Character 1: “Bob and I are going to Vancouver for the summer.”

Character 2: “Vancouver?”

Character 2 comes across as sort of mentally slow, right? Unless you’re trying to make characters sound slow (or totally disoriented), I would recommend against having them just repeat each other.

Whenever a character says something, it should develop a character and/or advance the plot (e.g. conflicts, goals/motivations, major decisions, etc).  For example, you can use questions to bring in new details rather than just repeating something that has already been introduced.

Here are some more interesting responses to “Bob and I are going to Vancouver for the summer.”

• “Where’d you get the money for that?”
• “What about your job?”
• “But there are Canadians there. You don’t even own a gun!” (This character isn’t much smarter than in the original, but is definitely more memorable).
• “Isn’t Bob convinced the airlines are trying to kill him? How are you getting there?”
• “Did that Canadian put you up to this?”

From John Scalzi’s Redshirts:

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

 

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

 

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission.Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

Since 2000, movies with 2+ superheroes have averaged 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas movies with a lone superhero have averaged 50%.

Lone Superheroes

Superhero Teams

Below, I listed all of the superhero team movies and lone superhero movies which went into these ratings.

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Is there anything about The Avengers you would have done differently? If so, what? (I wouldn’t recommend reading the comments here until you’ve seen the movie–there will probably be many spoilers).

If you’re interested in becoming a guest blogger for SN, I’m looking for writing advice for current and/or prospective authors (for example, on some element of writing craft, marketing/sales, promotions/publicity, agents, the publishing industry, or anything else many novelists and/or comic book writers would find helpful). Please send me a 1-2 sentence query at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.

As always, these articles do not need to be about superheroes specifically. 

Not sure what to write about? Here are some ideas on my board:

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I’d give it 3 stars out of 4. The closest comparison that comes to mind is that it’s the movie that Fantastic Four wanted to be when it was growing up (before it got addicted to cocaine and dropped out of school). Some other thoughts:

• The writing was very fresh and clever. I liked the way they played on the (sort-of-tired) trope about a supervillain breaking out from captivity. Additionally, the scene where SHIELD tries to contact Black Widow (who is being interrogated by Russian smugglers) is hilarious.
• The conflicts within the team and between the teammates and Fury/SHIELD were impeccable. I think this was the main difference between Avengers and the vastly inferior Fantastic Four II–the characters have great reasons to fight amongst themselves. In contrast, the Fantastic Four’s squabbles were mostly fueled by stupidity and it left me mainly wanting to punch all of them. Compare pretty much any scene in Fantastic Four to the Avengers confronting Nick Fury over what he’s been holding back from them. It’s like night and day.
• BLACK WIDOW: “This is just like in Budapest.” *She stabs an alien in the head.* HAWKEYE: “You and I… remember Budapest very differently.”

Tyche Books is looking for Canadian superhero stories between 1000-10,000 words. “We want to see any and all permutations of the superhero genre, but with a uniquely Canadian perspective. Stories must involve a Canadian element — setting, politics, culture, history, characters, etc. Any genre-mashing goes: alternate history, crime, horror, romance, SF, fantasy, surrealism; we want a variety of tones, approaches, subgenres, cultural perspectives, etc. We’re especially interested in submissions where setting (a specific city, region, or province) plays an essential role, but we’re open to other types of stories, too.”

I’m looking forward to the resulting anthology, because Canada has everything a superhero story needs: international intrigue, dark plottings, and enough lies buried in murders to make even a Minnesotan gasp. How does a superhero survive in a country where even the geese are trying to kill everybody? Are Canadian superheroes mortified when Hollywood casts them as Australians or Britons? What sort of doomsday schemes are unfolding in the barely-inhabited reaches of the Canadian wilderness? (The Apocalypse Nome Theorem, multiplied by Canada). And, of course, the Wolverine Paradox: how many Americans does a Canadian have to slice to become popular in the United States?

