scriptmedic:

vorpalgirl:

scriptmedic:

Hey there nonny! This is an interesting question, and while it’s an unusual one for me, I’m going to give it a go. 

First, I don’t think it’s possible for them to have survived completely underground without sunlight of any kind unless all they’re eating is fish. You didn’t mention whether this is future, present, or past, so I’m going with present and I apologize if I got the time frame wrong. 

What Are They Like Underground?

Here’s what the what: remember that these humans need to eat, and mostly what they’ll be eating is plants, and plants need so much sunlight to grow, which means either a) they have at least one area where they get and use sunlight – I’m thinking a big hole in the roof of one area (I’m imagining caves, sorry if this is wrong) and arable soil underneath, b) they only eat what they brought down there with them, bunker style, or c) they are relying on fish from an underground river, which may or may not work and may or may not be enough to sustain your population. Humans can survive almost entirely on fish, but it’s not exactly a pleasant survival to eat the same thing over and over and over again – but I’m sure all of this is stuff that you’ve thought through and already solved. 

One of the big questions is Vitamin D. The body uses sunlight to produce Vitamin D from its base components. It’s not found in the human diet so much except in products that we’ve fortified, such as milk, and vitD deficiency is common even in our above-ground world for those of us (like me!) who work indoors. 

One thing to look at is therefore a disease called Rickets, in which the bones fail to mineralize properly due to VitD deficiency, and the bones are soft, easy to break, and often deformed. Asthma is another health problem associated with VitD deficiency, especially in children, and VitD deficiency has been implicated in hypertension, heart disease, high cholesterol, and cancer. 

Fish does contain a certain amount of vitamin D, but not an enormous quantity, as do egg yolks, so if your characters are eating eggs and fish they might have lesser forms of the disease. 

Also, remember that these people will have paler skin regardless of their skin color; that is, even those with heavily pigmented skin won’t tan in the caves because they won’t have sunlight, so they’ll default to only what their genes have given them. Once outside they’ll start to tan – even those with dark skin – and get a bit darker.

Let’s not forget scurvy as another form of malnutrition. Scurvy is Vitamin C deficiency taken to an extreme, which causes weakness, lethargy, sore limbs, bleeding gums, and a general tendency towards bleeding and difficulty stopping  bleeding. Scurvy is a big problem that is fairly easily solved; citrus fruits are a natural source, and ascorbic acid, a common preservative, is just another name for Vitamin C. If your characters are eating large amounts of preserved food, and that food is preserved with ascorbic acid, it’s likely that they won’t have horrendous vitamin C deficiencies, especially if they’re eating canned citrus on the regular. 

In short, your characters might be fairly sick from living the lifestyle that they’re living, depending on what they’re eating and how much. 

Here Comes the Sun (doo-do-doo-do!)

And I say, it’s alright…

There are a lot of impacts seeing the sun for the first time could have on their physical welfare, and it’s worth taking a look at all of them. 

For one, their eyes are going to have to take some time adjusting to the brightness. I don’t think there would be any actual damage per se, but headaches and vision troubles could be a problem in the first few days. 

Myopia might be A Thing, since, having never been outside, these characters may never have had to use their distance vision; they may be near-sighted. They may have trouble focusing on things at a distance. 

For another, VitD deficiency is going to get a lot better because, well, humans make Vitamin D in the presence of sunlight.

A whole mess of them are going to get sunburns, including those with dark skin, and depending on the time of year and the latitude at which the characters’s underground home was made, they might wind up with blisters or sun poisoning. Heat exhaustion during the summer is going to be A Thing. 

If it’s winter, there’s actually a different problem, which is – the temperature underground tends to be remarkably resistant to changes in temperature above the surface, so their cave / bunker might be a very consistent temperature, and they might not be prepared for winter up above. Frostbite, frostnip, hypothermia might all be common, since temperatures underground tend to be in the 50s-60s(F), where temperatures above can be…. extremely cold, by comparison.

Next question: what do they eat when they’re Above? Are they eating the flora? is the flora safe to eat? Consider what they might decide to eat, and look at the health consequences of that. Blueberries might be fine, and if they hunt, hunting animals might be fine, but if they went underground to escape, say, radioactivity, and they start eating radioactive plants, they miiiiight wind up with radiation poisoning. Also, those with genetic allergies might discover those allergies Up Above that might not have bothered them in the cave, though most allergies will take time to develop. 

