Favorite Super Hero.

This week, since so many of the characters in The Power of Six have super powers, we're picking our favorite super hero.  Pretty much every super hero originated in a comic, so that makes our topic for favorites today surprisingly literary.

Storm has always been one of my favorite comic book superheroes.  She's got an AWESOME super power, controlling the weather, which in my opinion, makes her one of the most powerful female super heroes.  Everyone says, "Wonder Woman is the most powerful" or "Jean Grey kicks ass" but both those women need to breathe, which you can't do in a tornado.

Alright, so maybe I'm over simplifying it, but she's really awesomely powerful, and she's bad-ass too.  I mean, she met Xavier by picking his pocket because she was living on the streets, stealing to survive because her parents had died in an earthquake (where she had gotten buried alive with them.  At the tender age of four.)  I MEAN COME ON!

She flies, she controls the lightning and rain and wind and she's very pro-women without being anti-men, which I think is always good.  Plus, she frequently has her own thing going on independently of the X-Men or she's with them, working as a team to protect the earth and its people.

I forget where I first got this from, but I remember hearing the argument somewhere that Batman is a better superhero than Superman because he's a regular person (albeit a particularly rich one who can afford all sorts of gadgets and toys) who chose to spend his time and money on helping people.

He can be over-dramatic, he can be excessively brooding, but he made a conscious decision to become a superhero, as opposed to the many, many superheroes who had superheroism thrust upon them because of being born with powers or having some sort of accident that gave them undeniable powers that threw them headfirst into being a superhero. And I think that makes him great.

Review Me Twice: Supercenaries by Josh O'Brien

I am easily distracted by typos. It's what makes me a halfway decent editor: if I see incorrect punctuation, spelling, or grammar, or a missing (or extra) word, my mind stutters in reading and tries to make me fix it before moving on. The thing about reading (and reviewing) NaNoWriMo novels is that the average person does not have a professional editor fixing these details before the reader gets a go at it. (But hey, I've found typos in bestsellers, too, so it's not an exclusively NaNo thing.) There were a lot of those in Supercenaries, so I was fairly distracted.

But! (There's always a but.) I really liked the characters. They were introduced well. It was sort of like a laundry list at the beginning (each chapter shows you a new character until we have all of them ready to start interacting) but I liked it. Within each chapter, they were succinctly and descriptively introduced. It wasn't like saying, "This is Joe and his superpower is this and he is currently doing this with his life until joining Supercenaries." Each one is a little different, and is recruited a little differently, and - this is the thing that impresses me - has a slightly different voice. Geographically speaking, I was a little confused, because one character would be quite clearly English, and the next could be from... literally any large city in the world. And so on. But they have distinct voices, even though they aren't in the first person. That's the only way I can describe it.

Josh warned us, before we started reading, that he believed the ending to be a little rushed. This is coming from someone with the same problem (see Cassy's spot-on critique of Epilogue from last year), but I agree. I think it's a NaNoWriMo thing... you hit 50,000 words, and DING! you just finish as quickly as possible, because your goal is met.

All in all, I'd say once it's finished being tweaked and edited, Supercenaries will make for a solid superhero book that fits into the current trend without being swallowed up by it.

I actually really liked Supercenaries.  It was well thought out, and had a good plot to it.  I wasn't thrilled with the way the characters were introduced, but as the book progressed, it was a lot easier to keep track of characters than I had initially anticipated, which is good.  It's very easy to get caught in the trap of having so many characters you can't keep track of them.

I like that O'Brien wasn't afraid to take risks.  There was a lot of things that I didn't expect, but in a good way.  You weren't sure what was going to happen next or who was bad or good or anything.  I was able to figure out (part of) the ending.  But I didn't figure it out until MUCH later in the book (and we all know that I have a predilection for figuring things out before I should), so it was well done.

The only real complaint I had was that things were... TOLD to me a lot.  For example, a character mentioned having back up and then told the reader that "Rhien usually worked that stuff out."  The very next sentence was, "I've already worked that stuff out."  There was a lot of that kind of thing in the book, but I feel like with a good edit, that kind of thing could be fixed.  

The end was rushed.  I think that it could have gone a LOT of awesome places, but that doesn't mean that the ending was bad.  It was interesting and fit well with the rest of the book.

As always, I was happy to have the opportunity to read a NaNo book.

Favorite Superpower

You're right, Reader: superpowers are not books. But because this week's review book is about superpowers, we're picking our favorites of those.

Mine is telekinesis. I wanted the ability to move things with my mind as soon as I saw the pilot episode of The Adventures of Alex Mack on Nickelodeon. Does this have something to do with the disastrous state of my room at any given point in my childhood/adolescence, and my unwillingness to get up and clean it? Perhaps.

But wouldn't it be nice if, at the end of a hard work day, when you collapse on the couch and glance across the room just to notice that you left your drink on the kitchen counter, instead of getting up to go retrieve it, you could just think it over to you? Or, you know, use your powers for good, like freeing people trapped under an overturned bus or something. Like some kind of superhero or whatever. Psh.

