I am creating a comic book and i have a few ideas where my story is going but im trying to come up with the start Here is what i have, somewhere in space aliens have sent down to earth some kind of object, and once it is in our atmosphere it breaks and releases different colored chemicals around the earth which everyone on earth has been in contact with, the chemical is unknown to the population so we just continue to do our everyday life, so life moves on. The chemical is some kind of superpower gene or something. the chemical inside the person lies dormant until an event occurs in that person's life which will trigger the chemical inside and that person transforms. It's not like your typical superpower like someone will get speed, while another person will get strength or flight. Transformation is kind of like saiyans transforming into super saiyans. but instead of yellow hair when transformed, my version is that a person's hair will change color depending on the chemical that person came in contact with. So if my protagonist came in contact with red color chemicals, then his hair will turn red when transformed. each color has a different trigger when the person transforms, so red is rage, so the protagonist must of been really angry at something for the power to trigger, if a person came in contact with orange which is fire, then that person was probably trapped in a burning house or something. same with blue, purple, black and green colors etc, each has a different trigger I have more on where the direction of my story is going but im trying to come up with a reason why the aliens released the chemical in the first place, was it on purpose or was it an accident? these aliens wont come into the story until much later, they only appear at the start of the comic to begin the plot. The aliens are bad guys too. To advance the plot, there will people bad people who will take advantage of their new powers so there will be conflicts and possibly villains of the day for each issue until the main plot progresses
Interesting premise. So you want to brainstorm why the aliens released these chemicals. Well, to me it creates a stronger plot if it's intentional, so I'd toss out that accidental. You don't have to, but it's what I'd do. Then it comes down to intentions; what are the common reasons aliens would interfere with humans. I'll list them as the four Es. Experiment Eradicate Enslave Elevate Now elevate is more beneficial in intention, though it doesn't necessarily need to be positive in outcome. Just like how they could use these chemicals with the intention of killing off humanity, but instead it gives them superpowers, because they didn't bother to study the differences between human and alien biological compositions. Harmful intentions, positive outcome. It's your story, so pick what works best for you (or think of a reason I didn't), I'm just trying to throw out some ideas that you can explore while brainstorming. Good luck.
good idea, elevate meaning advancement or upgrade?, or the lifting someone up, I get confused sometimes lol. Though i don't know how other people do it, i will probably be working on the plot or story for a few months before I start the character design and the backgrounds of the characters
This makes me think of some parts of the plot of the game Subnautica (sorry I'm just a really big fan of the game). In the history of the plot, aliens went to a planet to do research on a disease plaguing their race, but accidentally end up spreading it to the other life forms on the planet (and the main character). I'm not saying your plot isn't original, it's just that it made me think of this. You also mention genes. Could these chemicals work like a virus? Viruses work by injecting their DNA into normal cells and as the DNA reproduces it takes over the cell. Maybe these chemicals, if they do work like a virus, when the dna reproduces it only goes so far and lies dormant until said event that triggers it. Just some ideas. Have fun writing this, it's very interesting!
Elevate meaning advancing. Basically that the aliens are highly advanced and that they want to help humans reach their technological level. This reason could itself, have multiple motivations behind it.
Kind of thought of a different origin which sounds more grounded so hear me out 2000 or something years ago, we see an alien dude with magic book running away from an unknown enemy, (he is on earth by the way) he found a hiding space but it won't last so he has no choice to open the book and read some incarnation and a magic aura or something spreads from the book which expands all the way over the world. he says something like this to himself, the human species must live and this is the only way or something like that, ill think of better sentence (he wants the humans to gain special powers because one day his enemy will destroy the planet as they did to his planet) the book gives everyone the ability to gain powers so everyone on earth is infected but the powers lie dormant until an event triggers the effect it is now the present where we are introduced to the main characters and blah blah blah
Maybe he magically embedded a 'trigger' so that the powers don't manifest until some particular thing happens. Also, not sure if this was just a typo or autocorrect issue, but it should be incantation, not incarnation.
Why not have the aliens dump their garbage in Earth's atmosphere a la cruise ships on earth and that toxic cloud influences people on earth into acquiring this virus or whatever? Also, you may want to look at the television show "Heroes" for some ideas. There was an eclipse and that caused some people with specific genes to develop super-powers - although not everyone was happy with their ability.
I think you started from the wrong end. You must first come up with characters and a story (beginning and end). When you write the beginning and the end you root the main idea of the book, that it tells and conveys to readers. When you write characters, you begin to understand them better. Understand how they should receive their strength. You understand how he reacts to his strength. My friend said, "the form corresponds to the filling." Your character, a strong-willed person, that after some dramatic situation, began to fight evil, and as a result found superpower. Or your character is an ordinary person who wants to live a quiet life, and now he has to adapt to the fact that he is now not ordinary. he is no longer ordinary. After that, you just connect the dots.
Start at whichever end of the situation you're most comfortable with, but have some idea of what the other end looks like when you do. For my current WIP, I wrote Ch.1, then wrote the Epilogue so I knew how it would end. Now I'm filling in the middle, with a goal in mind. I'm a little sketchy on your premise. It sounds like you want this situation to be "certain people are going to get super powers, and the class of super power is accompanied by a hair color change that comes on when they get their super powers so that everyone can tell what type of power they have," and now you're trying to figure out a backstory to fill in why. I'll suggest that you don't need to fill in why, and you're probably better off leaving it a mystery. If you explain something, then you invite people to shoot holes in it. Aliens infecting us with chemicals? People are going to ask why. But if you leave it at "we don't know why this happens, but it clearly does," then people will just roll with it as a feature of your universe. One question: if someone doesn't want the world to know they have super powers, can they shave their head and keep the power?