Lastly, where are they getting their water? Is their water safe to drink? If they’re downstream of a place with poor sanitation, cholera could definitely become a problem, as could various forms of worms; if they’re smart they’ll have some form of purification system (iodine tablets, UV purifiers, boiling) but if not, they may get sick from the water. 

In short, the sunlight itself isn’t really that big of an issue beyond sunburns (which no one will know how to prevent), but there are a lot of nutritional issues that you might want to consider when building your story and your world. 

I hope this has been useful and I’ll gladly see you later. Bye bye! 

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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@scriptmedic Okay I am EXCITE because this touches both on a concept I’ve been working on for years, and on something I’m vaguely familiar with and also I actually have something possibly helpful to add! Squee! Time to nerd out. 😀

First: regarding nutrition! THIS ISN’T AS CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS. So long as you really like mushrooms. 😛

Fungi such as those that produce mushrooms are more closely related to animals than plants; their cell walls are even composed of chitin, the same basic protein found in crab shells, instead of cellulose. It’s literally the next best thing to animal protein (even containing B vitamins normally lacking in non-animal foods), is supposedly just as satiating or more so than a lot of meats (for which certain mushrooms can substitute even in flavor), and ding ding CAN GROW IN THE DARK. 😀 

In fact, I’m going to highly recommend the asker make sure their underground people grow mushrooms, because it seems to be the most efficient way for them to get B12, which is super necessary, at least without animal proteins/significant room for livestock?

In order to grow stuff like this you would still need organic materials like wood or soil, though, something for it to feed off so that it can produce the fruiting body (aka the actual mushroom, the part we’d eat). But if you’re underground, the soil MIGHT not be an issue? Your underground bunker dwellers also might be recycling some of their own waste for this process (gross to us, but perfectly practical solution to multiple problems!)

As noted, apparently you can increase vitamin D amounts in the mushrooms by exposing them to sun lamps – and that link has a chart too which describes different normal Vitamin D values in different mushroom types; I would recommend finding one that feeds off dead materials, manure, and/or soil, but doesn’t require something weird and hard to reproduce like “the root system of an apple orchard” (basically rule out truffles lol; they’re symbiotic with certain trees, which is why they’re rare and expensive), and cross-comparing it to the high Vitamin D counts, for your ideal underground city dietary staple 🙂

And honestly, for that?

May I suggest: Crimini (also called Cremini, Portobello, and Portobella) mushrooms. They are excellent if they have access to them, as they have HIGH amounts of B vitamins – and they can have nice amounts of Vitamin D when exposed to a bit of sun, too, though they can also grow in a “cool, dark place” so there’s no requirement that they get sun initially, apparently? Bonus points for them being growable in “manure” (and for being delicious). Some regions have specific mushrooms native to them, though, so double check!

Regarding sunlamps, too: this is already by the way something done for humans in arctic countries like those in Scandinavia, who spend some of the winter months deliberately exposing themselves to UV lights a few minutes each day so their bodies produce Vitamin D! So if this is contemporary or future setting technology, this is totally within technological grasp. But even without sun lamps to imitate UV light, it sounds like it’s possible to supplement it with enough mushrooms, so long as it’s the right species or raised right.

Failing that, some sort of animal protein is advised – though you can pretty “exotic” with that, since insects can suffice!

By which I mean, it’s possible that insects could replace some of the larger “livestock” in terms of protein consumption; it may again, seem gross to those of us not used to it, but people are talking up Cricket Flour these days, for the exact reason that it’s more ecologically efficient in a lot of ways than regular grain-based flour, is a cheap source of protein and nutrition, and plenty of cultures actually do already eat insects of certain kinds (because, well, cheap, good nutrition).

Insects are a bit easier to raise in a small space, yeah? And any proper plants they grew would need pollinators of some sort, unless they’re literally hand-pollinating every single plant (which isn’t workable with every plant species, so again, research).

Once again though, insects…have chitin in them; it’s part of their exoskeleton, like it is in crabs. The only reason “insects” occurred to me in this context is actually because I tried to see if “chitin” contains B12 and most of the results are Edible Insect related. 

And you read the summary on Wikipeda that I linked, chitin can be an allergen; more noticeable in the form of crustacean allergies, but still, worth noting!

