Hi I'm new here. So long story short, I've had an idea featuring a woman called Sam (Samantha Something) a former reporter who gets unwillingly experimented on while in her early 20s, gaining superhuman powers and manages to escape a few years later, having dealt with conditioning, isolation and brutal realistic simulations. Now Sam's constantly chased by her former captors, investigators and the law while she vows revenge against them Sam was a regular orphan with a foster family before leaving to start a normal career In terms of Superpowers, I've thought up with a few: Blood manipulation- kind of like telekinesis but only with her own life force, blood absorption through her mutated veins and even telepathy (it only works when her unique blood makes contact with someone else's skin or blood) she also has a extended lifespan I think it'll fit the whole gothic futuristic setting as she's basically the equivalent to a vampire without actually being one Bone manipulation, regeneration and enhanced strength + stamina but still feels pain especially when healing up- I feel it's more of a Wolverine rip off more than anything to be honest Telekinetic threads- invisible threads she can only see and summon to lift, grab or manipulative objects or foes and even levitate or glide with them What do you think so far?
I forgot to mention one thing, a private investigator was her former lover before she was taken, this investigator doesn't know Sam's identity until later.
Welcome. It sounds like you have a concept in need of development. When talking about super heroes, they generally have a weakness of sometype to balance out their advantages. What are the obsticles she faces? What life lesson will all this teach her?
Nice to meet you In terms of weaknesses, I thought of the risk of blood loss every time she uses her blood manipulation powers. She isn't physically resilient or defensive Her telepathy powers are only close range and she needs her blood to make contact and is mentally taxing if used for long periods of time. . Her altered features like glowing veins on her arms and hands need to be covered up and she needs to manage her emotions or she'll give herself away Life lessons and obstacles? I'm still working on that to be fair
You've got a pretty good setup there, I like it. Now you need to turn your attention to character development, How about a character flaw that she needs to overcome by the end in order to redeem herself? Like maybe anger issues she needs to learn to get over or something. Maybe it becomes necessary for her to rescue her most hated enemy, and she needs to learn to not hate or something, because hatred ends up destroying you as well as, if not instead of the person you direct it at. Or if it's an ongoing story, maybe she's constantly wrestling with her character flaw, sometimes it gets the upper hand, sometimes she seems to be making progress.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you like it so far. Character development is something I'm trying to do but not really sure, your ideas sound great, I actually thought about making one Sam hates a former scientist and even have the investigator as an ex boyfriend from her past life who they broke on bad terms before she disappeared or something like that.
That is fine, your still in the develooment phase of the project. As a complication, i would suggest looking up the effects of blood loss. She could experience those effects, if she over extends herself in a fight. Or someone gets a picture of her with the visible effects of her powers showing. Making the evening news could cause endless problems.
Oh yeah, that's even better, because it makes it all personal, rather than just some random dude who opposes her on principle or something. That's what made the Jessica Jones Netflix show so good (part of it anyway, there was a lot more that made it good), because she had a very strong personal stake in it. The bad guy had powers of telepathic mind control and had made her his slave for a long time in the past, making her use her powers to do his evil bidding.
That's a good idea I'll definitely work on that and reporters finding out her altered features would be definitely intense.
Awesome! I'll probably work on that dynamic more maybe make Sam resentful, think he's trying to capture her, possibly protective of him later or just emotionally confused Jessica Jones was one of the better Marvel shows compared to most of their stuff lately so I'm glad you brought it up
Just tossing an idea out here. If the investigator, sees the news report about her, and recognizes her. That could cause him to rethink they fight they had that caused the break. This could be a good arc for the investigator going from capture to rescue. While her arc goes from victim, to survival, to vengence, or something along those lines.
