This writing analyzer is fun. It’s totally useless for anything but amusement, though. It claimed that a passage actually written by Hemingway most resembled the work of P.G. Wodehouse, which is a bizarre choice for a passage about a man that killed a lion. Wodehouse mainly wrote comedies about foppish dandies more likely to use a club for golf than for anything interesting. (In the program’s defense, alcohol does play sort of prominently in both the Hemingway passage and Wodehouse’s work).
In most comic books and graphic novels, the superheroes know at least one friendly police character. Here are some ways police characters can help the heroes.
1. Alerting the heroes when there’s a problem too large for the police. Common examples include superpowered robberies and jail breaks.
2. Crowd control (clearing out civilians during or before a superpowered brawl). This helps explain why civilians aren’t getting 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 the superheroes maintain their secret identity. “This picture of Superman turning into Clark Kent is obviously fake. At the time it was allegedly taken, I was interviewing Clark Kent on the other side of town.”
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 there’s an impostor or the heroes are not very careful about collateral damage.
Here’s mine: Comic Sans is editor Kryptonite. It’s usually too kiddie for the tone of the project and handles capital letters poorly (which is a major problem, given that most comic books and graphic novels are published in all-caps). If you like the feel of Comic Sans but need something for an audience older than 5-13 year olds, I would highly recommend checking out this list of similar-but-more-professional alternatives.
Relatedly: The fonts available on most newly-purchased computers are generally unsuitable for most comic books, webcomics and graphic novels. If Comic Sans looks like your best option, please check out the free font selections at 1001 Free Fonts or Blambots.
(Note: Comic Sans crops up most often in comic book sample pages and rarely (ick) scripts, but like some vampiric Loch Ness monster it has made poorly-documented but much-rumored appearances in the novel-publishing industry. Don’t get in bed with a vampiric Loch Ness monster. Say no to Comic Sans.
What’s the subgenre? (Are we talking about an action with… Superheroes? Military/espionage? A natural disaster? Adventurers? Vampires/supernatural creatures? Mythological figures? etc).
What’s the inciting event? (What event throws the main character out of his status quo/comfort zone?)
What’s the main character like? (Anything that makes him more interesting to prospective readers or suggests his role–CAUTION: naming him does not necessarily accomplish either)
What’s the main antagonist like? (Same as for the protagonist)
What’s the setting like? (Time and/or place)
What’s the central goal of the main character and/or what’s at stake if he loses?
What’s the author’s style like?
Is there an interesting contrast between elements of the title?
If the title doesn’t nail at least three of these, I’d recommend rewriting it and/or starting over. Here are some examples that I enjoyed.
Apparently the hangup was that DC Comics would only give him the rights back if he agreed to some (inevitably awful) prequels and sequels. I was expecting an author vs. publisher bloodbath, but this is only a bit more rancorous than “You paid me too much” and “Do I really need that many assistants?”
Should I mention fan-fiction in my query letter? No. Nor would I recommend mentioning self-published works unless you’ve sold at least a few thousand copies or blogs unless you have hundreds of thousands of readers.
cool superhero names. the superhero has all powers. I think your story has more pressing issues than character names.
how long should a novel be. Adult novel manuscripts are usually 80-100,000 words but there is some variation by genre. YA novel manuscripts are usually around 40-60,000 words.
how do i represent foreign text in comic books? If the character is speaking another language but you want to translate it into English for readers, I would recommend <enclosing the text like this*>. (If readers can’t guess which language the characters are speaking, I’d probably add an asterisk phrase like *In Russian at the bottom of the speech bubble or in a box at the bottom of the panel). If the characters are speaking a non-English language and you DON’T want to translate it, then just copy-paste it from a Word document into the text bubble. If the text is in the art rather than the lettering (such as a store sign in Shanghai or a Babylonian tablet), then I would recommend sending the artist a copy of the text in a large font, as well as a screenshot of the text in a large font (in case the artist’s word-processor can’t read the language).
While critics in general are happy to give approval to comic book films (and, I think, many critics do treat them fairly), I think there’s no question that there are elements of bias in many critics’ reviews.
