. Blerk. I’m going Guinness next time.
Oct 16 2008
Usually, it’s a problem when a story gets very strange. The weirdness spirals out of control until eventually you find out that Spiderman’s really a clone, or he has six arms or something. Dr. McNinja has started out wacky (the first villain was Ronald McDonald) and it’s only gotten wackier (his villains have also included a robotic Dracula and raptor-riding banditos), but somehow the result is total hilarity.
Oct 15 2008
Unfortunately, work is crazy this week and I haven’t had time to think of any writing articles. If you have any writing questions or topics, this would be a great place to post them. For example, some of the questions we’ve answered before are…
Oct 15 2008
Please don’t open your novel with any of these.
1. The main character introduces himself to the reader (“Hi, my name is ____, but you can call me ____.”) Isn’t there anything more interesting you can tell us about the character than his name? If not, you should probably get back to the drawing board. This type of opening is also annoying because it’s usually the only part of the book that’s addressed to the reader.
2. The main character wakes up and does his morning routine. Instead of showing your character waking up, getting dressed and then having breakfast, why not skip to the interesting part? Furthermore, virtually everyone eats breakfast and gets dressed. Please show us something distinct about the character.
3. The main character is immediately plunged into danger. OK, so the hero is getting shot at. Why should we care? If you go down this route, make sure we’re emotionally invested in the character. Introduce the character a bit before throwing him to the sharks.
4. Something unusual and cryptic happens in the first half-page. For example, a mysterious woman hands the hero a baby and then walks away. Typically, this type of opening could be improved by spending more time describing what the hero’s life is like before the strangeness starts. I’d recommend that novelists spend at least half a chapter describing the hero in his element. Then, when you shake up the status quo, we will have a better feel for the character moving forward. For example, CS Lewis described his characters for several chapters before bringing them to Narnia.
5. The narrator delivers a geography lesson. I recommend showing us your characters before the world, particularly if your world is similar to Middle-Earth.
6. The opening sentence uses pronouns for “suspense.” “Until it happened, I had no idea how badly they had screwed me.” This narrator is obviously hiding what “it” and “they” are. That’s not suspenseful, just annoying. Make sure you give us enough to understand what’s going on. For example, we could rewrite that sentence as “until the dragon’s face exploded into a gooey mess, I had no idea how badly Adventurers, Inc. had screwed me.” Please remember to let readers know everything that the point of view character knows.
Oct 15 2008
Today we reached 100,000 pageviews. With ten weeks left in the year, we should be able to clear 150,000 by New Year’s. Thanks for coming!
Oct 12 2008
One of the most common reasons that superhero stories fail is that they try too hard to be serious and end up killing the fun. This does not mean that a serious story has to be unfun (see Wild Cards). But the line separating seriousness from insufferability is very fine. Here are some signs that you’ve crossed it.
For example, let’s compare Heroes to Spiderman here. Tracy discovers her ice-powers by accidentally killing someone and tests them by destroying a rose. In the Spiderman movie, Peter Parker discovers his superpowers by finding out that he no longer needs glasses and tests them by trying to sling his way across town in a comically inept fashion. Parker’s story features enthusiasm and positive energy. Tracy’s story is laced with emo wangst. It doesn’t help us relate to her or see through her eyes. Worse, it prevents viewers from wanting to see through her eyes.
Oct 12 2008
The New York Times confirms that the Alaskan state trooper in “Troopergate” is actually Matt Parkman, a former police officer best known for his psychic abilities and contributing to the rampant power inflation in the second season of Heroes. She probably had him fired after he tried to give her some of the African crazy-beans that he’s been gorging on for the last two episodes. “They’ll let you see the future!” Riiiiight.
Oct 11 2008
War Heroes held a contest where fans could pick the cover they’d end up using. Many of the submissions were quite good.
Oct 10 2008
We’ve slapped together a mock page to help show about how much text a comic book can fit in a frame full of important scenery.
We could have squeezed maybe another three lines into the opening paragraph. In all, I think 50-60 words for a large frame is pushing it.
Oct 09 2008
Yet Another Comics Blog argues that origin stories are mostly a distraction from the real action.
The origin is not the interesting story; it’s background information. If the information in the origin is important to the story you’re telling, then you can go back later and fill in for the reader. But don’t start with an issues-long origin…
Think of all the good genre movies you’ve ever seen. How many begin with a long origin sequence? Did Raiders of the Lost Ark start with 45 minutes of young Indiana Jones getting his PhD in archaeology? Did Star Wars begin with the origin of Darth Vader?
I disagree. A character is usually the most human and relatable during his origin story. Additionally, for most superheroes they also provide an irreplaceable opportunity to introduce the audience to the character. For example, an author couldn’t explain who Spiderman is without showing why his uncle died.
Also, Star Wars did not begin with the origin of Darth Vader, but it did explain Luke’s origin at length. Over the course of three movies we saw a farmboy grow into the savior of the universe. It worked quite effectively. I’d also venture that the first Matrix movie benefitted from Neo’s origin story. If it had started with Neo after he had been released from the Matrix, it would have been horribly confusing.
The author praises Batman but criticizes Spiderman and Superman for spending too much time on origin. But these are exceptional cases. Usually, the audience is completely new to the backstory. If so, then explaining the character’s origin is probably essential to introducing the audience to the world and/or the character.
Oct 09 2008
Oct 09 2008
I found this Halo quote on TV Tropes.
Cortana: Just one question: what if you miss?
Master Chief: I won’t.
The dialogue needs more flair. If I wrote a similar conversation between two Superhero Nation characters, it might look something like this.
Oct 08 2008
We did some calculations on the back of a napkin and concluded that the author of Things White People Like received an advance of 2.33 cents per hit. Assuming that our advance earned us the same amount of money per hit, our projected pay per hour of website work has doubled to $1.75 over the past three months. At this rate, we might reach minimum wage by the time I have my degree. [JACOB ADDS: Barely. Won’t your parents be so proud?]
Oct 08 2008
Oct 07 2008
1989 Batman. Except for X-Men 2’s White House scene, I’ve never been so pumped up by a movie’s opening.
It could only have gone downhill from there, but even so… a song by Prince in a Batman movie? Really?
Oct 07 2008
In the next 2-3 weeks, we’ll clear 100,000 pageviews for the year and should clear 125,000 before the year is over. When we set our New Year’s Resolution, we were hoping for 50,000. Thanks for your traffic.
Oct 07 2008
Now that is a revolution in military affairs. Picture courtesy of fugly.com.
Oct 06 2008
The Odd Squad is a witty take on paranormal agencies like the Men in Black. Here’s the synopsis:
“As the new head of the Office of Dimensional Defense (O.D.D.), Charlotte Becker fails to get her first pick among the department’s new recruits. When the best she can get turns out to be a geeky blogger, a flaky psychic, and her air-headed sister, she faces some stiff odds—namely a competing agency who doesn’t want the truth exposed.”
I love the competing agency angle, but the synopsis is not as smoothly written as the comic. Here’s a sample page for ODD Squad.
The FBI agent is remarkably engaging even though he says very little. He has great chemistry with the paranormal researcher. But I have two concerns. First, the lettering’s not easy to read. Second, the story’s main character (the researcher) has none of the laugh-lines and doesn’t seem well-written. Her jokes, like the quip about her boyfriend, completely fizzled. I suspect the story will suffer when the FBI agent is absent.
Oct 05 2008
This is one of the most effective novel-advertisements I’ve ever seen.
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