(Does your society have people who have this allergy, who then wind up with nutritional deficiencies?)

Anyway.

I LOVE this idea. I always have. Something about Lost Cities and/or being separated from the rest of the world for X time, is just so cool and the idea of people who’ve never seen the surface…it’s super cool 🙂

But it’s not even as strange a concept as you might think, really; there are a number of underground cities across the globe, though most of them are used in conjunction with an above ground city or as a temporary place of refuge during invasions. Even some ancient settlements did this, some of which predate Christianity; the most impressive I’ve heard of by far being Derinkuyu in Turkey, which was capable of supporting up to 20,000 people…plus their livestock. For…weeks? Months? They had wine presses and everything.

Of course a lot of this is geographic/geologic opportunity; plenty of places in Europe and the Middle East have had such things for instance because the rock enabled their construction (even a salt mine could work for it, maybe; I’ve seen pictures of old salt mines in Europe where chapels and the like were carved into them!).

You couldn’t do something like this throughout most of say, Florida, though, where the soil is soft, sandy, mushy, and tends to have a high water table that fluctuates a lot IIRC. (Most Florida homes don’t even have basements; that’s like, begging for a sinkhole to form lol). So please, do your research on the geology of the area or areas you’re considering putting that city in. Sounds like Turkey has a BUNCH of similar such underground constructions, because the “volcanic rock” was conducive to it, so that might be an option to keep in mind 🙂

But again, if you tried to claim somebody built something like that in Florida, I’d – to borrow Aunty’s terminology – be tempted to “throw the book across the room”. Basically avoid placing it ANYWHERE that is widely known to have sinkholes and/or super sandy, loose soil. 😛

Also, keep in mind that a settlement that has been underground for decades HAS to have built-in an excellent waste management system because that, ahem, crap, can’t just be allowed to build up, for sanitary reasons (this is how people get dysentery, cholera, e. coli poisoning, and other nasty infectious diseases, after all!); they probably compost as much as they can, for instance, and/or if they’re technologically advanced enough, may even use rotting organic waste to generate power (decomp produces heat as a byproduct, I know that much; some of the gases produced during it can also be flammable and thus can be used to produce heat or power in the same manner as natural gas, which is already done today at some garbage dumps, and has been for years). 

The concept I had for my own thing was more like “pseudo-dwarves”, rather than a hidden city of normal folk that lived there only a century, but I’ve been trying to find ways to make a thousands-of-years-old civilization work underground for a while, and I’m still tentatively hopeful that it seems to be surprisingly plausible 🙂 So don’t lose hope, OP! A mere century? Pft. Totally doable!

Hopefully this helps 🙂 

Some more REALLY INTERESTING points from a kick ass reader! Thanks @vorpalgirl!

(Note: I haven’t had a chance to verify any of this, but it passes the sniff test, so here you go!)

rocket-sith:

holdouttrout:

Here’s the thing about writing advice: you don’t have to take any of it. It’s all optional.

If you want to use adverbs like they’re (still) going out of style, use them. If you want to substitute epithets for every proper name or pronoun, do it. If you want to write everything in first person, go for it.

Sometimes your choices will cost you readers. But maybe you weren’t writing for the person who hates first person. Maybe you were writing for the person who loves it because it give a sense of immediacy and intimacy.

People post writing advice for many reasons, and personal preference is often top of the list.

That’s not to say that if you really want to improve your writing, you should dismiss all the advice. Knowing that epithets throw a lot of people out of a story is useful. You can adjust for the effect that you want. Maybe you use a common phrase without thinking about what it actually means and see a rant about how people are using it incorrectly. Good! Now you get to decide if you agree and if you’re going to adjust in the future.

But don’t beat yourself up. Keep writing. Keep reading. Make the choices you want. If you want to improve, you will. If you don’t care and just want to share fun stories, do that. There’s room for everyone.

This this this. Writing is a craft, and if everyone had the exact same style, reading and writing would both be boring as hell. 

IME the best thing to do with writing advice posts is to skim through them, and if something resonates with you – whether it’s a lightbulb moment, an indescribable mental ping, or even an indignant knee-jerk ‘hey, screw you advice person, WTF do you know about me anyway?!” – stop and ask yourself why. Especially with that last one.