First, look at the language many critics use. When giving a positive review, many will say things like “despite its comic book origins,” or “leaping beyond comic books,” as if being based on a comic book is in some way a handicap.
Actually, I think being based on a comic book (or a novel or TV show or anything else) is a handicap for a movie.
Unwacky: Brett Favre’s first completed pass was to himself.
Barely wacky: Austria’s World Cup team threw a key match to West Germany to screw Algeria. The game got so bad the announcer asked viewers to change the channel.
Wackier: “You were like 50 feet away. How could you be so sure that the ball crossed into the German goal?” “Stalingrad.”
Outlandish: “The Band Is On the Field!”
1. Be careful about needlessly long titles, particularly ones loaded with separate phrases. They’re typically less inviting to prospective readers and harder for people to remember. Unusually bizarre titles, like Saddam Hussein and the Hippies from Space, have more latitude here. (Regardless of length, they will be memorable).
2. If your title does not appeal to prospective readers, start over! Some words that rarely mean much to prospective readers include fictional character and place names. Alternately, some authors use puns. If the reader immediately makes prospective readers smile, fine. If readers will only understand the pun after reading the work, they won’t ever find out how witty the pun is… because they won’t open the book.
I’m changing a lot of content around tonight and many links may be broken until, say, Sunday. I’m doing my best to update the links, but if you find any that don’t work, please post a comment somewhere. Thanks!
If we accept the premise of your story, whether that’s heroes getting superpowers from unlikely insect bites or gaining magical powers, does the rest of the story make sense? For example, you could get readers to buy into a guy getting magical powers and using them to fight a magical mob. But if the story is mostly realistic, like a cop infiltrating the mob, it’ll really disorient readers if a mobster starts using magic on page 200. If you’re planning on using unrealistic elements, introduce or foreshadow them early so that readers won’t be surprised when they show up. (For more on this, please see Holly Lisle and the Case of the Exploding Cat).
Realistic: the premise occurs or could easily occur in real life. Cops infiltrating the mob or students dealing with school, for example. Most superhero stories don’t have very much realistic stuff going on, and that isn’t a problem. Many premises give a superhero superpowers/capabilities through supernatural means such as science fiction, magic/occult, religion, etc. The only thing that matters is whether the reader can maintain the suspension of disbelief.
I was rereading through comments and found this one very sharp.
I’ve never understood the appeal of the power to speak all or several languages in works of fiction, I’ve seen it numerous times in fan fiction, but it never really made sense to me. The whole point of characters going to places where the language barrier is an issue is, well, primarily because the language barrier is going to be an issue, with a few exceptions in a few plots, and discounting fantasy works. Why send Captain Superior to China if the fact that he is an American-born superhero isn’t going to matter? Couldn’t he just stay home and skip a panel or two of flying? How is it exotic if he can just wander into any McDonald’s and order like it was any other Friday?
I agree that it’s important to cut out extraneous elements. However, I think there are some situations where foreign languages would add something to the story even if the main character can speak them.
While a criminal may have put some thought into creating a coherent story that’s hard to disprove, probing questions can move the conversation into areas where he has to make up a lie as he goes along. The more you push for details, the harder it is to keep up a lie. Here’s an excerpt of a fictional interview between an investigator and a criminal suspect.
“Head Cases blasts through the blogosphere to expose the secret longings of a Lonely Superhero Wife.”
“The Non-Event removes the gag order on a super-thief named Lockjaw and pries out a confession of life-altering events.”
“Vacuum Lad unveils the secret origins of the first true child of the space age—and disproves the theory that nothing exists in a vacuum.”
“A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too) presents a fully-realized vision of a universe where epic feats and tragic flaws have transformed the human race.”
(By the way, when you write summaries of your stories, don’t use these for inspiration. Besides Head Cases, they’re pretty awful).
Stephenie Meyer fans: “People who type like this: OMG. Mah fAvvv <3 <3.” [But they'll still complain when you misspell Stephenie!]
Here are some of my own.
