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Topic : Re: Superpowers in Writing - Cool for the sake of cool I originally started planning/writing a short story that was more or less based on a few popular trends in YA/Sci-Fi writing (interstellar - selfpublishingguru.com

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Don't introduce powers if you won't explore their consequences.

The presence of super super-powers would affect every interpersonal, social and political action. Do you want your characters wondering and worrying if the shy nerdy guy is just socially maladapted or has chosen to isolate himself because he will literally explode with the force of an atomic bomb if he talks to a girl? What forms of bigotry and racism will be fomented by the disparity between "normal" and "powered" people? Are people with powers automatically registered at birth and conscripted into policing or soldiering?

Grand powers would not just be "showy". They might send your teenage protagonists into a perpetual state of existential angst, fearing that everything that they know and love might suddenly cease to be under a barrage of comet-sized punches (cf. Man of Steel).

Given all the precedents from comics, books, TV and movies your audience may expect something quite gritty. Don't raise (lower?) their expectations unless you need to follow through.

P.S.: Have a look at the Wild Cards anthologies edited by George RR Martin (especially the first three!), Firestarter by Stephan King, and the whole Civil War storyline in the Marvel comics as extreme examples of how society can react and become fractured by a spectrum of abilities manifesting. (The other comic book and graphic novel exploring these themes being far too numerous to mention.)


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