I just want to freakin' fly.  As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be able to fly.  I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted and do it ten times as fast as everyone else.  I could literally lay on a cloud (ok, it would be cold, but it would be SO COOL). 

On the superhero side of it, I could save people falling from buildings and fly into buildings that are on fire that firemen couldn't get to or what not.  I could do all sorts of stuff.

But mainly, I would be able to FLY and see everything and go anywhere and... and... IT WOULD JUST BE SO COOL!

Author Bio - Josh O'Brien

So, NaNoWriMo is over, but it's not forgotten!  This week, we're reviewing a NaNo author, Josh O'Brien.  See below for a short bio about him and an interview!

Josh O'Brien is a 17 year old author from Essex, who enjoys Fantasy and Sci-Fi novels, and is pursuing A-Level degrees in English Language & Literature, Sociology, Philosophy and Politics. With one and a half novels under his belt, he is making headway into a career in writing. He is currently juggling two demanding kittens with driving lessons and the continuation of his second novel, The Houdini Institute.

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.

Hi, I’m Josh. I’m 17 and I live in Essex. I’ve been writing stories since I was a very young child, and have always had a huge passion for reading and writing. I’ve only written one book so far, but I am around 60,000 words throught the second, thanks to NaNoWriMo 2013! My first is called Supercenaries, and here is a short synopsis.

Supercenaries is a novel which follows a group of people from all around the world, of different ages, races, colours, creeds and professions, who all share one common characteristic. They all have superpowers. From Houdini, the Canadian escape artist with the ability to slip any sort of restraint, to Dr Howard Stadter, an American scientist and professor who can expel bursts of high powered energy from his hands, they all use their powers for different things and live their lives differently. They are brought together by the mysterious Supercenary corporation, a company which works outside of the law, comprised entirely of people with abilities, to act as mercenaries, assassins, thieves, bodyguards and any other possible profession, for money. The corporation is headed by the enigmatic Rhian Blaznickov, a tall, seemingly ageless man with a power that even he does not fully understand. Supercenaries follows the main characters as they join up and train, only to become part of a conspiracy and war taking place within the Corporation. Suddenly people start dying on jobs, being assassinated during their missions, clearly by someone with insider knowledge. From that moment the race is on to find out who the spy is or if there are multiple, and to find out their motives for destroying the Supercenary Corporation.

My second, and the one I am currently working on, is called The Houdini Institute, and is about two students who go to a college for the arcane and the magical, as well as the supernatural.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?

My latest book that is out is Supercenaries. The name comes from the two main topics. Super(heroes) and Mercenaries. At first, Supercenaries was simply a working title for a book that I had no ideas for the name of. But once I had finished Supercenaries I had become so attached to the name that letting go of it and changing it was simply not an option. Also, I still had no idea for a better title! The book itself draws inspiration from a lot of media that I am a fan of. Shows like Heroes, Alphas and the like gave me the interest in writing about people with abilities, and the amount of comics and films I have read/watched meant that I’ve always wanted to write about mercenaries. I started Supercenaries with a general idea for the concept, and was immediately taken with it, to the point of getting a whole novel written and edited within 4 months.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?

When I write, I use a website called Writeordie.com with settings enabled which make me write to a certain wordcount, and if I stop writing for more than 5 seconds at a time, then it begins to delete what I have already written. This means I can get 2000 or so words smashed out very quickly, because of the motivation of the possible loss of what I have already written. Then when I reach the wordcount, I take the stuff I have just written and refine it to get a better end result.

I am also a huge fan of writing very late at night/early in the morning. I like being completely focused, so I use Ommwriter which hides everything except what I am writing, and stops me from becoming distracted, and the time I write at means that there is nobody awake to distract or confuse me as I write.

What authors, or books have influenced you?

Oh, so many. Darren Shan firstly, my absolute favourite author (who I was lucky enough to meet and present with a copy of Supercenaries recently) has been a big influence in the way I write, because I try to emulate how easy to read his books are. I am influenced by any book I read however, since I am constantly on the look out for literary devices, small ideas and ways of saying things that I can pinch. For example, I read a book which had a small description of each chapter under the heading, and I completely adored that idea, so I added it into Supercenaries.

What are you working on now?

Currently I am around 60,000 words into The Houdini Institute. This novel, The Houdini Institute, is about a magical school and two students. Mark and Lorna, who go there. One of them is expelled and is forced to undergo five challenges relating to the subjects they have been taught, with no tuition, to ensure they can regain their place. Understandably, this puts strain on their friendship, amplified by the mysterious Prodi. I got just over 14,000 words in and then my computer lost the file. I stupidly hadn’t backed it up at all, so I lost every single bit of work that I had done on it. This was a huge crusher for my motivation and confidence, and so I waited all the time from March until November to restart and write those 14,000 again. Only this time, they brought friends!

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?

I’m not really very good at self promotion, but I have been emailing review websites for a number of days to try and get some reviews out into the world.

Do you have any advice for new authors?

WRITE!