My main reservation is that a large cast frequently leads to more generic characters used in a more rushed way, more storytelling-by-committee (e.g. the studio dictating what can be done with each of the characters or how the plot has to play out), and less time for each character that viewers find interesting. For example, if you like Iron Man much more than Thor OR if you like Thor much more than Iron Man, then having both in the movie will result in less time for the one you want to see.

This Wired article suggests that Whedon and his team are at least aware of these issues, which bodes well. On the other hand, I would have been more encouraged if Whedon had been more involved in the selection of the villain (the company selected Loki for him).

UPDATE: Initial reviews for the movie on Rotten Tomatoes (based on an early overseas release) are astronomically high, 94% so far. Among superhero movies, only The Incredibles (97%) has done better.

OVERVIEW

Don’t Forget the Death-Ray!: How to Write Compelling Superhero Stories will help prospective authors write superhero stories that are as effective and unforgettable as the titular doomsday implement. It will cover storytelling elements such as characterization, plotting, dialogue, and how to craft villainous schemes that will make would-be Supermen wish they were back in Smallville.

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Campus police officers in Colorado used tranquilizer darts and a trampoline to safely remove a bear hiding in a tree, leading to the photograph of an apparently levitating bear seen below and/or a Matrix-style battle royale.

If you’d like to use the police as an antagonist but aren’t quite sure why they might oppose the superhero, here are some  possibilities.

1. The superhero is investigating sensitive cases.

• The hero might be challenging cases that have already been “solved.” If the superhero can show that the police & district attorney have arrested and convicted the wrong person, it will make the police look bad, could open up them to lawsuits, and could jeopardize careers.  Also, the police will probably be skeptical about whether the superhero knows more about the case than the police investigation was able to find. What if the superhero is wrong?  If a superhero even looks into the case, that could create unwanted media attention for the police and prosecutors.
• Major politicians (e.g. the mayor) might pressure the police if the superhero is tackling politically sensitive cases (for example, if the suspect is a politician or major donor or if the case is highly publicized).
• The case is likely to implicate police officers or otherwise make the police look bad. For example, anything involving police brutality, corruption, police misconduct (e.g. why did the police drop the case against Lex Luthor? Did the mayor put them up to it?), etc.

2. The superhero refuses police commands (which will especially irritate police if the case ends badly). For example, if the superhero tried breaking into a hostage situation while the police were still trying to negotiate a surrender, that would make the police livid (particularly if any hostages then got injured or killed). If the superhero does something that causes the police to get heavy media and/or political criticism, the police might throw the superhero under the bus to protect themselves. “We had this case completely under control until Captain Doomsday showed up!”  (The superhero would probably disagree with that claim–if it looked like the police had the situation under control, the superhero probably wouldn’t have charged in).

2.1. The superhero is too rough. If the hero has a history of gratuitously injuring criminals, getting bystanders/hostages injured, and causing serious property damage, the police might think they’d do a better job on their own.

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I’m working on a proposal for a superhero writing guidebook, Don’t Forget the Death-Ray. If you might be interested in buying a copy when it comes out, please sign up for my email list here so that I can show publishers that there is demand.

Bob Moore: No Hero is a superhero novella about a private investigator looking into a baffling series of (possibly) missing superheroes.  Here’s what writers can learn from it and why you might want to check it out.

What Worked:

–The characterization is unusually strong, particularly for the main protagonist. His development arc was unexpected and fresh. The book has hardly any romance (besides two brief conversations between the main character and his ex-wife), but the relationship definitely added something to the main plot which would have been otherwise missing. As for the main antagonist, he’s not one-dimensionally evil, but he’s definitely a problem that the protagonist needs to deal with.  If you’re struggling with how to write a not-conventionally-evil antagonist without making the stakes less urgent for the protagonists, No Hero  is a good example.

