The Dos and Don'ts of Writing Characters With Special Powers

This is a guest post from the incredible Hannah Heath. She is an amazing writer and an all around cool person, but don't take my word for it. If you like this article, and I know you will, check out her blog here, and buy her e-book, "Skies of Dripping Gold", on Amazon.  

Hi everyone! I’m very excited to be able to contribute to Tamara’s blog today. Many thanks to Tamara for inviting me to do this, and many thanks to you for tuning in!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wished you could use the Force…maybe to grab that book from your shelf without getting out of bed. Don’t lie. I know you have.

We’ve all been there. When we were little, we pretended to shoot fire from our hands or fly around the world, mimicking our favorite characters. 

Now we’re older and it’s less socially acceptable to pretend that empty paper towel rolls are magical swords. Lame, right? 

Thankfully for us writers, it’s totally normal to sit around and imagine up entirely new powers and magic systems. Suddenly things aren’t so drab.

But hold on a second. It’s easy to let superpowers and wizardry get out of control. I think a lot of authors get carried away by the sheer awesomeness of it, which is why books are overrun with characters wielding half-baked powers and living in magic systems that don’t make any sense. Authors get halfway into a story and end up so muddled with their power-building that they can’t dig themselves out.

You don’t want that to happen to you. Here are some do’s and don’ts to crafting characters who have special powers:

1) Don’t change rules just to make your character cooler. Do keep the rules consistent. 

Before you get in too deep, consider sitting down and outlining the rules and regulations of the special powers in your story. What are the powers? Where do they come from? How are they controlled? Are there other characters besides the main character that have powers? What are the limits to these powers? Think out all of the details, write them down somewhere, and stick with them. These rules should not be thrown out the window when it comes to your main character. If your character is somehow excluded from certain rules, you’ll want to add some other “special” rules to keep him in check. You’ll also need a good reason for your character’s specialness. Unless it’s a central part of the story, throwing a 1,000 year prophesy at her isn’t going to cut it. And no, the “I just want him to be awesomer than everyone else” reason is not a good reason. Sorry.

2) Don’t overlook complications. Do think the powers through first. 

Like the rules, your powers need to be considered extensively. Your character can draw energy from her surroundings? Great, but “energy” tends to be in the form of heat, so wouldn’t that mean she would cause everything around her to become extremely cold? She could kill herself and those around her. Your guy can fly? Epic. But can he breathe at high altitudes? What if he goes too high and passes out? Being able to read thoughts or see into the future is neat, but it also has the potential to unhinge a person’s mind. THINK about powers and all of their complications before you put them to work. There should be no silly wand-waving or foolish incantations in your story.

3) Don’t make your character all-powerful. Do give him restrictions. 

Meet Bob. Bob has unlimited resources, is the coolest person ever, and never comes up against anything he cannot conquer. Bob can do everything. Nobody likes Bob. Don’t write a Bob. No one wants to read about a character who is invincible, because then there’s never any suspense. We know he’s going to come out okay, so why even bother finishing the story? Give your character limits. You can either give them a character flaw (such as arrogance) or a “power check” (a rule that blocks the character from full use of their power). Or you really can have the character be all-powerful, but still unable to reach his/her goal. Anakin was the most powerful Force user in the galaxy. Padme was not, and the fact that he might not always be able to protect her literally drove him mad. Neo had unlimited power in the Matrix, but he was held back by the fact that he couldn’t save Trinity. While these are not restrictions of power, they are emotional restrictions that kept the characters in check.

4) Don’t be generic. Do dive into some research. 

There are a ton of special powers you can choose from. Mimicry, alchemy, quantum tunneling, psychometry, negation. There are a lot of cool ones. Just go ask Google for a list of supernatural powers and magical abilities. You as the writer can pick between many phenomenal cosmic powers! Why limit your characters to an itty bitty selection of abilities?

5) Don’t substitute powers for personality. Do make your character’s ability purposeful. 

Your character is a person first, then a power-user. Avoid getting so caught up in a character’s power that you forget to give the character any meaning outside of his power. Find a way to make your character’s ability entwined with the character’s personality and journey. When you give a character a power, ask yourself why. Why this power? Does it symbolize something? Does it move something along in a story? Or is it just random fluff that looks cool but serves no real purpose? I mean, we can’t all make our super cute vampire guys sparkle in the sunlight for no reason. Resist the urge. It’s hard, but I know you can do it.

6) Don’t just show the power. Do explain how the power feels. 

One of the most interesting parts of a character with special abilities is getting to understand what it feels like to wield those abilities. Does it feel like the unleashing of a dam? Or maybe the weaving together of threads? Is the feeling always there, or does it only show itself when the power is tapped into? Does using the ability make her feel tired, high, or frightened? Tell us what the character experiences when engaging her powers. It makes it more real.

Creating a character who has superpowers or magical abilities is insanely fun, so run wild. But not too wild. You are the creator of this character, so learn how to enjoy the creation process while also putting together a character with abilities that make sense and fit the story.

Now go forth and create awesome characters with awesome powers! Don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger.

Have you ever written a character with special powers? Do you have any tips to add or questions to ask? Leave a comment below!

4 Reasons Why Disney's "Read It and Weep" Is an Insult to Young Writers

When I was in my early teens, a well meaning friend told me there was a new Disney movie that I absolutely had to see. It was called "Read It and Weep". "It's about a teenage girl who becomes a published author," my friend said. 