Seriously, it may seem like obvious advice but I CANNOT stress enough the importance of just writing. Forget editing, forget publishing, forget advertising and sales and marketing and reviews and everything like that and just focus on getting words on paper (or screen). DO NOT EDIT AS YOU GO! If you edit as you go, you will end up spending weeks just writing one chapter for gods sake and you will never ever get a finished novel done. Get the whole book written, then go back and edit. If you have a few friends/teachers (my PE teacher was incredibly helpful with editing) or family who will help, then get them to proofread it, and note down any sort of spelling errors, plot inconsistencies, bits that aren’t obvious and general flaws. Then go back to the start of your novel and read it over. Change any faults, add and remove at your leisure and finally sit back and smile to yourself.

If you're going for Self Publishing, I would recommend using Createspace to print your books, they’re easy to use and lightning quick. Finally, using the Kindle Direct Publishing service on Amazon is super simple and can really boost your sales and exposure.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?

“Just keep writing no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you do well or not well, if you sell 1 copy or 100,000, if people love it or hate it, just KEEP WRITING. Because if you enjoy writing, and you want to do it, then there is nothing stupider than letting something stop you.”

What are you reading now?

I am currently reading Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell, as well as copious amounts of Harry Potter fanfiction (don't judge me) because it's magical and new so I can get a different perspective on magic, in a system that works very differently to the system of the HI.

What’s next for you as a writer?

Next I want to get my second novel done and dusted, then focus on marketing that one. Everything I did with Supercenaries has been a learning experience, and I think that when it comes to my second book I will be much better at every aspect of publishing and writing. Also, I’m learning to drive, which is nice . (Read: Terrifying)

What is your favorite book of all time?

Easily “The Saga of Darren Shan” series. I can’t pick a specific one, but all 12 are incredible.

Thanks so much, Josh!  Stick around for our review of his book, Supercenaries, on Friday.

Want to know more about Josh O'Brien?  Check out his Facebook and his You Tube Channel!

Portraying Super Powers in Comics

There are a million and one super hero comics.  There's Batman, Superman, the X-Men, Wonder Woman.  I could go on.  The thing they have in common (well... except for Batman), is that they all have super powers.

Think about how super powers are described in books.  Last week, we read I Am Number Four and he had lots of super powers.  He was super strong, could run really fast, he could light up his has, was impervious to fire.  All sorts of things.  And do you know the way that you found that out?  You were TOLD.  I mean, ok, it was described to you, but essentially, you were told in detail how it worked.

Comics don't work that way.  Since 99% of the writing in comics is dialogue, it would be kind of weird if you sat there and had characters describe every last thing that they did.  Oh, wait... they did do that.

As you can see, the dialogue gets a little ridiculous in the original Avengers comic (and this is not even the worst.  I read the original.  They pretty much dictate EVERYTHING they're doing. "I'm Thor, and I am going to throw my mighty hammer and knock him off a cliff!"  No, really, a whole comic of this.)  In contrast, here's a more updated version of the Avengers.

A little more interaction with the person he's with and a little less of narration of his powers. (FYI, I pulled this from the internet.  I have no idea why he's choking Tony Stark.)

So let's look at some other superheros who have some crazy powers, powers that you have to SHOW, not tell the reader about.

Even if you knew NOTHING about Storm other than she had super powers, this picture gives you a good idea of what her powers are.  She very obviously controls lighting and can fly.  Most of us know that she actually controls the WEATHER, but the point is, you know what her powers are just by looking at a picture of her.

Superman.  Big strong guy, right?  But it's not like you can just come out and say, "I'm going to go lift that building."  Comics are not narrative in the way that books are.  So we have to show the reader the extraordinary powers Superman has.

That's a whole freakin' car, making it obvious that he's super strong.

Sometimes, superheroes get some really weird powers that are a little harder to convey to the audience.  A lot of times multiple pictures of the person over time to show you what exactly they can do.  Take Jubilee for example.

Here her powers look a lot like fireworks (which, they mostly are)

Here you can see that it's a little more concentrated.  

More like a solid firework on her hand.

Whatever powers are portrayed, today you have to make sure that you get it across to your readers.  As a comic book, you can't rely on the narrative, so you must really rely on pictures.  And as the reader, you have to pay a lot more attention in super hero comics.  They could be saying one thing, but a lot is going on in the frame when you have so much to work with.

Author Bio: Brad Ricca

From Ricca's website

Brad Ricca lives in Cleveland, Ohio, which is where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of America's beloved superhero Superman, lived.

He conducted ten years of research on those two men and the history of Superman before publishing his findings in Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - The Creators of Superman. Since that publication in 2010, Ricca has been interviewed by just about everyone (the BBC, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Comic-Con) about Superman and his creators. He also created a film in 2010 called Last Son telling the Superman creation story (meaning writing/drawing the character, not his origin story about Krypton and whatnot).

Before Super Boys, Ricca earned a PhD in English from Case Western Reserve University, and he published a book of poetry titled American Mastodon in 2009.

You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.