Did I mention that I also write screenplays? No? Now you know it. One of my project tries is about teens, whose parents are superheroes. Of course, they (mostly) have powers, too. And they go together to a superhero school. Everything sounds fine, huh? Why, then, didn’t I start yet? It’s because I don’t know how to use the hero’s journey, who already has superpowers and knows that his/her parents are superheroes. Do you have an idea how to master this?
Why would it be any different if their parents are also superheroes? The “new world” needn’t be any more literal than some grand change. Maybe they start at the school? Maybe their parents move them away or get divorced? Maybe they simply get ill in a bad way?
@Steerpike My MC knows his/her parents are superheroes and he/she have superpowers. I don’t know how to start.
If you're using the Hero's Journey, then the MC knowing he/she has powers, and their parents are superheroes is the ordinary world. What's going to throw a wrench into that and work as a call to adventure? Maybe it has something to do with the MC's vulnerability--superheroes are often vulnerable in some way, and maybe for your MC certain powers always come with a certain vulnerability, but for your MC they don't. They vulnerability is non-existent or she doesn't appear to have one. Or maybe her powers always work in a certain way, but when they show up in your MC it becomes clear something different is going on. Maybe those with powers all belong to some organization, but your MC realizes there is something nefarious about it that no one else sees. It doesn't have to be any of those things, of course, but just keep in mind that from the ordinary world (MC has powers/superhero parents) you have to upend things somewhat. It could be as dire as a threat to the world or as simple as a neighbor's lost cat, but something has to upset the status quo and cause the MC to act. Once you figure out what the call to action is going to be, I think you can drop the rest of the pieces in from there.
Joseph Campbell wrote a book detailing something he called The Monomyth, which was a sort of skeletal structure of story that he saw recurring in myths all around the world, between populations that had no contact when the myths were developed. He hypothesized that these myths touched the human psyche in some essential and common way, serving an important function with respect to how humans use stories to learn, etc. People have used that basic framework to create stories. In screenwriting, in particular, many have pointed out that a lot of movies follow the general format, and some (like Star Wars) were intentionally written to follow it. If you look up Hero's Journey or Monomyth on Google you'll find plenty on the basic structure.
Hero's journey is not about going from the state of not so competent to supercompetent. It is about personal growth, socio-psychological growth. Being overwhelming in many areas of life can build massive socio-psychological stress which twists person in every way (Max Perstappen, Alonso...). Or a person can be immune to it (Kimi) but that is extremely rare. You must find the personal, psychological weakness that your superhero is not able to see in him/herself and how it affects his/her perception of world, people near him/her and his/her selfimage. What happens to that weakness is your theme. How that happens is your plot. And you do this to everybody in good team - except threshold guardian. He has been through this, so you must kill him.
You can flip it by putting love interest to ordinary world and keeping her/him there. Now you have an ambivalent thin line as a ordinary world and two opposites as a special world. You can get humour in because "how paradoxal and ambivalent" is the distance between those words. You can also use "weak" superpowers which can be used inside ordinary world so that it looks like ordinary powers and abilities.
Your primary conflict is "normal teenage problems?" That doesn't sound like much to put your characters through. I mean, everyday teens overcome normal teenage problems without the benefit of superpowers, so you're going to have wasted fantasy potential. Imo you not "knowing where to start" is a consequence of your primary conflict being so ordinary and unspecific. The heart of every story is the conflict, not what the protagonists can do.