Sometimes the info/suggestions in these posts are just the OP substituting personal preference for universal truth, which can be annoying, or they’re saying stuff that’s useful ground rules and guidelines for newbies – but some of those ground rules and guidelines also happen to be things that experienced writers take great joy in figuring out how to artfully break. Other times, those posts can hit on something pretty valid and your muse is up there flipping the bird and being all like “how dare this foolish mortal tumblr asshat bruise my ego and attack me so!” The trick with these posts IME is to figure out which things apply to you in the first place, and then decide what – if anything – you want to do about it.

everydaywriter:

Nearly every book I’ve read has a protagonist. And all of those protagonists were surrounded by several, if not a great many, friends. Within my own stories, my protagonists have quite a few friends. Among those friends, there are usually one or two, maybe three, friends that the protagonist is especially close to. One of my all time favorite series, Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead, follows best friends Lissa and Rose, who act like sisters most of the time. While reading, it’s clear that the two have known each other for a long while, see each other as their closest allies, and see their lives as them against the world. It’s obvious that they’re very close. The question is how does Mead accomplish this? How does any author establish these types of close friendships between characters without blatantly telling the reader?

If you think of your own close friendships, or your best friends, you’ll probably recognize five or more of the following in your relationship with these particular friends –

Understand without speaking.

When you’ve known someone a really long time, or have spent so much time together, you get to know the person so well that you pick up on their habits and quirks and body language. When they bite their lip, you know it’s not that they’re confused, but that the water works are about to begin and it’s time to get them out of there. If their jaw tenses, you take their hand and squeeze it to show they don’t have to face the world alone. They do the same for you. You understand each other so well that no one needs to say anything, and it’s obvious that it’s time for coffee and chick flicks, or that it’s time to head to the soccer field to kick around a ball and de-stress. You might not be able to read each others’ minds, but you understand each other well enough that neither of you needs to say anything. You just do.

Tease each other.

There’s artificial teasing, there’s bully teasing, there’s flirting teasing. But among friends, it’s the way we gently point out each others’ issues and faults without being cruel, it’s how we remind each other of good times, it’s how we show each other that we don’t have to be adult or grown up (regardless of age), it’s how we connect and communicate. Between best friends, teasing is just another way we talk to each other. There’s no malice, jealousy, anger, or bitterness behind it. It’s often light, fun, laughable, and in good humor. It’s a way to make your friend laugh when they’re on the verge of tears. It’s the way we build each other up when our plans fall through. Teasing is always there, but it never, ever becomes a way of putting each other down.

Rely on each other.

Through good times and bad, friends can always be relied upon to be there and help each other. There are no excuses, there is no distance, there are no events that could prevent two best buds from helping each other out in times of emotional and physical need, and friends rely on each other for that. But friends also rely on each other for comfort, for support, for encouragement, and for all the things it seems the world wants to take away from us. Friends are there to remind us that what we want to do, where we want to go, is completely possible and achievable.

Seek each other’s advice.

Perhaps more than our parents, teachers, advisors, and mentors, we seek advice from our friends first. This might be a perfectly faulty action, but because friends understand each other and rely on each other, it’s natural that we seek advice from those we know, and who know us, best. This advice seeking might be as simple as wondering which outfit to wear for an interview, to legitimately questioning your life’s direction and wanting to know whether you should keep on that path. And because you can rely on your friend, they help you out, if only to making fun of something to help you laugh and remind you to loosen up and stop worrying.

Feel comfortable around one another.

As with all of the above, friends are comfortable with each other enough to seek that advice, tease each other, and rely on one another. Even more than that, friends are comfortable with and around each other that they don’t care if they do something stupid, or say something idiotic, or accidently snort and spew food from the mouth in response to something funny (guilty.) Because they’re comfortable with each other, these things happen and no one cares, because these silly things hardly define us. It’s the same with crying, or showing how truly angry we are, or how hopeless we feel. Friends know each other so well that they be vulnerable and sensitive, and the friend won’t misuse them.

Miss each other when gone.

Probably the greatest understatement of all these, but best friends will miss each other. They might be separated for only a day, maybe one has moved away. But miss each other they will, just the same. The effect this has on each other is anyone’s guess, as everyone reacts differently to separation. Some might become depressed, others might lash out, and some might just have that aching sense of loneliness in their gut that seems like it can’t ever be filled. There is most definitely a reaction, and missing each other is just the surface.