Aldous Huxley fans: People that have FAR too much fun to survive to 40. From his masterpiece’s Wikipedia entry: ”…They turn on each other, in a frenzy of beating and chanting that devolves into a mass orgy of [drugs] and sex.” Make that 35.
Tom Clancy fans: Guys that like guns but have never actually carried one.
James Joyce fans: Guys that like James Joyce books but have never actually read one.
Franz Kafka fans: I think they’re the people that run airports. It’s the only possible explanation.
H.G. Wells fans: If they ever had a time machine, their first act would be erasing George Lucas from history. (Could you wait until Return of the Jedi? Thanks).
Charles Dickens fans: Readers that think a book is twice as enjoyable if it’s twice as long.
Lorraine Hansberry fans: Jeopardy writers. I’ll take 1970s Tony-Winning Adaptations for $2000, Alex!
I paid a name artist five months ago in advance for a pin-up for [series name]. In fact, I’ve had several artists, mostly old friends… all consummate professionals.
Just this one artist, who seems to be a bad actor. At the time he said contact him in two weeks and he’d give me an update on the status. Two weeks later I emailed him — nothing. I’ve been emailing him every few weeks very politely at first. Still no response at all. My last couple of emails were more strongly worded and in my last one I told him I’d be telling everyone I know on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on our blog about it and name him by name. Hell, I’m thinking I’ll put out a press release, too.
What do you think? Does he get away with it, and I have a lesson learned, or do I go nuclear on his ass?
Don’t go public about backstage drama. It can only make the situation worse. First, verify what you can. Is he actually being delinquent? You would look like a damn idiot if you accused your artist of going AWOL and it turns out that he was actually in an emergency room after getting hit by a car. (It happens). At the very least, do not stumble into a slander lawsuit until you actually know (rather than suspect) what is going on!
If you have an editor/publisher, address any concerns to them and discuss whether you need to replace your artist. Unlike publically accusing your artist of fraud, replacing your artist does not open you up to a slander/libel lawsuit if it turns out his absence was totally innocuous. If you don’t yet have an editor/publisher, make the determination on your own. It will cost you time and money and you’ll probably have to scrap most of the work by the original artist. It’s highly bothersome and usually unprofessional for an artist to go missing for several weeks, but switching to another artist may well be a cure worse than the disease.
Finally, besides getting back at your original artist, going public doesn’t actually help you in any way. It certainly doesn’t make it any likelier that he’ll come up with the art for you. It may raise questions about your professionalism and will probably make you look inept. (Don’t give yourself a reputation for workplace drama).
Some other general ideas to minimize problems with your teammates:
When you work with freelancers, pay no more than half upfront and the rest on completion. This increases the artist’s incentive to complete the job. It also limits the amount of money you lose if everything goes to hell.
Work out a schedule ahead of time. I’m not sure what the case was above, but making your expectations clear is usually helpful.
Maybe exchange phone numbers. You may be uncomfortable asking for this if you’ve never actually met your freelancer. However, when you’ve committed yourself to paying somebody thousands of dollars, I think your business relationship is strong enough to justify this request. (At the very least, as a matter of customer service).
Business etiquette: when should you call (rather than e-mail) your freelancer? Since a call is more intrusive than an e-mail, I would only call if your artist hasn’t responded to an urgent e-mail within 1-3 weeks. For example: the artist misses a deadline by more than a week (without explaining why) and doesn’t respond to an e-mail requesting a status update. If you call your artist, politely remind him about the schedule, ask if there’s anything you can do to help*, and ask about when he thinks he can have the art in to you. *Unless he needs clarification, there probably won’t be, but offering is still friendly.
I’m not a fan of DC movies and had the presumption that they were significantly more likely to be awful. However, on Rotten Tomatoes, DC movies do almost as well on average (although its bombs tend to be uniquely awful).
For the sake of convenience and clean numbers, I took the top 20 grossing movies from each publisher and then gathered their Rotten Tomato rankings, which are averages of hundreds or thousands of reviews. (A RT ranking isn’t a perfect measure of quality, but it’s probably pretty accurate).