Maybe you could explore how some of them try (and either succeed or fail) to fix those ordinary problems with their powers? I think it could be interesting for a kid who can't high jump to try and make his power of flight look as much like a normal jump as possible, or someone who can't hit a baseball hard enough use his super strength and explain by claiming they've been working out a lot, or maybe even a kid who can shapeshift constantly using their power to have the best face or the best clothes or just something that's appealing to their crush. I think that you could find a good place to start by starting with the most logical. A lot of teens would totally use their powers to put themselves above their peers. Start with that, and, whether is works out or not, go from there. Get a feel for you cast with some easy stories at first, and better stories will grow from there. I would suggest that, if you want the story to focus on the normal teenager problems, you should keep it grounded. Maybe not focus on super-powered fight scenes more than that upcoming pep rally that one of the characters is supposed to be leading, or football tryouts. You could also explore how a super-powered high school could have different social dynamics than normal ones. Maybe the super-school's hierarchy is based around who has the best powers, and not... whatever normal school's hierarchies are based off of (Athletic skill? Intelligence? Bubble-butts in yoga pants? I really don't know). There's a lot you can do with this. I would look at some old tv shows that did something similar, like Wizards of Waverly Place (Good show, should probably watch it anyways), for reference.
@LastMindToSanity No. I mean such problem like Knowing who you’re (problems with self-confindence (You know. Frustrating about that nobody accepting you, how you're)); popularity and much more. You know. Showing that's ok to be absolutely weird.
At the beginning. Establish the Status quo. Show the life of the protagonist(s) before they receive their call to adventure. Then have the Inciting Incident. Something that happens to kick start whatever conflict is going to happen in your story. then you have refusal of the call, either by the protagonist, or by an associate stating how dangerous or preposterous a situation is (e.g. "I can't become a Jedi, I've got dirt fields to harvest, or "You can't ask Janie Newman to Prom, you're a total nerd.") Followed by (or preceded by, or somewhere thereabouts) meeting of the mentor/supernatural aid, where your character meets someone to learn from or receives help from something somewhere. Et cetera.
1. Do you background work yourself. Don't ask ideas from other before you have tried a lot of real working with your project. Write 2oo hours before asking ideas from others. 2. Seek your own thinking. What is original? What is creative? If something is a variation of something you know, don't think it is creative. Think it as applied thinking, not creative. 3. Read. Read 50 books about writing and 200 books that are in the same genre. 4. Writing is thinking and rethinking. Develop your ability to think. Develop your ability to rethink. Think. Do your own creative thinking. "You should invent my story" is copycat -thinking. It is not you creating your story yourself. Study. Do it yourself first before asking it from others. Read and write. Do it yourself. Find your own voice. We can't give you your voice. You are asking us to invent your plots, character archs, superpowers, verbs... everything. Everything is in it's own thread so that the big picture of outsourcing does not jump so clearly up. But... Well... You are asking ideas. How about inventing your most important things yourself, doing your own background work yourself, writing and outlining yourself, developing your characters yourself... And then... If you can do your original story that is invented by you and not by everybody else, then you know what to ask more. We shouldn't be writing "your" story. You should try to do it yourself first. That is my advice. And you really, really have asked for advices. EDIT: My point is not "don't ask". My point is this: Try it first. Try well. Pay attention, time and effort to your trying. Do your part. Do it again. Do it several times again. Do your background work. Do it well. Do more of it. Do it too much. Walk your walk. If you ask others to do the creative thinking for you, you'll kill your own creativity. Don't do it. Show us that you can think. Show that you can create something original. Show the thinking process to yourself - and then to us. There are market-based genres - specially among romance. Society turns - and a new sub genre appears. You can make a "good" career in those sub genres no matter do you have any creativity or not. Neil Gaiman tells us how: You take old child stories and revers them to adult world of that sub genre. You can make name and career doing that - but you cant't be an artist by doing that. You'll be just easily replaceable piece of assembly line. Don't go there if you have any talent. Walk your own path - the one that is truly yours. If you do it, you must wait a bit longer before you get any popularity or money, but it will be your life. Walk the walk. Walk your own walk. Stomp your path so that it is truly yours.
So what you're saying is that nobody should be posting here and we should just figure it out independently
Please, don't lie. I haven't said that and you know it. Straw man argumenting looks ugly. And persons that use it, fails to make a clever impression. And after Cathy Newman it became really... well, you know.