–The ending sequence was eerily effective. The author (Tom Andry) made an unusual decision to end the book with a conversation between the protagonist and his ex-wife rather than, say, a conversation with his assistant or anybody else that’s actually present in his life.  In retrospect, I think it really effectively showed how the character had evolved and made his previous decisions in the climax both more interesting and morally questionable.

--I would strongly recommend this book to anybody who wants to make a disagreeable protagonist more likable.  Notably, the book doesn’t gloss over his disagreeable actions and other characters (mainly his ex-wife) call him out for it in reasonable ways and he responds in a mostly reasonable way.  I think that helps readers stay on board even if they aren’t taken with the character’s occasionally hard-boiled approach.

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Generally, I would recommend submitting an adult novel manuscript at 80-100,000 words. Here are some tips for shortening your manuscript if you’re considerably over that. (NOTE: Please don’t shorten your manuscript until you’ve actually finished a draft! Until it’s finished, completion should be your #1 goal).

Substantive Changes

1. If you have too many main characters, please eliminate and/or merge some and/or demote some to minor characters. If you’re an unpublished author, I’d recommend limiting yourself to at most 6 main characters (protagonists and antagonists total) that will require substantial space.

2. Eliminate and/or merge side characters.  Individually, a side character doesn’t take as much space as a main character, but there are usually more SCs and it’s generally easier to reduce their roles because they have a smaller individual effect on the plot.

3. You can eliminate or pare back side plots. What the characters are doing when they’re NOT pursuing the main arc of the book? Is it worth the space?

• Relationships between major characters and side characters.
• Anything a side character does without developing a major character.
• Anything characters do in their daily lives or day jobs (e.g. when they’re being Bruce Wayne rather than Batman).

4. Make the main plot more efficient.  For example, remove intermediate steps in the main conflict which don’t contribute enough to tension and/or character-development.  For example, in the last book of of the Hunger Games series, the main character spends about 6300 words taking down an intermediate obstacle (a fortress standing between her and the main enemy). The fight wasn’t terribly interesting and it didn’t show us much about the characters we didn’t see elsewhere. The author could probably have shaved off a few thousand words there.  Another possibility is making the villain’s scheme less monotonous/repetitive. For example, if you had your villain and hero racing around the world to gather 9 plot coupons, it might help to cut that down to (say) 5 so that you have more space for each intermediate step and readers have less cause to grouse (“Oh, God, another Pokemon badge?“).

4.1. Another way to make the main arc more efficient is to shorten the buildup to the inciting event. For example, if your superhero action novel takes 20,000 or 30,000 words to give the main character superpowers, you might be burying the lede too much (assuming the superpowers are the most important plot development early on–if the action is secondary to the story, that might not be the case).

Phrasing Changes

5. Convert some/most of your adverb phrases into shorter verb phrases.  For example, “He moved quickly through…” could be “He ran through…” or “He raced through…” Your book probably has hundreds of adverbs*, so you could probably save a page or two here.

*To count your adverbs, have your word processor find all of the examples of “ly ” in your manuscript.

5.1. Root out passive and/or unnecessarily long phrases. For example, “There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground” can be shortened to “Dead leaves covered the ground,” saving you seven words. I’d recommend having your word processor finding all examples of “there were” and “there was” and rephrasing most of them.

6. Glance through each of your chapters for unnecessary words/phrases and eliminate them. For example, if somebody has just thrown a plate at the wall, you don’t need to tell us he’s angry or surly. Additionally, the word “then” is usually unnecessary in sequences of events. For example, in “Mike did X and then he did Y,” you don’t need to tell us “then” because it’s obvious that Y came after X. (Otherwise, you would have put Y first).

As much as possible, mentally engage your readers by giving them clues they can use to draw conclusions and inferences.  Instead of just telling your readers “the security is incredibly tight at this military base,” remind us of the foggy day the guards fired three rockets at what turned out to be an angry llama.  It’s far more memorable and interesting than telling us what to think/feel.

