Year: 2019

            Running a day late. Sorry about that. 

            So, I kinda wanted to revisit an idea I’ve talked about once or thrice.  But I’m going to come at it from a new angle, so don’t worry—you might still get something out of it.

            I’m guessing four out of five of you reading this probably dabble in what often gets called “genre fiction.”  It’s when we can slap a quick, easy label on a manuscript.  Sci-fi.  Fantasy.  Romance. Horror.  And there’s sub-genres and sub-sub genres and the labels can just get more and more specific.

            I’m also sure everybody here wants to write the best stuff they can.  I hope you do, anyway. The coolest sci-fi, the most heart-warming romance, the creepiest, gnaw-at-your-mind horror.  That’s the goal, right?

            When I started telling longer stories, it was my goal.  I tried to make everything cool.  I tried to have all those moments that made people gasp with excitement and terror.  I tried to make my story like the other stories I’d seen that did these things.

            But I had a couple of invisible issues, so to speak.  Problems I didn’t even know I was dealing with.  And a lot of them burned down to experience.

            Firstoff… well, I was really new at this.  In every sense.  Some of you may remember me saying that I got my first rejection when I was eleven.  And at that point about 90% of my intake was comic books and old Doctor Who episodes, with the occasional Star Wars novel here or there.  And, in the big scheme of things, I hadn’t even read a lot of those.  So a lot of the stuff I thought was bold and clever was actually cliché, well used tropes.  It was just that I’d never seen them before.

            For example, one of my favorite comics as a kid was ROM.  But it wasn’t until much later that I realized ROM was pretty much just Bill Mantlo doing his own version of The Invaders, which was really Larry Cohen doing his own version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was Hollywood doing their own version of the storyfrom same-named novel.  And there’s nothing wrong with any of that… except my assumption that the elements in ROMwere completely new and never seen before.

            Secondwas me trying to do all this cool stuff in my own writing.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the individual ideas, just that I was trying to do them at my clumsy, inexperienced level.  Trying to be cool.  Trying to be scary.
            For example, again, y’know that bit in every other horror movie when something bursts out from around the corner or behind the curtain, and it just turns out to be a cat or Wakko playing a stupid prank?  We generally call that a cheap shot.  Cheap shots aren’t scary—they’re the storyteller trying to be scary.  It’s me ignoring whatever’s going on in the actual story to toss a cat in your lap.   Another one that comes up a lot—especially in films—is nudity  Some people think throwing in random nudity is hot or sexy.  But just as often it can be creepy, demeaning, or just… weird

            When we toss in random, unconnected elements like this, we’re doing it to try and create an effect, not for the sake of the story itself.  It doesn’t matter how the cat got there or why it decided to leap randomly out after sitting quietly or why Phoebe decided walking through a cobweb meant she should take her shirt off while she was exploring the cellar.  It’s all just a storyteller trying to get a reaction, and how they get it is kind of irrelevant.  The ends justifying the means, as some folks might say.

            Which is, in my mind, kinda crappy storytelling.

            Some of you know that I like watching bad movies on the weekend and live-tweeting big (often easily-avoidable) story problems that come up.  A while back I watched one, a horror movie, which had tons of scary elements in it.  Tons of them.  The problem was, it was just tons of scary elements from other stories and movies, all just crammed in an attempt to make things scary without any thought to the characters, the scene, or the story as a whole.  It almost felt like horror movie mad libs, where the filmmakers just said “Okay, we need a scary thing.  And another scary thing.  And another scary thing.  And…”

            There’s two issues with doing this.  One kinda connects to this “trying” aspect and the other is its own thing –I’ll get to it in a moment.  The other one is something I’ve talked about before.  I can’t take something that’s funny/cool/scary/sexy in another story, shove it into mine, and expect it’s automatically going to get the same effect.  Especially when the elements on either side of it are also random things from other sources.  An element can be really disturbing in your story but absurdly funny in mine.  There are tons of YouTube videos that prove this point—splicing together two elements from different films and creating an entirely new, different effect.

            And this brings us to the other aspect of the “many scary things” problem, which is also the third overall issue when I start cramming stuff into my story.  It’s also another one that I’ve mentioned a couple times before.  A bunch of story points is not the same thing as a story.  I can have a hundred cool fantasy elements in my manuscript, but that doesn’t mean I’ve told a cool fantasy story.  A few dozen sexy, romantic moments don’t mean I’ve written a good romance.  And the biggest pile of cheap shots and scary beats don’t add up to a solid horror story.