"Cool," I thought. "A Disney character I can actually relate to." So I watched it. It was...oddly disappointing. I was even a bit insulted, but at the time I wasn't sure why. Oh, there were the obvious Disney problems. The supposedly geeky heroes were unreasonably attractive. The romance plot arc was so cliched that even at fourteen I could see the ending coming from a mile away. But I had the feeling that there was something bigger bothering me. I just couldn't put it into words. 

Then, a few days ago, I took my daughter to the pediatrician, and guess what was playing on the waiting room TV? I'll assume you guessed it. "Read it and Weep". This time it only took me a few minutes to figure out what had bothered me all those years ago.  So here it is. All the reasons why "Read It and Weep" is an insult to young writers. 

(Disclaimer: I have never read the book that the movie was based on, so I am not going to criticize it. It could be much better than the movie. If anyone has read it, please let me know what you thought.)

1)  It tells you that every writer secretly loves the spotlight. 

The heroine, Jamie Bartlett, writes a story about a superhero named Isabella who can zap bullies into perpetual detention. When her journal is accidentally submitted to her school's essay contest and wins first prize, shy, awkward Jamie becomes the most popular girl in school. The kids love her. Her English teacher thinks she's the greatest thing since Dickens and reads the entire story aloud to the class. The only one who isn't happy is Jamie. She hates all the attention, but the wild ride isn't over yet. A publishing company offers to turn the story into a book. Jamie reluctantly agrees, and before you can say "introvert's worst nightmare", Jamie is whisked off on a round of interviews, book signings, and celebrity parties. 
Here's where they lost me. In the space of about two minutes, Jamie goes from cringing introvert to glamour girl. Not only does she suddenly know all the right things to say, but she's having the time of her life. Her shyness is cured by the magic of Disney. Message: Even the most introverted people secretly crave the spotlight. They just don't know it until they get a taste of it.  

LIES! Sorry, Disney, but there is such a thing as a person who does not and never will enjoy being the center of attention, and in my experience most writers are that kind of person. As the psychologist Donald Winnicott once put it, we are "driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide." We like having fans. We like to know that our stories are touching people's lives and maybe changing the way they see the world, but we don't enjoy having to deal with those people up close, all at once! 

2) It tells you that every writer secretly longs to be normal.

Jamie has been labelled a weirdo her whole life. She's the quiet kid who sits in the back of the classroom and scribbles in her notebook. But once she becomes a bestselling author, everyone wants to be her best friend, especially the cheerleaders and jocks who previously either ignored or bullied her. 

And Jamie jumps at the chance to be one of the "normal kids". She goes on a shopping trip with her archenemy, Sawyer, whom she described at the beginning of the movie as "so vile that milk curdled at the sound of her name". Apparently, the magic of Disney erased her memory as well as rewriting her personality. 

Again I can only speak from my own experience, but I've found that most writers have more self respect than that. We know we're smarter than the bullies. We endure the teasing by reminding ourselves that one day we're going to be rich and famous, and all they'll ever be is mean. (Yes, that was a Taylor Swift quote.)

  

3) It tells you that you don't need to read in order to be a writer.

The only books that appear in this movie are school textbooks and Jamie's novel, "Is Saves the World". Even Jamie doesn't do any other reading. No classics, no fantasy novels, not even a comic book. Apparently, she was born knowing how to write a captivating story. 
And when she becomes famous and gets interviewed on TV, no one asks her who her favorite author is. I've watched a lot of interviews with famous authors. They always get asked about the writers who inspired them. J.K. Rowling likes Jane Austen and E. Nesbit, or so she told Oprah. 
But apparently, in Disney movies girls don't read. Wait a second...

4) It tells you that writers shouldn't base their villains on real people, even if they change the names, because that is mean. 

Jamie seems to be living a fairy tale life until she accidentally lets slip in an interview that the villain of her book, Myrna the Evil Cheerleader, is actually based on Sawyer. Her real friends are already mad at her for ditching them to hang out with the popular crowd, and now her new "friends" won't speak to her because she trash talked them in a national bestseller. After a few days of misery, she resolves the situation by publicly apologizing to the whole school. She explains that the book was really her private journal, and it was never supposed to be published, and she goes on to say...

"But that still doesn't give me the right to say those things. No one is black and white like they appear in my book. We're all a lot of things. All unique and special in our own way. And those are the things I should have been writing about."

Awww. What a beautiful Disney moment. But hang on. Those are tears of frustration, not joy. Is no one going to condemn Sawyer and her clique for the way they treated Jamie before she was famous? Apparently not. The only one at fault here is Jamie, for fighting back against the constant degradation in the only way she could - writing. Instead she should have written about how special and unique everyone is, even the bullies. 
At this point, I kind of wanted to strangle every writer who contributed to this awful script. Basing characters on people you don't like and then writing about their crushing defeat is a time honored tradition. If those people don't like it, they should have been nicer to you. 

So there it is. It only took me a decade to figure it out. I hope I can save you the trouble. If you haven't watched it, don't. And if you have, don't believe what it tells you. Writers, even famous ones, don't always like the attention. Writers are weird and proud of it. Writers read. And writers have every right (pun intended) to base their characters on real people. It's less work than plotting to murder the person in real life, and you can't go to prison for it.