McKenzie - Learning to write superhero stories: using the best and worst superhero movies to write better novels, comics, and screenplays

Many writers suffer from the depressing misconception that popularity and critical acclaim are mutually exclusive. Encouragingly, from 2000-2012, 20 superhero movies scored above 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 17 of them grossed more than $200 million at the box office. Hopefully, the enclosed reviews of four great superhero movies and two of the genres most notorious disasters will help you identify ways to distinguish your writing, sharpen your skills, and broaden the appeal of your work.

Do the characters make unusual decisionsthat set them apart from other characters within their genres? My rule of thumb is that every major character should get at least one decision/action that 90 percent (or more) of characters within the genre would not have made in the same situation. Unusual decisions are a great opportunity to use the characters distinguishing traits to develop the plot, advance major conflicts, and/or make the characters memorable. The unusual decisions should have consequences. For example, when Hal Jordan leaves the Green Lantern Corps, itd make a lot of sense if (at the very least) he had to regain their trust when he changes his mind.

Did the characters decisions have sufficient motivation? For example, the crane operator pulls in favors to help Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man . Spidey caused this response by the operator by saving the operators son. In contrast, plots get derailed when actions result in unbelievable consequences. For example, if you have a worker do so much damage to his company that it lays off half of its employees, the company should at least fire him, unless it has an excellent reason otherwise. Carol Ferris half-assed romance with Hal Jordan is NOT a believable motivation to spare Hals job in Green Lantern . She admits that the romance is not very meaningful when she accuses Hal of getting in the plane with anyone who will fly with him.

How successfully did the movie use protagonist-versus-protagonist conflicts? Ideally, these conflicts help develop different character traits and values/goals. I think that memorable protagonist-vs-protagonist conflicts are the main element which separate very good superhero movies (e.g. Dark Knight Rises or X-Men 2 ) from classics (e.g. The Dark Knight or The Incredibles ).

Were there any points at which you were bored? How could the writers have handled them differently? In most cases, I think boredom is usually caused by the story spending too much time on scenes that have too little impact on the plot and character development. In particular, Id recommend paying special attention to how the story uses side-characters and antagonists. Do they actually earn their space in the story?

Was the introduction effective?

• Did it set up the characters distinctive traits in an interesting way? For example, Tony Stark spends a few minutes talking with soldiers in Afghanistan before he gets attacked. The Dark Knight starts with the Joker pulling an unusually chaotic, disloyal bank heist. In most cases, major characters quickly make themselves memorable by doing things which very few characters in mother movies would have done in the same situation.
• If theres any critical information about the backstory and/or setting we need to know, does the introduction help us understand that information? For example, Watchmen s opening montage did a great job laying out an alternate history in an interesting way. In contrast, Catwoman s montage did not cover anything important to the plot.
• Did it help establish conflicts? For example, Jokers opening heist in Dark Knight does a good job establishing a conflict between Joker and the more conventional mob outfits.

Was the protagonist-vs-antagonist conflict effective? In particular, were there any memorable conversations between the protagonist(s) and antagonist, such as Batman interrogating Joker in Dark Knight ? Did the antagonist make the most of his screen-time? In contrast, Green Lantern s antagonists had an unusually small impact on the plot, the protagonists and the viewers, and Hector Hammond could probably have been removed altogether.

Does the flow of the plot make sense? For example, are the scene transitions smooth? In Green Lantern , theres a scene where Hal is talking with a friend which is followed by a romantic scene with his girlfriend. The transition between these two scenes is Hals friend randomly saying dont [superheroes] usually get the girl? Are plot elements gradually developed rather than suddenly dropped and picked up? For example, in Catwoman , the main character learns her main company is trying to murder her, but amnesia stalls that plot arc for 30 minutes.

Did the settings contribute to the story in a unique way? Would it matter if the story was set somewhere else? If Tony Stark and Spider-Man swapped cities, I dont think either would notice the difference. If you could swap settings with most other stories in your genre without the story changing significantly, youre probably not doing enough with yours. Dark Knight and perhaps Watchmen are standouts here, but generally I think other genres have accomplished more in this regard. Check out how the settings contributed to the plot and character development of The Matrix , Dirty Harry , District 9 , and Princess Bride .

Did visuals contribute to storytelling? For example, in The Incredibles , the visual contrast between the vivid superhero scenes and the drab-and-dark civilian scenes helped establish how oppressively mundane civilian life is for superpowered characters. One of the reasons that the characters never had to directly say how unhappy they were at home was because we could see it. Tony Stark helps establish his personality by painting his suit like a racecar, whereas Catwomans suit tried to make the character come off as confident and sexy but actually made her look ridiculous and unbelievable. Amazing Spider-Mans Lizard generally looks and moves like a believable and scary monster, whereas Hector Hammonds unfortunately-shaped forehead was a bad joke.

What does the movie show us that we havent seen before? Here are some exceptional (and exceptionally bad) examples from the past twenty years.

• Executing a mix of genres unusually well. For example, in addition to superhero action, Iron Man brings in comedy and Dark Knight is a gripping drama.
• New themes for example, The Incredibles compares superheroics to adultery/infidelity. Ive never seen anything like that before.
• New problems for example, weve seen a lot of movies where the superpowers have come with costs, but in The Incredibles , the main cost for Dash and Bob were increased self-expectations and a hard-to-fulfill desire to do good.
• New conflicts and/or angles for example, I really like First Class conflict between McCoy-Mystique-Magneto about the desire to be normal.
• If the main thing your work shows us that we havent seen before is Halle Berry in a catsuit or aggressively bad puns (e.g. Arnold Schwarzeneggers Freeze in hell, Batman!), I would recommend going back to the drawing board.

How does the story cover elements which wehave