            When I just start cramming these things in, I’m breaking up whatever coherent story I might actually have.  It’s becoming that random bunch of story points that don’t add up to anything.  I need to be adding things that serve a purpose within the story, not just in what I want the story to do in some vague, overall way.  I want things to be sexy and romantic, sure, but in service to the story, not just to be five seconds of sexy or thirty seconds of romance.

            This is a tough thing to grasp, I know.  How can trying to put more action in an action story not be a good thing?  How can more scary things in a horror story not be good?  But this is one of those little, subtle lessons that lets us go from being adequate writers to really good writers.  Some folks like to fall back on “the end justifies the means,” but this ignores the fact that whatever means I use are going to  determine the kind of ending I actually get.  And if my means are just random, haphazard elements…

            Well, what kind of end will that give me?

            Do I want something that’s trying to be a cool sci-fi novel?  Or do I just want to write a cool sci-fi novel?  Y’see, Timmy, I can incorporate almost anything and everything I want into my story.  But I need to actually incorporate it and not leave it sitting alongside.  Because I don’t want a pile of elements—I want a pyramid.  A perfect structure that’ll awe people for ages after they’ve seen it.

            Anyway…

            Here’s a quick reminder that my new book, Dead Moon, is out exclusively from Audible in just two weeks time.  Believe me when I say there will be more reminders in the weeks to come.

            Next time, I think I’d like to expand on something I touched on here today…

            Until then, go write…

            It’s been another six months and a few things have happened, so I thought it’d be worth updating this…

            One aspect of being on social media a lot is getting asked questions.  Which is overall fun and cool.  But some times I get asked the same questions.  Again and again.  I suppose you could say they’re… frequently asked.  This is less fun and cool.

            The ugly truth is it can really wear on you to answer the same questions again and again because some folks won’t scroll down two or three posts or up through the comments.  Between this blog, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook… well, it adds up to a lot of people repeating the same questions.  Again and again.

            (No, I’m not singling you out because you just asked a question. You just did it once without thinking.  You’re cool, no worries. 

            (I’m talking about that other guy.  Him.  You know who I mean…)

            Anyway… rather than get testy and frustrated with someone for asking the same question I already answered three times this morning in the same thread, I figured I’d scribble up answers to the most common questions I get and pin them on a lot of my social media pages.

            Then when people ask me anyway, I can point them at this.

            Or maybe I won’t say anything, cause… look, there’s an FAQ pinned right here.

            Well on Valentine’s Day you’ll (hopefully) be listening to Dead Moon, a sort of sci-fi horror story about zombies on the Moon and stuff like that.  No, seriously.  It’s kinda fun and pulpy and creepy.  That’s exclusively with Audible for six months, sooo… we’ll probably talk more about that when I update this FAQ in July or August.

         And speaking of July, late this summer, if everything times out, you should see another Audible exclusive from me– another beautiful Threshold book.  It’s got a few threads, one of which involves a lonely guy named Murdoch who’s trying to deal with his childhood sweetheart, Anne, coming back into his life, and also her family… which is technically his Family, too.  Also a guy named Chase who’s, ironically, on the run from something.  And there’s some other characters in it you may recognize, too.

            No, I don’t have a title for it yet.  You’ll know when I do.  But later this summer—maybe early fall—you should see that.

            And if all times out well, I’m already roughing out a new standalone book that you (hopefully) will see… maybe this time next year?  It’s still far out, so it’s hard to say.

2) Is Ex-Isle the last Ex book?

            Not 100% sure, but… yeah, looks that way.
            The truth is, every series has a limited life.  Very few people decide to start on book three of a series—they go back and start at book one.  So book one always sells the best for almost every series.  Attrition says not as many people show up for book two, even less show up for book three, etc, etc.  It’s always a downward slope heading for that red line where things aren’t profitable.  None of the Ex-Heroes books have ever lost money (thank you all for that), but all the numbers say book six…  Well, things don’t look great for book six where that red line’s concerned.
            The nails aren’t all in the coffin (do they still nail coffins shut?).  Any number of things could make the series surge in popularity and get the publisher interested in putting out another book or two.  Depending on how things work out, I might even be able to apply a little leverage.  But for now…  Ex-Tension is going to stay on that back burner.  Sorry.