Novelist Jessie Mac: Why Supporters are So Important–this is important enough that I’ll probably write my own article about it. Some authors start out doing signing events where only 0-5 people show up, and unfortunately that’s probably a waste of time. Besides the quality of the work, supporter dedication is probably the biggest factor affecting a new author’s sales success.
P. Mac (my unevil twin?) got 100,000 readers last Saturday after the New York Times linked one of his posts. So he performed some dark sorcery on the server and now the server’s sites (including this one) can cheerfully handle tens of thousands of people. Good times! I remember when 12,000 people caused SN to crash.
The difference between men’s and women’s interactions on Facebook
How to get your content shared on Facebook
One thing that I find both interesting and scary about Facebook is that its audience isn’t gathered around a single interest (like a political site) or even a group of interests (like DeviantArt). If you’re interested in marketing a book online but aren’t web-savvy enough to make your own site, I’d highly recommend giving this a look.
If you’re writing for readers that are mostly of the other gender, it would probably help to conceal your gender by using a pseudonym or your initials. Here’s a list of unisex names.
This is a pretty awesome collection of concept art. Pretty much all of it is kickass, but here are a few pieces that caught my eye. Hat tip to David Thompson’s Culture, Ideas and Comic Books.
Here’s some of the queries that have brought readers to SN recently.
Can I exorcise myself with boiling water? Umm, I’d recommend running that past a priest. Or anybody else that’s not completely nuts.
what are two common mistakes a writer make that could cause his writing to be ineffective fo readers?r. Punctuation and spelling errors.
is the scenario of superheroes getting powers from an explosion copyrighted–no, copyrights don’t work that way. The main problem with using a cliche is less that you’ll be sued for ripping off a particular story than that editors (and/or eventually readers) will feel like your stuff isn’t fresh enough. Plus, I don’t think that it’s all that cliche. (The only remotely prominent competitors that come to mind are Daredevil and Static Shock, and the explosion itself only plays a major role for SS).
hawt edward cullen pix–YOU ARE RUINING THE INTERWEBZ
Pretty much the only good news about getting hospital-grade food poisoning Tuesday-Wednesday is that I’ve had enough time to clear my inbox. If you’re still waiting on a response to an e-mail or comment, please send me a reminder.
Hello. If you haven’t taken my survey yet, I would really appreciate if you gave me 10 minutes of your time. That will help me get published. You can take it by clicking here or by reading under the fold. Completing the survey enters you into a raffle to win a free, signed copy of The Taxman Must Die when it comes out. Continue Reading »
1. Market what you have. The genre should be clear at a glance and the artistic should be consistent with the mood and content. For example, if the story is a grim and macabre horror, you’d probably want something that suggested what danger(s) the protagonist will face. Some possibilities that come to mind include a creepy mansion looming in the background, fog obscuring something sinister behind somebody, some supernatural creature, etc.
2. It needs to stand out at a distance of 10+ feet. The single most important audience segment for most comic book covers is prospective readers browsing through a comic book store. Before they examine the product, you have to grab their attention. Bold color combinations are one effective way to do so. I find that scenes involving motion (particularly extraordinary motion, such as a Batman karate leap) tend to be more eye-catching. Obviously, it helps if something interesting and/or unexpected is happening. More on that here. Finally, the title/logo should be legible across the room (at least 10 feet).
Bullies are a very common, almost ubiquitous obstacle for young protagonists. More often than not, I feel they’re stale, one-dimensionally malicious characters with incredibly thin motivations. (Hell, even Galactus has a better reason for consuming the Earth, and he’s apparently a cosmic dust cloud now).
If you’d like to use a bully, one alternative I’ve never seen would be to do a bully as a protagonist. I’ve never seen that before. You may be thinking something like “of course, because such a character would be so unlikable, you dumb ****.” Granted, likability would be a challenge. However, if Kickass’s tween serial killer and adult serial killers like Sylar or Dexter can be likable, and I think they are, a likable bully is feasible. (However, making the bully likable might be harder, because it’s harder to give a bully good intentions, whereas you can have the serial killer prey on bad guys). So our writing exercise today is to come up with as many possible story hooks for a bully protagonist, preferably one the audience likes even if they don’t want him to succeed as a bully.
