1.11 Tips for writing superheroes

Right now, I'm avoiding writing my novel. 

I have been for a few days for a myriad of reasons- I've been suffering a horrific toothache that I couldn't address because I had no money, I've been depressed with the holiday blues because I had to spend what little money I had on drugs (prescriptions) to stay sane, which has left me in a precarious position for the next two weeks financially. Unwell, unhappy, worried about other things, I've spent the last four days focusing on escaping into something I don't have to build.
But now the tooth is gone, and while I'm on a liquid diet, I feel so much better. However, I'm still procrastinating.
Sometimes we fall off the 'write every day' bandwagon. Some weeks it's just not the right mood, the right words aren't on the tip of your tongue, the right phase of the celestial alignment.
The secret during these times, is that it never will be. Life is a messy affair; you have to carve your own mood, your own words and your own time for writing. Other people won't do it for you. Tiny little elves don't prance around manuscripts and write them from your head.
It's okay to miss a few days, even a week, as long as you get back on the horse afterwards. Writing takes time to bleed out all those words.

So here I am, giving a little motivational speech, when you came here to read about tips for writing super-heroes.

There aren't many super-hero novels out in the grand sea of literature.

I've read about eight and I've written one. They typically fall into a grayish area between sci-fi and cyberpunk sub-genre. Sometimes it's urban fantasy.
Hard to classify is a bad thing for publishing and marketing novels. The comic book industry is it's own kettle of fish and  the two don't typically overlap all that often.
With the rise of the Marvel Movie Universe and the gravitating toward the mainstream appeal of comics, there is definitely folk who are interested (people like me!) but getting noticed or picked up is a little tricky.
The appeal is spreading; fans of movies who haven't been into comics like the idea of stand-alone novels. Fans of comics like novels with a comic aspect. Combining the two is a good way to meld two markets. But the combination is rather tricky.
I definitely believe that there is a huge appeal for these novels and I would love to see them taking off and really blossoming as a sub-genre. So let's talk about it a little more.

What makes a superhero?

For those of you not terribly familiar with the age of superheroes (specifically) universes, they are broken into four 'main' eras.

The Golden Age: The early 1930's-1940's comics. These are the first appearances of superheroes with fantastical, often godlike powers. This is where Superman fights Nazis and Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider that didn't immediately kill him.

The Silver Age: Interest in comics about superheroes waned during the 50's and 60's and comics were becoming a little more gritty and focusing on horror and crime. In the 70's superheroes made a come-back and the classic heroes that we know today began to take shape.  People wanted lighter-hearted superheroes and issues were typically (not always) a little lighter in this era

The Bronze Age: from the 70's to early 90's this was the return to superheroes tackling harder issues- like drugs, social injustice, poverty, etc. Most people under 40 are probably more familiar with the heroes of this age than the previous two.

Modern Age:  The modern age of heroes is everything from the 90's to now. In a way, it encompasses a larger spread of comics, but the themes and setting haven't had to dramatically alter themselves. Comics became more common, more popular, less of an outsider culture.


Roughly from a Superhero point of view; the golden age is the early days of formations- Superman's first realizations that he's an alien, his quest for justice is simple and uncomplicated. The silver age is when teams were formed, Supergirl came along, extra side characters appeared and they were light-hearted and generally more kid-friendly. The bronze age is where we see strong individual heroes (like the Avengers) teaming up together, when the concept of universes started to meld together.

But what actually makes a superhero, Auric?

 First and foremost, all superheroes need to have heroism as their core trait- characters like Deadpool might live in that universe, but Deadpool is not 'heroic' his reasons are selfish and his morals extremely questionable. That isn't to say we don't like these characters, but he does not, in my opinion, fit the traditional mold of a SuperHERO.

A good hero needs a dose of one or two of the classic 4 universal virtues; courage, wisdom, love and justice. These virtues transcend culture typically and are recognized despite languages, religions, social standing. (Go and look them up if you want, it's a fascinating read!)

Next, we need something that makes the character Super. Origin stories are as varied and wacky as you can imagine.

I made my character Dion's power the ability to animate pumpkins. She has an alien symbiote attached to her stomach that allows her to do this. Trust me, this is not the strangest origin.
It's important that you know your character's origins and flesh them out- an inconsistant origin story does not a good hero make.

A Superhero needs a good villain.

 

 In any story, we should have good villains. Villains don't always need to be super, either. Lex Luthor is just a crazy, tenacious regular guy who uses money to cause trouble.

Villains don't always need to have a face. There's always Man vs. Nature, Man vs Survival stories; perhaps your hero is fighting a volcano- or stuck somewhere and has to use their powers to survive.

We need conflict, yes, but it doesn't always have to be the maniacal black cloaked villain. That said, there's nothing wrong a good Supervillain!

Setting.

This is a tricky nut to address.  If you are writing a golden-age hero, you might decide to write it during the 1930's. Your superhero might be biffing and baffing common crooks and giving Hitler a smack in the snoze.

Most of us are more familiar with the Urban superhero; in a city of the not-too-distant future where capes go flying overhead on your morning coffee run and giant robots rampage downtown.

A lot of our typical imagery of these kinds of adventures is well-known for a reason.

It is important to pour a fair bit of detail into your setting when you're writing a novel about supers. We don't have the full-page spread of a comic to show us your soaring sky-scrapers or downtown slums.

Finding the right setting for a hero, I think, is almost the hardest part of making a novel for a superhero. Setting really enhances and enriches our immersion, which is the biggest draw to your work.

Anyway, if you're writing about superheroes, I hope that you keep these few thoughts and ideas in the running, and send me a link to your heroes, because I love them!