            Okay, look, I love the Ex-Heroes books.  Hopefully you all know that.  Those characters and stories got me where I am today.  I love that there are so many fans who feel passionately about it.  I had tons of fun writing them.
            But…

            The simple truth is, if there were enough people willing to pay for another book, the publisher would still be willing to put it out.  Sure, some folks might pay twice as much to get one more book, but experience tells me three or four times as many people wouldn’t pay anything (for one reason or another).  There’s pretty much no way this works out.

            Plus, my schedule’s set up months in advance.  As I hinted at above, I already know what projects I’m working on into 2020.  Doing something like this means I haveto plan on said Kickstarter succeeding and put it into my schedule, which then means a gaping hole in my schedule when it doesn’t.

            Again, sorry.

            … I just answered this in question #1. 

            This is what I’m taking about!  You’re not even really reading this, are you?  You’re just skimming.  Come on!  I wrote all these out.  You could at least put a little effort into this.

            Jeeeeesh…
           

            Thresholdis the overall, umbrella name for the shared universe I kinda-sorta inadvertently kicked off seven years ago with 14.  There are some books that are definitely part of an overall linear story, a “series” if you will, and some that just fall under the umbrella.  Every Marvel movie is part of the MCU, but not every Marvel movie is a direct sequel to The Avengers.  Or if you prefer, lots of Stephen King books tie into the Dark Tower mythology, but they’re not all part of the Dark Tower series.  Does that make sense?

            This makes things a bit awkward for me, because marketing folks love series  (book one, book two, etc–heck, I’ve seen places where Rogue One is marketed as Star Wars Book #18) and some of them are reeeeeaally pushing Threshold as a pure, straightforward series, even though I’ve said again and again it isn’t.  This may give some folks false expectations of what some books are going to be about, and I apologize if that’s you.  I don’t want to lie to you, but I also don’t want to have to explain every book in advance (see #10).  So I’m just trying to make things extra-good and fun so you won’t be too bothered that maybe you went in expecting Avengers: Endgame, and you ended up getting Ant Man and the Wasp. 

            Again, if that makes sense.

            As a name, Thresholdfits in a few different ways.  It’s part of a doorway, and doorways figure big into most of this series. It also refers to reaching a certain critical level—another recurring issue in these stories. And, finally, it’s also a reference to an old H.P. Lovecraft short story.

            Which has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was kinda cool…

6) So how does Dead Moon fit into this?

            As it happens, I wrote a whole book explaining this.

            (see #1, above)

            There’s a very solid argument to be made that the majority of my fanbase is audiobook listeners.  Odd, I know, but there it is.  Audible knows this, too, and because of this they made me an extremely generous offer for exclusiverights to those two Threshold books (Dead Moon and that other one I mentioned up above).  Both of these are going to be audiobook only for the first six months they’re out.  After that, we’re talking to some folks, and (as I said above) I should have some answers for you by the time I update this FAQ.

            And, yeah, I know this is going to make some of you grind your teeth. I’m very sorry if you’re die-hard against audiobooks and this leaves you out of the loop for a bit. My agent and I talked about it a lot, believe me (even with that generous offer).  Every other day on the phone for about six weeks. 

            In the end, I really wanted to tell these stories and—for a couple different reasons—this was the best way to do it. Again, I’m sorry if this puts you in a bad spot.

            Very doubtful.  I think a lot of the fun of The Junkie Quatrain was the overlapping- interconnected nature of the stories.  It’d be tough to replicate that without feeling kinda forced and awkward.  I think we’ll probably have to draw our own conclusions about what eventually happened to those characters.  Well, the surviving characters.
            Although, one of them may have already shown up somewhere else…

            This sounds like an easy question, I know, but there’s about a dozen conditionals to any answer I give.  Figure a huge chunk of each contract is just all the different terms and conditions for when and if and how people get paid.

            For example… format matters, sure, but so does where you bought the book.  And when.  And how many people bought it before you. And if it was on sale. And who was actually holding the sale.  And all of this changes in every contract.  What’s true for, say, The Fold may not be true for Paradox Bound.

            TL;DR—just buy the format you like.

            To be honest, I’m still thrilled people talk about anything I wrote. Seriously.  What I can’t stand are spoilers.

            I’m thrilled Yakko enjoyed it so much when the protagonist found that and discovered this and learned about them.  When he tells people about it, though—no matter what his intentions—Yakko’s ensuring that other folks won’t have as much fun with the book as he did.  It’s like if I tell you how a magician does all her tricks and then take you to see her performance.  You’re not supposed to see a magic show being aware of the resolutions in advance and knowing how all the tricks work.  It kills most of the fun, because you’ve destroyed the structure that created a sense of wonder and discovery.