Have similar interests/hobbies/goals/pasts.

Whether they grew up together, or met at summer camp, or took the same art class, friends have similar interests. There’s something that initially drew them together, and in writing a book you can’t just put that aside. It will always be their foundation, and while the foundation can grow, there’s that one point, however small and insignificant in the present, that brought them together and caused them to meet (in Vampire Academy, Lissa and Rose both had long names they had to spell in school at young ages. Later on, they grew even closer together when they both survived the car accident that killed the rest of Lissa’s family.)

Grow together as individuals and as friends.

If any relationship is to last and get stronger, growth is a must. Trials, tragedy, celebration, joy; all these add to and change a person, their actions, and how they consider new situations, and this happens in a friendship as well. While going through similar occurrences, if friends cannot grow together, change, and mature together, then their friendship will remain the way it was when it started, and it won’t be able to adjust and react properly to new situations that the friends encounter. Without the ability to grow, the friendship will become stagnant and brittle, and eventually break. Make sure to show the friends, and their friendship, grow through the story.

Don’t judge.

It’s simple. Close friends, who understand, rely, advise, and help each other, just don’t judge. Regardless of what one does, or what the other thinks about a topic, they don’t judge. They accept that they’re individuals with different views and opinions on some things. After all, you can’t have the exact same views as someone else. There are similarities, there are differences, but despite what those are, there should never be any judgment. Friends accept each other for who they are.

Don’t try to change each other.

As I said, friends accept each other. They don’t try to change one another, or mould each other into what their ideal would be, because that would be the farthest thing from acceptance. Friends understand, they don’t judge, and they don’t try to change their friends’ personalities, opinions, views, likes or dislikes, or their hopes and dreams. They accept everything about each other, and celebrate their differences.

Confide everything.

Friends naturally want to talk with each other and discuss the things that happen in their lives, but best friends, as I’m sure you know, will talk about everything. They confide everything in each other without fear of being rejected or judged. They share their thoughts, their dreams, whatever comes to mind, and in sharing so much with each other, their bond grows.

Fights sometimes happen, but making amends occurs quickly.

No friendship is perfect, and because there are two people involved, disagreements are bound to occur. But when fights begin, whatever the topic, close friends will try to move past the argument and come to a conclusion, generally in the form of an agreement or better understanding of one another. They won’t linger on their differing opinions, and will try to make amends as soon as they can. This leads to stronger friendships, and is a way that the friendship can grow and develop.

Can’t imagine life without each other.

Perhaps more than anything else, best friends simply can’t imagine what life would be like if they weren’t together. It’s something they don’t want to think about, and is the last thing they’ll focus on when confronted with the real possibility of lifelong separation. They’ll come up with excuses, plans, arguments, anything that might be able to change the impending separation. They literally can’t picture their life being apart, because their personalities and dreams and emotional selves are so connected that the very idea of being apart for good is like imagining themselves being split in half (this goes for a romantic relationship as well, though more specifically within one where the two were best friends before they fell in love).

These are just a basic few things that can comprise a close friendship. You don’t need to use all of these, and by all means, don’t limit yourself to using only the ones I’ve listed. Use some, use none, but make sure you really look at the characters you have and focus on showing that closeness where it’s supposed to exist. It offers greater development of both characters, adds to the realism of the plot, and helps with the overall story.

For more on this topic with examples, check out Livia Blackburne’s awesome article –

http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2011/06/twenty-ways-to-describe-your-characters.html

Good luck and good writing!

~ Everyday Writer

howtofightwrite:

If I already set a character to be very powerful/skilled in a fantasy setting (either like making them canonically the most powerful swordsman in the world, or giving them abilities to do something like cut a castle wall with a sword), how do I keep tension in a fight scene/story? How do I make a fight scenes with overpowered characters entertaining other than giving them more powerful enemy to fight or weakening them somehow?

There’s two types of powerful characters in fiction: Wish fulfillment power and power with consequences.

Wish fulfillment power is boring, and no amount of creativity is really going to make it interesting. This power is here to give us a high, make us feel powerful as the self-insert and then go away. The fight scenes based on wish fulfillment power never lead anywhere, they never do anything for the story. I’m not saying these characters won’t be popular, they are but they’re also not interesting.