Same here, Logan was just epic and the action scenes and story were soooo good. Just a quick question, what kind of superpowers do you think would suit my anti heroine? Looking from the set I put on my first question since that's something I'm having trouble deciding for a while now. I'm open to any other ideas
Going back to this for a minute. I would consider putting an additional limit on her powers. She needs to be bleeding to use the blood abilities. So she has to take damage, or cut herself before using those powers. The self harm aspect might turn off some readers in the modern enviroment. But this might be a way to keep the MC from being over powered. This could be a moral struggle for the MC, when she realizes this. As always take what fits with your idea, and discard the rest.
Yeah, maybe this would be a good limiter, but I think the self harm idea is a little too graphic but I'm considering it You know, I thought of a workaround where Sam's mutated veins draw blood out at will (like a vein bursting or leaking) since she needs to see the stuff to manipulate it into anything but the downside is that it's a little messy She could even make her blood go down her arm to her hands/ fingers so she create weaponised constructs or even use her blood to make physical contact for her telepathy powers.
To maintain the limiting aspect for this change, i would suggest doing so requires she concentrate for a set amiunt of time. Which opens tge possibilty of someone breaking her concentration as a complication in the story.
Yeah that'll definitely make things a lot mote interesting. As an alternative, do you think bone manipulation, regeneration enhanced strength and stamina would be a good superpower to use? I was thinking it could add a body horror aspect to my concept. The anti heroine won't be invincible since she can still feel lots of pain especially when her bones shift at will or sharp bones burst out of her flesh (forearms, fingers, spine etc) and even the regeneration process would be agonising and visceral. This makes her more irritated and angry at her enemies or her targets
Wow, this is very Cronenbergian. Nice. You've got something really dark going on here, and really rife with good ideas. I would start trying to find a theme or themes in it related to all this painful self-transformation. The way Cronenberg does it, the painful destructive and grotesque transformations of the flesh represent inner psychological states or transformations. In The Fly Jeff Goldblum (ok, Seth Brundle) already had more in common with an insect than with human beings, that was what was being revealed gradually. He preferred being alone and doing science or invention to being with people, and Geena Davis (Veronica) was very similar. At first she made fun of him for being so socially awkward, but when she discovered he had invented something that would change the world she became very interested, as a journalist, because she wanted to ride his story to fame of her own (for being the one to write it). It was later revealed she had also taken advantage of her professor, using her sex appeal to get favors from him and then to become the main writer for his magazine. So she was a user, also cold and inhuman inside, at least to an extent. The fly getting mixed into Goldblum's DNA was a red herring, really the machine just brought out and intensified his own dark inner nature that was only subliminally hinted at in the beginning. For trying to find the theme I would start with the character arc. Does she arc toward vengeance, as Bogie suggested? If so that's a negative arc and suggests a move away form humanity (t some degree anyway, I wouldn't go as far as in The Fly unless it's a full-on tragedy or horror story). But I'd want to know a few things first. Is it going to be a novel, or an ongoing series, or what? I always wonder, when people come up with what sounds more like a comic book setup, because possibly they're really wanting to do a long-term series. If it's a one-shot novel or a trilogy or something you could go 'full dark' if you want, but if you're setting up for a continuing series it's different. Again (and this is always true) I think it comes down to what kind of theme(s) you might want. But then for me the themes tend to emerge largely as I'm writing, I don't necessarily know them when I start, and if I do they might change as the story reveals itself. And of course you can approach it either way—start with a theme (or several), and develop powers etc according to it, or the other way around. My preferred way is to fiddle around in story development and let themes emerge naturally, I don't like to try to force them on. It's also important to think about whether you want to come across like a comic book or something more realistic and darker. If it needs to fit into a comic book world where nobody dies (or they always come back or whatever) and all the 'good' characters need to be at least morally redeemable, then you have certain restriction you wouldn't have in a dark novel Especially if it's a novel where people can really change