            That’s why I avoid those questions in interviews, and why I always delete posts that reveal information from the back half of a book (yep, that’s probably what happened to your post).  It doesn’t matter if the rest of the post was positive or negative—spoilers get deleted.

            And not just my stories!  You shouldn’t mess up other stories, either. Movies, TV—if you enjoyed it, try to give other people a chance to enjoy it the same way.

           If you suffer from the heartbreak of spoilers Tourettes and absolutely must discuss your fan theories about my books, there are a couple secret groups on Facebook.  There’s one for the Threshold books here, and one for the Ex-Heroes series here.

            Right now…probably not

            To be honest, last year was such a mad jumble with working on books and going to cons and moving that… well, I didn’t make a hell of a lot of plans for this year.

            At the moment, the only thing on my schedule is WonderCon at the end of March.  Absolutely nothing else.  Not even sure I’m going to wander down to SDCC this year, to be honest.

            But—things change all the time.  If you want to see me at your local con, you need to let them know!  Yeah, them, not me.  I’m willing to go almost anywhere I’m invited, but if I’m not invited… well, there’s not much I can do.  So, email them, tweet them, post on their Instagram account.  Reach out and let your voice be heard.

            And keep in mind that most cons finalize their guest list five or six months in advance, so if your local con’s in three weeks… odds are not in your favor.  Sorry.

            Okay, there’s a misunderstanding of how Hollywoodworks in this sort of question.  When you see a film adaptation or TV series, it means the studio went to the writer, not the other way around.  I mean, if it was just about the writer saying “hey, make this into a movie,” wouldn’t most books be adapted by now?  Everyone would be doing it.
            Alas, I have zero say in whether or not Netflix wants to do an Ex-Heroes series or SyFy does aLycanthrope Robinson Crusoe movie.  They’re looking for things that have piqued a certain level of interest, and so far these stories of mine have only just scraped that threshold. 
            No, me (or you) writing the screenplay won’t make a difference, unless your name happens to be Shane Black, James Gunn, or David Koepp—and even then it’s not a sure thing.  Because in case you forgot…

13) Wasn’t there going to be a TV series based on 14?
            Yeah, in theory.  A few years ago I was approached by Team Downey, the personal production company of that guy from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  Turned out he’s a fan of 14and he wanted to do something with it.  So a deal was struck with his company and Warner Brothers TV.
            But… there are no sure things in  Hollywood.  It’s all a big game of if.  If a pilot gets greenlit, if it gets shot, if it turns out okay, if the assorted executives like it, if it gets picked up…  Plus, some of these ifs are on a time limit.  WB paid to extend that time limit once (which got a bunch of us very hopeful), but… in the end, it just didn’t happen.

            Which all kinda goes with what I said up above in #11.  Robert Downey, Jr. had signed on as an executive producer and that wasn’t enough to get the show made. 
            I still get to say he liked one of my books, though.

14) So, is there anything we can do to help?
            Well, buying books is always a good step.  Hollywoodlikes to see big sales numbers and interest.  If you want to see something—anything—on the air, talk about it a lot on social media.  Write reviews on websites.  Producers/ directors/ actors all hear about this stuff the same way you do.  If #ParadoxBound or #DeadMoon started trending on Twitter tomorrow, there’d probably be a film deal within a week.
            (true fact—an easy way to help do this?  Don’t buy books from Amazon.  Write reviews there, sure, absolutely, but Amazon doesn’t report sales figures, so they don’t get included in things like the NYT Bestsellers list.  Yeah, I know, a purchase from your local bookstore might cost a buck or three more, but it’s a purchase Hollywood is more likely to notice)

            (Plus, then you’re one of those cool people who supports local businesses…)
            (Yeah, Amazon owns Audible, but Audible reports audiobook sales.  I don’t know why.  Nobody does. It’s a mystery of the universe…)

            Short answer… no.

            Part of this is a time issue—if I say yes to some folks, in the spirit of fairness I have to say yes to everyone. Now I’m spending all my time doing critiques instead of writing. Not to sound too mercenary, but… writing is how I earn my living.  So when someone asks me to read stuff, they’re asking me to give up a few hours of work.  

            Plus, I do have this ranty blog sitting right here, y’know, with over a decade of writing advice and tips.

            It’s also a legal thing.  Some folks are lawsuit-crazy, often for no reason,, and the bad ones ruin it for everyone else. Let’s say Phoebe gives me a piece of fanfic to read where she has Harry and Eli showing up at a certain post-apocalyptic film studio.  And then, a few years from now, I decide to do a big crossover story. 