Power with Consequences is interesting. If Superman used his powers at their full strength, regardless of his intentions, he’d be seen as a villain by everyone in his setting. He must moderate his abilities for the enemies he faces because otherwise he’ll be more terrifying than they are. That’s tension.

With Superman the question should never be: can he save the day? We know he will. There’s no tension in the question, it’s not up for debate. The real question is, can he do it without wrecking a city block or destroying Metropolis?

Regardless of their powers and abilities, a hero must still live in their world. If your swordsman can cut a castle wall in half, then that’s great up until the moment where he needs somewhere to stay and no tavern or local inn will have him due to the trouble he’ll bring.

The more powerful you are, the more famous you are. The more famous you are, the more challengers come crawling out of the woodwork to face you. The more challengers who crawl from the woodwork to challenge you in order to take the crown of “Best Swordsman” then the greater likelihood innocent people, their homes, and their means of making a living will be caught in the crossfire. Whether it’s a sword strike that levels a farmer’s field or a mass battle with hundreds dead, that farmer still will have their field destroyed. If it’s destroyed, then they’ve no way to feed their family or sell their produce. They’ll starve.

It’s important to remember that no character, no matter how powerful they are, is free from the consequences of their actions.

This is the problem of characters who are “The Best” at something. The Best is a concept, it’s a title given to someone by others. They get it through competition, and the competition doesn’t stop just because they’ve been crowned.

“My character is the best swordsman in the world.”

So? The pinnacle of ability is a moving target. The Best At This Moment isn’t The Best Ever. Perfection is what we chase, it isn’t what we are. The closer we get to the top, the more heated the competition becomes. The more powerful you are, the more skilled you are, and the more your skill is recognized then the more battles you’re forced to fight. The Best is just more incentive for all those who want to be the best swordsman in the world to come take that title from them. Like Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin, your super skilled character will never be able to get away from challengers even after they’ve decided to retire.

The Best is a state determined by others in their field and not by the character themselves. They may think they’re the best swordsman or the best assassin in the world but they’ll still have to prove it. If they’re recognized as The Best it’s because of the battles they’ve fought to get there, usually killing someone else who was also considered The Best. When a character is The Best, all they’ve done is set the mark that others will strive to reach. Being at the top is painting a target on their back, and every single asshole who thinks their the best is going to jump at the chance to knock them off the pedestal. “The Best” is a nebulous concept, it’s a title, and titles can be taken.

When you’re famous, people speak about you in hushed whispers. They talk about you behind your back. You may be asked to leave because the guards are coming and yes, you could kill them but the tavern owner will pay the price after you’re gone.

Remember, characters other than yours will also pay the price for your super skilled character’s actions. If you played The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, think about how much attention Geralt gets. He can’t go anywhere without being noticed, and most places he’ll be recognized either as a Witcher or as Geralt, the White Wolf. He attracts powerful figures to him, those who will make his life difficult if he doesn’t provide them favors. He could probably kill the garrison commander who wants him to kill a griffon, but that’d just create more problems for him in the long run and end with the nearby village getting destroyed in retaliation. Violence won’t solve all your character’s problems, and definitely won’t provide any help with the social ones.

The better you are then the more responsible you’re expected to be. The more famous you are then just as many will hate you rather than love you. You are an unwitting rival to those who want the adulation you enjoy, and a thorn in the side of the socially powerful who’d rather you just went away.

A famous character creates problems for themselves in their own narrative by existing. They don’t need to do anything, the problems will find them the moment they step out their front door.

Himura Kenshin is probably one of my favorite examples of a powerful character who self-limits. 90% of the tensions in his fight scene aren’t built on whether or not he’ll survive, he probably will. He’s a famous manslayer who doesn’t want to kill anymore, and is trying to hold to that even as he’s forced into battle. The tension in his fight scenes is whether or not circumstances will force him to break with his self-imposed limitations, flip his blade over, and kill. (Rurouni Kenshin ignores blunt force trauma, but this is an issue for another day.)

Your famous, powerful swordsman may enter situations that handicap and essentially force them not to fight at their full potential. These handicaps are social rather than literal. They are self-limiting out of survival. Those handicaps create natural tension, especially when their enemies use the rules of the situation to their advantage. We see the potential consequences if the hero fails to abide by the social rules, and that reinforces your setting’s worldbuilding.