fundamentally, whereas a continuing serial story requires characters who only change on a sort of surface level, or maybe now and then they go evil for a while or whatever. It's that thing Scorcese said about why the Marvel movies aren't really (what he considers) cinematic—there's no real existential danger for the characters. You know the story is going to continue issue after issue, like a TV series, and that everything is going to more-or-less go back to 'normal' at the end of each story arc, maybe with some small changes. But in a novel or a series of limited duration like a trilogy, things can change permanently, like in real life, which allows for much more real power and danger and change. I think that's a large part of the reason Jessica Jones and Logan were better than the rest of the Marvel stuff, because they allowed for real change that could be permanent and life-altering. They felt like they were outside of that ongoing Marvel universe where everything has to go back to baseline at the end of a story arc, and there could be real, life-altering changes in the character's life. It could become a real tragedy or horror story. And they showed some real darkness in the characters' lives that they wouldn't attempt with Iron Man or Thor. As for powers, what I liked about Logan and JJ is they didn't fly and they couldn't do impossible stuff that really would require magic or something, I don't quite know how to explain it. Certain kinds of super powers automatically set the story in a comic book world and there's no getting out of it—flying being #1. I also like that the powers for all the Netflix characters were related directly to their trauma. There was the red herring that they had been experimented on by some shadowy organization, but it was always because of trauma, usually suffered in childhood, so it paralleled reality. Take a look at my breakdown of Jessica Jones for more info: Jessica Jones - All About Abuse - Exploring the Character Web - Initial Thoughts. Spoilers. My breakdown of Black Swan on the same blog covers similar territory. And, if I haven't already overloaded you, I wrote pretty extensively about what I call dark transcendence on my blog here: My Relationship with Nature Scroll down till you see the bold title that says Dark Transcendence I. There are I think 11 parts, it continues on page 2 of the blog entry.
Some thoughts that hit me from things you wrote: Maybe as you say she can change form at will, but she doesn't know what the form will be. She just decides she needs to be stronger, wills it to happen, and her body begins to shift and mutate. It takes a while, and maybe as she's changing she gets more vulnerable for a while, because of pain and unknown tissue changes, maybe tissues need to soften for a moment to reshape, and then they firm up with a lot more fiber in them or something, and it feels strange, like she's got a million splinters in her flesh and it hurts, but she's tougher now, can take physical punishment she couldn't in normal human form. And it changes the way she looks, always in unknown ways. After it's over she can will herself back to 'normal,' but it's never quite all the way to normal, or at least she feels like some of whatever mutation took her over remains each time, as if she's gradually becoming less human each time, and it affects her psychology the same way. She feels less in common with people, and with her former self image, each time. Maybe she doesn't know what she can do, each time she wills a change she doesn't know what's going to happen, and she's afraid she might turn into a monster and not be able to change back. Some ways into the story, maybe she does it and almost doesn't want to change back, as if she almost likes being a monster more than a person, and that scares the hell out of her. It reduces her sense of vulnerability, her fear, etc. Makes her tougher and stronger, physically and emotionally, by essentially killing off her vulnerabilities. And she finds she starts (gradually) to like it. At first she's horrified at the idea, she wants to always go back to being exactly who she was, but of course she has issues and problems, and when she's toughened up and stronger they don't bother her. It could be almost like the two worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was a typical insecure high school girl in one, living a soap opera story worrying about boys etc, and in her other world she was a powerful and almost invincible vampire slayer. She had to always try to keep the worlds separate. Her traits were essentially opposite in the worlds—vulnerability and insecurity in one, insane strength and power in the other, plus an intuitive ability to fight. But she can't access any of that in her human world. And I'm pretty sure sometimes what happened in the monster fighting world paralleled her high school life. Sometimes she was able to destroy the monster but unable to defeat her own inner weaknesses in the soap opera world, sometimes she'd get an idea from the way she defeated a monster that might help her in the soap-opera world, or vice versa.