            That’s when Phoebe sues me for stealing her material.  

            Yeah, it sounds stupid, but I’ve seen this happen so many times.  Seriously.  Hell, I’ve actually been subpoenaed and deposed over a case with less behind it than that example I just made up.

            This is why I’m verrrry leery when I get a long message along the lines of “Hey, you know what should happen next with the Ex-Heroes series…”  It’s why some writers have responded with cease & desist orders when they get sent stuff like this.  It’s also why I’m not part of those above-mentioned spoiler groups.

           So, the long answer is also… no.  And if you send stuff without asking, I’ll delete it unread, just like spam mail. Sorry.

            Nope.  Nothing against you (well… most of you), I just don’t like Goodreads.  I’d explain why, but I’m taking the Thumper approach.

            I post nothing there and spend as little time there as possible (which usually works out to “no time”).  If you see anything there from “me,” it’s something someone else posted.  I understand a lot of folks love the site and if it works for you, that’s fantastic.  Glad you like it.

            I won’t be there.

17) What’s up with your Facebook page?

            Man.  Facebook.  What a mess, huh?

            I started that Facebook fan page ten years ago, dreaming of a day when maybe—maybe—I’d have five hundred followers. Now it’s closing in on twenty times that and I have kinda regular thoughts about deleting the page.

            Simple truth is, Facebook’s made it almost pointless to have a fan page.  They’ve tweaked their algorithms so my posts have gone from being seen by 70-85% of fans to barely scraping 20% most of the time, all with the goal of having me pay to reach the people who’ve already said they want to see my posts.  They’ve overcomplicated pages so it takes more time to do the same things I’ve always done.  Hell, they’ve actually made it faster and easier to schedule posts than it is to live-post and directly interact with people.

            And sure–it’s their site.  They have the right to do what they want with it and run it the way they like.  And of course they absolutely deserve to make money off it.  I’m a progressive, but I still believe in (regulated) capitalism.

            But then that brings us to all Facebook’s little side ventures.  Which all seem to boil down to the buying and selling of… well, us, at the core.  As many folks have pointed out, Facebook’s real product is us, and their real customers are the people buying and using everything about us. 

            Maybe I’m old fashioned, but when someone talks casually about buying and selling people… it makes me uncomfortable.
            So I’ve scaled way, way back on Facebook.  Personally and professionally.  I have no plans to change this in the near future.

18) What about Twitter or Instagram?

            I’m @PeterClines on Twitter.  Fair warning–as some of you may have figured out, I’m progressive and I’m a bit more political there.   On Saturdays I also drink a lot and live-tweet bad movies so…  hey, you know what you’re getting into.   I’ll also say right up front I don’t believe in Twitter high school, where I’m supposed to follow someone just because they followed me. So if that’s your approach, I’ll save you time now…

            Instagram (also @PeterClines) is probably the geekiest of  my social medias.  How is that possible, you ask?  Well, there’s little toy soldiers, LEGO, classic toys.  And cats.  Can’t have an Instagram account without cats.

            Yeah, I know Instagram’s also owned by Facebook, but (for the moment) they’re not being quite so reprehensible over there.  So (also for the moment) I’ll still be there.

            And that should answer about 90% of your questions, yes…?

            Sorry for missing last week.  Just had a couple of those jumbled days where I kept getting called away for other things.  And while I had a topic for this week, it never quite gelled the way I wanted it to in my head.  Although four or five others did, so I’m set for a while here.

            (topic suggestions are always welcome in the comments, though)

            Anyway…

            I wanted to talk a bit today about godlike characters.  Not just in the sense of robes and brilliant auras and hurling thunderbolts.  Sometimes it’s that rugged, locked-and-loaded man or maybe the tall, super-competent blonde.  Really, it’s anyone who is, for one reason or another, way beyond the level of every other character in the story.

            Which really means they’re out of everyone’s league.

            Quick segue.

            One thing that I see come up in discussions of different open-play, MMPORG type games is a balance between players.  For purposes of this discussion, it’s when the overall population of the game has hit a level where it’s essentially unable to support new players.  If everybody’s level 72, it makes it tough for anybody to interact at level one. All those 72’s are using their bigger, badder gear to go on bigger, badder missions, where they’ll face bigger, badder monsters and get even rewarded with even… well, you get the point.