Most superheroes have two distinct identities, like Batman vs. Bruce Wayne or Ben Grimm the Thing pining vs. Ben Grimm the human. For a Jekyll and Hyde character, the identities are separated not only by a marked physical transformation but also a multiple personality disorder. Sometimes the character shifts between the two states (such as the original J&H and the Hulk, but it was permanent for Dr. Manhattan).
Compared to other archetypes, curiosity and/or naiveté usually play a prominent role in the origin story of a Jekyll/Hyde character. For example, Dr. Suresh injects himself with his superserum rather than conduct tests, Jon Ostermann/Dr. Manhattan and Bruce Banner/The Hulk were involved in highly dangerous experimental research, etc.
Generally, the character gains his powers unintentionally (either through an accident or as an unintended consequence of a scientific experiment). What if it were intentional? What kind of character would want to do that to himself, and under what (desperate?) circumstances?
What causes the character to have separate personalities in each form? The most cliche (read: usually least interesting) explanation is that the transformed form is monstrous and/or bestial, like Hyde or the Hulk. (One of the many problems that might arise out of that is that the dialogue of the transformed form will be pretty dumb). Fortunately, there are fresher alternatives. For example, Dr. Manhattan’s perspective changed considerably when he essentially ascended to godhood, causing him to lose most of his empathy and estrange himself from humanity. What are some other ways a character’s perspective and/or values might change?
In most cases, the character is a scientist researching something that man wasn’t supposed to know. So he’s generally responsible for the transformation. What if he’s not? (Maybe he’s an unwilling or unwitting test subject, or he’s a janitor that accidentally triggers the device after-hours). Maybe the process is purely magical/occult rather than scientific.
Unfortunately, it’s $200 for the upgrade. Ouch. Nonetheless, some of the features look like dynamite. Here are some that might help your comic book work.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Conroy helped out in the relief efforts by volunteering to do cooking duties for officers and firefighters. On the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD’s commentary, he said that another cook found out he was the voice of Batman. The cook asked if he could tell everyone, and Conroy agreed, though he thought no one would even know who he was. At the other cook’s urging, Conroy yelled in the voice of Batman, “I am vengeance! I am the night! I… am… Batman!” (a line he delivered in Batman: The Animated Series), eliciting cheers from the first responders eating at the relief center. They began telling him what their favorite episodes were, and how they had watched the show with their kids. He said it was the first time he had seen any of them smile or laugh since the attacks a week earlier.
Jim Hines did a survey on how novelists break into the industry. His ~250 respondents are skewed towards fantasy, romance and sci-fi, but I suspect that it’s not wildly different if you’re writing superhero action or historical or historical zombie, etc. Here are several main points I took away from his survey.
This writing analyzer is fun. It’s totally useless for anything but amusement, though. It claimed that a passage actually written by Hemingway most resembled the work of P.G. Wodehouse, which is a bizarre choice for a passage about a man that killed a lion. Wodehouse mainly wrote comedies about foppish dandies more likely to use [...] […]
In most comic books and graphic novels, the superheroes know at least one friendly police character. Here are some ways to use these characters to help the heroes. […]
Graphic novelist Jason Brubaker offers seven strong arguments against Comic Sans. Here’s mine: Comic Sans is editor Kryptonite. It’s usually too kiddie for the tone of the project and handles capital letters poorly (which is a major problem, given that most comic books and graphic novels are published in all-caps). If you like the feel of [...] […]
Alan Moore: “I don’t want Watchmen back.” B. Mac: “I’ll take it!” … Apparently the hangup was that DC Comics would only give him the rights back if he agreed to some (inevitably awful) prequels and sequels. I was expecting an author vs. publisher bloodbath, but this is only a bit more rancorous than “You paid me too [...] […]
Should I mention fan-fiction in my query letter? No. Nor would I recommend mentioning self-published works unless you’ve sold at least a few thousand copies or blogs unless you have hundreds of thousands of readers. cool superhero names. the superhero has all powers. I think your story has more pressing issues than character names. how long should [...] […]