And maybe in the beginning she doesn't change very much, just gets stronger by a little bit, and still looks pretty human, but she likes the feeling of invulnerability both physical and emotional, and she becomes sort of addicted to it, and in the heat of battle sometimes she changes farther than she used to, and wonders if it's because she needed to or because she wanted to, because she likes it. Power is a real rush, it's addictive. Maybe she changes at some point not because of a physical challenge, but an emotional one, in an argument with somebody, and she doesn't even realize she's done it until they look at her with terror in their eyes, and she realizes with revulsion and horror that she's made herself a monster. And now she has to wonder if shes losing control over it. The impulse strikes, and more and more it happens even if she doesn't want it to. And now the person she changed in front of is afraid of her, and she's afraid of herself. She doesn't really know what her powers are at the beginning. She only knows she can change sometimes. I think this is far more interesting and fun than the typical superhero thing where they have clearly defined powers.
The thing with Buffy was, she had the strength and fighting ability all the time, but what good are those in the social sphere, in dealing with relationship issues? None at all, plus she had to be careful not to let anybody see her using her strength publicly or everybody would know she was a freak. It all tied in with the feeling in adolescense of being a freak, everybody feels that way and we're sure everybody else can see it. The story conventions just brought it to the surface and illustrated it physically, sort of like what Cronenberg does. Make the psychological physical and make the inner visible in the outer body.
Thanks, This was really informative! It took me back to my film study days in College where you have to look beyond the superficial workings of media and film The Cronenberg style is really interesting and I might just look into it more since I've only watched a few of his stuff. I was thinking my character doesn't transform into a physical monster per say, it's more like Wolverine, claws or bones come out and they go back in but the whole inhuman feeling especially when it comes to their painful regenerating is something I might flesh out more In terms of themes, I'm still working on that, one that I thought up was "having superpowers is not all sunshine and rainbows"
Wow this is quite deep, I'm not great at coming up with physiologically deep characters since I'm not experienced in writing but would definitely make elements more engaging especially when you referenced Buffy's character and her duality as a slayer and high school girl. I could picture my character Sam like this to a T. I also planned on adding the fact she's like a cornered and hunted down animal especially with her captors after her causing her to face danger, the agonising side effects of her superpowers that results in her constantly lashing out at all of them like a beast with nothing left to lose. The regenerative process becomes less or more painful as time goes on causing her to not feel human anymore but yearn for her old life since she's like an outcast like Frankenstein's Monster in a sense
Well, think of it as a spectrum. You don't have to go full monster to be considered a freak and different. And in real life people do become monstrous to avoid emotional vulnerability. It isn't physical of course, it's emotional or psychological—they'll destroy their own vulnerability by losing all empathy for other people for instance. It's a way of toughening up at the cost of your humanity. This is a theme in many stories about the real tough guys and how they became that way, and often in war movies. There's often a questioning of where the line is, where you're still human and where you've stepped over it. Often the bad guy will tell the hero "You're really not so different from me," and it might be somewhat true, or sometimes the bad guy is deluding himself and the good guy really hasn't crossed that line. Or maybe he has to at one point to end the bad guy, and then has to live with the consequences in his own conscience. It's really what happened at the end of Jessica Jones season 1. If somebody finds a way to toughen up emotionally and not have to suffer hurt feelings anymore, they would definitely start to wonder (if they have a conscience) if they're becoming a monster, Like maybe in the early stages of it. So when I say 'monster form' I'm not necessarily talking about full-on monster, but maybe only a partial or slight transformation. Even Wolverine, in a way, is freakish enough and is able to do terrible things to win the fights, he could wrestle with whether he's a monster or not. He does, that's like his whole thing, though I don't know if anybody ever used the word monster. It isn't about what you look like so much as what you do, or what you allow yourself to do to people, and then how you feel about it. If you can really mess somebody up and not feel bad about it, you'd be considered a monster (a psychopath maybe). And remember, the physical change is only a surface represtentation of the inner change. Lol, but maybe I'm expecting you to write something I would write, with all my psychology knowledge and everything. You definitely need to write it in a way that makes sense to you. Just feel free to use anything I offered if it fits.