            Meanwhile, I’m over here in the goblin village, poking at things with a knife and hoping I can get my dagger skill up to 65%…

            And if we actually have to fight each other?  Well, I don’t have a prayer.  I mean, we can argue that statistically there’s a chance, but really… there’s no chance.  And from the 72’s point of view, I mean, can we even call it a wasted three seconds?  Yeah, there may be some jerks who just like beating up the noobs, but for everyone else… yeah, this gets to be kind of boring, right?

            See where I’m going with this?

            Stories need this kind of balance, too.  We want characters to have a chance at achieving their goals, but we also don’t want it to be easy.  If the story leans too far one way or the other, it just gets dull.  For everyone.

            F’r example… 

            If my antagonistis all-powerful, my hero never has a chance.  That’s boring as hell.  There might be a few dramatic moments, if the writer really knows what they’re doing, but probably not.  We all know how it’s going to end, and if we know where it’s going… well, then this is all just noise.
            Plus, it’s discouraging.  We identify with the heroes.  That’s why we’re reading.  And to see someone we identify with get beaten down again and again by an opponent we absolutely know they can’t beat…

            Well, it doesn’t make for a lot of repeat reads, let’s say that.

            Keep in mind, too, my antagonist doesn’t have to be a seven foot-tall somebody in body armor and a chrome skull mask.  The high school mean girl, the abusive drill sergeant, even society in general– any of these can be the antagonist.  And, again, if there’s no chance whatsoever of beating the antagonist, my story isn’t going to hold most people’s interest.

            I’ll also point out that beating the antagonist doesn’t always mean bringing about their ultimate, final defeat.  But as far as our immediate story’s concerned, the bad guy needs to have a chance to succeed at their immediate goals.  No chance means no interest.

            Now, as I hinted above, the flipside of this is also true.  If my main character has absolutely no chance of ever being stopped or hindered in any way, that’s not very interesting either.  I’ve talked about this once or thrice before.  When Yakko can effortlessly deal with anything the antagonist, nature, or the universe itself throws at him, it gets boring really fast.  If Dot’s prepared and trained for everything, to the point there’s little or no chance of failure, that means there’s no challenge.  And no challenge means… well…
            An analogy I’ve mentioned before is me getting a glass of Diet Pepsi.  Not exactly something epic stories are built around.  You’re not going to see teams of people stealing ships, racing down city streets, or forming Fellowships around me as we undertake the great adventure of going to the kitchen and opening the fridge.  Because it’s mundane.  It’s easy. There’s absolutely no challenge in it.

            Even if something might be challenging for us, personally, it doesn’t mean we want to watch someone else do it with no effort.  I’m pretty sure if a zombie plague ever descended on the world, I’d be one of those folks gone in the first week or two.  But I don’t have any interest in reading three hundred pages of someone who walks through the undead apocalypse like it’s a guided tour.  Yeah, no matter how colorful the descriptions are of zombies being blown apart.
            Y’see, Timmy, if there’s no challenge—because either my protagonist or antagonist are too powerful—it means there’s not much of a plot.  As I’ve mentioned before, no plot makes it really tough to have a story.  And you may have noticed there’s not a big market for high-stakes character descriptions.
            I also want to toss out one other downside to nigh-omnipotent characters. Gods are boring as hell.  Seriously.  They’re tough to relate to, and if people can’t relate to my characters, they’re probably not going to make any investment in them.  Good characters have needs and desires and flaws, but godlike powers tend to nullify most of those things. 

            Even if it’s not actual powers, it can be dull.  When you have characters who can do anything and succeed at anything… it just gets boring fast.  We like reading about problems, not about potential problems that were planned for and avoided.

            True fact—one I worked very hard at.  My Ex-Heroesbooks have a super-competent character named Stealth.  She’s their version of Batman.  Every book in the series has at least one example of her demonstrating how she’s hyper-trained and/or four steps ahead of everyone else.

            But…

            Every book also has at least one example of something getting past her. Something she didn’t catch or didn’t think of or somebody else figures out first.  She’s world’s greatest detective, but she’s still fallible.  She not perfect.

            If you’ve got a powerful, competent character in one of your stories, take another look at them.  Do they need to be that strong?  Would they be more interesting if there were two or three scenarios they hadn’t been planning for over the past six months?  Isn’t your story going to be a bit more interesting if success and failure both seem like viable outcomes?

            I think it would. 

            But that’s just me.

            Next time I want to talk about something a little more campy.

            And maybe update the FAQ.

            Until then… go write.