: Re: How to avoid "power creep" in my novel? I am aware that many books and comics have this problem. The hero defeats someone and then the next bad guy has to be tougher so that there is suspense

@Kaufman555

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Clever - with light super powers

I'm not an avid comic book reader, and I'm sure Spiderman has had his moments of power creep. But he is who I imagine you're aiming for. Obviously, to keep it interesting, your hero has to face (and defeat!) enemies who are more powerful. That's fine. Have them still be, theoretically, more powerful than him (or her), and be defeated anyway, because of the tenacity and outside-the-box thinking of your character.

The clever, tenacious character (with light super powers) can continue to be tenacious, and to come up with clever solutions, to defeat any number of varied and interesting villains, all without ever becoming significantly more powerful over time.

Sure, if it's some martial arts adventure and the character has to learn a new skill and trick every time, you have to either keep ramping up the power level or justifying last week's new move a one-off. But clever solutions to specific dilemmas are by definition specific to the problem at hand. Albeit, they're harder to write, because you can't have your character come up with any solution that you couldn't. (In fact, you have to come up with each new and different interesting problem, too!)

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