Are you “showing” enough of your story?  One way to check is to see how much of your story is implied.  For example, on any given page, how times can the reader infer something rather than just read a conclusion you gave to them?  My rule of thumb is that each page should give us room to make an inference (rather than tell us what to think/feel) at least twice.  Show us the llama.  That may sound difficult, but you have a lot of possibilities.  For example…

• Characterization.  Can we make inferences about personality traits, demographic traits, or any other information that might develop a character?  (For example, in the excerpt below, the character doesn’t say how old he is, but there are clues).
• A character’s thoughts/feelings/beliefs.  For example, is there any evidence implying a character is lying or putting up a facade? Is there any evidence implying that a character’s beliefs are incorrect?  (For example, in the scene below, the main character is probably wrong about his father in at least one crucial way).
• Motivations and plot. Why does a particular character do X rather than Y? For example, in the excerpt below, if you think about why a murderer might poison a victim rather than shoot him, you probably know more about the victim than his son does.
• Setting.  Can we figure out anything about the setting beyond what the announcer has told us?

Here’s the opening paragraph of I Am the Jackal:

There are a lot of things that could wake you up in the middle of the night in Bellem—you know, that don’t involve gunfire. Cop cars, cop sirens. Shattering glass. Sometimes yelling from the streets, screaming, sometimes the guys trying to party in the apartment next to you. Sometimes normal things like phone calls. And sometimes phone calls from the hospital, saying that your dad’s in the E.R and that he’s been poisoned and he’s convulsing and, would you please come to the hospital right now for him, only I don’t hear that part too well ‘cause by then the only thing I can hear is Mom screaming “GET OUT HERE, SETH!”, a slamming door, and nothing else.

What sort of inferences were you able to make?  Here are some I came up with, starting with the most obvious.

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LF: “I have a protagonist motivated by revenge, an antagonist trying to better society, and a Master Mind manipulating them both because of romance.”

If you haven’t yet reached your word-goal for your novel (probably 80-100,000 words for a professional-length manuscript or 50,000 for NaNoWriMo), here are some ideas for making your book longer without just dragging it out.

1. Add a new complication. If something goes wrong with what your characters have already done or are doing, it will take them time to resolve the complications. I would recommend using this extra space to develop characters and/or advance the plot and/or raise the stakes. For example, in the Hunger Games series, the main character (spoiler) survives a Rollerball-style death match, but her new fame makes her a symbol of a brewing rebellion and puts her family at risk of government reprisal. Before, (only) her life was at stake, but it gets even worse for her.

2. Add intermediate scenes, ideally fleshing out character development and/or smoothing out the plot with necessary details. If you’re inserting a scene between A and B, it should add something you didn’t have before.

3. Add another goal or a change of goal for a major character.

4. Expand scenes you’ve glossed over. For example, if Silence of the Lambs had been shortened by paring back the conversations between the main character and side-antagonist Hannibal Lecter, the plot would probably have been much less interesting. In this case, additional material with a side character developed a main character and gave the main character a few tantalizing scraps of information with which to accomplish her goal (find the main antagonist before he killed again).

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Feel free to use this printout for your creative writing classes or whatever else you have in mind.

Below, I’ve included a text version, mainly to help Google “read” this.

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When people speak they have their own biased version of facts. This is based on their intelligence, experience, and beliefs. Dialog should not only tell readers the actions your characters take, but why they are making them.

Let’s see how effective, or ineffective dialog can be. I’m going to look at excerpts of dialog from Eclipse (pages 101-103) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (pages 213-215).

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Please see the comments below.

A politician* recently declared this about a particular military operation*:

You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that [the objective] was there.

If 100 authors each wrote a story about a commando raid, 98-100 would focus on the raid itself and/or the outcome rather than the decision to launch the raid.  Your prompt today: Write a story where a decision by one person or one group of people is more important than its execution by a different person or group of people.  Military/political setting not necessary.

*For our purposes here, it doesn’t matter which.