Kenshin could kill, and be justified in killing. However, killing betrays the person he’s trying to be and the philosophy he’s chosen to pursue. Skilled characters like Saito Hajime and Shishio Makoto actively challenge his philosophy in combat.

What brings a fight scene to life is the people in it. Tension comes from what will happen next and where the character’s actions take the narrative. The more powerful a character is then the more responsibility they have not to use those powers. That sounds backwards, I know. Why give a character powers if they won’t use them? The reason is that the other people who exist in the setting with them won’t stand by and take it. Power is fought or fought over.

You have a character who can cut through a wall with their sword? They will either end up the ruler of the kingdom (possibly just out of necessity) or every lord in the kingdom will come chasing them down to take that power for themselves. They can’t afford to have that power in the wild. The more power a character attains then the higher the stakes are for them. Extend the context beyond, “hey, my character can do all these cool things” to “what does it mean that my character can do these things?”

The consequence of power is that you are ultimately responsible for what you do with it.

When a character overreacts with their power in a situation that doesn’t warrant the reaction, they become the villain. An example is a character who can swing their sword to crack a castle wall uses that same techniques on bandits and ruins the road. Now, we have all these additional problems. They start with the asshole who blew up the road.

It is much more difficult to limit yourself so that you’re only just a little bit better than the people you’re fighting than it is going all out. However, for the warrior and martial artist, having control is a part of your responsibility. Acting reasonably and appropriately is a requirement. It is a social mandate, a choice made out of survival. Your character has to live in the world, if they throw their power around willy nilly no one will have food to sell them.

By pitting what a character can do versus what the situation allows for naturally creates it’s own tension. Superhero comics and anime do this all the time, there comes a point where the character’s abilities simply become to dangerous to the world around them. The focus shifts then to the character trying to fight while avoiding hurting the innocents around them. This is a challenge in and of itself. Moderating your ability to what is contextually appropriate and still win against someone who is going all out against you is more difficult than simply fighting.

This act of self-limiting gives the author the freedom to cloak the character’s true abilities and save their punch cards for when it counts, while also eventually bringing in more powerful enemies who will test the hero’s limits and press them to reveal more of their abilities as they a battle for their life. Then, the action versus consequence of the hero’s powers enter into the fray.

The trick to understanding this method is that self-limiting isn’t weakness, it’s acting responsibly. A black belt who spars a green belt or a blue belt must limit themselves. They fight on the green belt’s level rather than going all out like they would in practice with another black belt. The same rules apply to the “best swordsman in the world” being challenged by some random nobody in the middle of the street. If they go all out, they will have acted inappropriately and be seen as a villain by anyone watching. Their job is to mitigate and subdue, not kill. This often means resorting to skills your character may be less practiced at or less familiar with.

As a character, Superman is only interesting when he self-limits. You can’t treat Superman like Batman because he’s a different sort of character. Batman may be considered one of the best martial artists in the world, but that doesn’t help him much when he’s fighting Killer Croc. He faces challenges that test his intellectual ability from the Riddler, and a random thug on the street will still mess him up with a single well-placed bullet. The Best doesn’t mean invincible.

Batman has a host of weaknesses that make each and every battle with him interesting (in hands that know what they’re doing.) Superman is one where you’ve got to fight for it. If he lets loose, innocent people get hurt. If he roughs up thugs too badly then he’s the villain. Superman dangling a thug off the roof is a villainous route, no matter his intentions. Superman inevitably attracts far more dangerous villains to him than Batman. People are afraid of Batman, but no one’s really afraid of Batman. Everyone is hoping deep down that at the end of the day Superman is a good guy because they’re screwed if he’s not. We see groups like Cadmus refuse to take the risk.

We have to trust Superman and the question is, can you?

Think about the episodes from Justice League about the Justice Lords. A setting where Superman just straight up lobotomizes… everyone who disagrees with him.

When dealing with characters who have massive amounts of power then the more you need to internally justify the scene in the narrative and it has to lead somewhere. The consequences are important because not having them will break suspension of disbelief. The more power there is, the bigger the consequences there will be. If Superman levels a building in Metropolis then something better happen as a result. That’s the beginning of a story, not the end of it.

-Michi

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Q&A: Powerful Characters was originally published on How to Fight Write