Carl: “I’d love to see the feedback on my comic book, ‘The Aloha Girl’ (currently in development).”

Cresc: “I am currently developing a superhero comic titled ‘Hi-Tech Girl’ with the intent to publish digitally.”

I found this Bobby Fischer graphic novel interesting.  It’s refreshing to see a use of chess that isn’t a Hollywood cliche (e.g. the villain bullying the hero around the board until the hero unleashes a checkmate at the last moment).  I think the characterization could be stronger, though–that would probably help give it some appeal beyond chess fans.

If you’re not a chess fan, it’s similar to a sport, but with more violence*, State Department shenanigans, and (above all) bedroom hijinx with Russians of dubious character.  In most sports, if a guy flops, he’s probably trying to draw a foul call from a referee.  In chess, a guy flops because he drank a KGB cocktail.

*Assuming you’re playing it right.  Who would waste poison on a beginner?

Michael Chabon gets as confused as I do when characters have names that start with the same letter.

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By the way, his description of his upcoming movie John Carter gives me the overwhelming impression that this will be a case where talented, motivated people are thwarted by circumstances mostly beyond their control (in this case, subpar source material). Extremely depressing.  Thinking more positively, what are some more encouraging examples of stories that are significantly better than the source material? For example, Iron Man was an okay character in the comics, but the Iron Man movies were preposterously enjoyable (93% and 73% on Rotten Tomatoes). Fantastic Four was probably source material for The Incredibles*, but The Incredibles was a huge upgrade in terms of characterization and the depth of noncombat scenes.

*The superpowers were uncannily similar and the plots were similar enough that FF received last-minute changes to distinguish it from The Incredibles. In the end, Fantastic Four wasn’t similar enough–it scored 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 97% for Incredibles.

What are some stories that picked the wrong main character?  Who would you have used instead and why?

At the risk of idiotically commenting on a series I haven’t actually read, I think Twilight would have been more interesting from Jacob’s perspective* than from Bella’s.  The story, as I understand it, is a tragedy about an emotionally ravaged Bella falling in thrall to an abusive boyfriend and pushing non-abusive guys out of her life. I suspect Stephenie Meyer would probably have realized how creepy the Bella-Edward dynamic came across if she were writing from the perspective of a third character.  (Plus, it would have spared readers the cesarean-by-teeth scene).

*Or the perspective of Bella’s mother or father.  They’re probably not aware that their daughter attempted suicide over a high school romance, but the father would have to be oblivious not to realize that something was distinctly amiss.  (I suspect the mother would be more interesting–she might have some conflict with the father about whether this custody situation is healthy for Bella.  The plot would probably have to change to bring the mother more into contact with her daughter, though).

Please see the comments below.

Candlemark & Gleam is releasing Matt Adams’ superhero novel, I, Crimsonstreak this May.  I’m not sure which of his signature feats is more impressive–getting published or surviving a man-eating frog–but my panel of publishing consultants* agreed that the publishing deal would pay better.

*Three hobos and a bus-driver.  The bus-driver may have misunderstood my question, because he threatened to throw me into the street if I tried to pay my fare in frog legs.

If you’d like to be part 2 of the only series that combines publishing congratulations with man-eating fauna, please let me know if you have any exciting writing news to share.  (You’ll get a free link and help remind prospective authors that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t necessarily an oncoming train).

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I’m not sure if this counts as a preemptive huzzah, but I’m upping my New Year’s resolution from 275,000 hits this year (25% more than last year) to 300,000 hits (36% more).  So far, traffic this year is up 31% compared to the same period last year.  Thanks for reading!

MoguMogu writes: “A socially inept loner is thrust into the world of superheroes against her will. She can either run away and and abandon everyone that needs her or fight it out at the cost of her health and sanity. She doesn’t want to be famous or save the world; she just wants to be left alone.

Target audience: Humans. Preferably alive.

I’m looking to get published, so in the form of reviews, spare nothing. As long as it’s constructive, I’ll take it.”