Guest Blogger SF Author Matt Adams

My guest today is Matt Adams, whose witty sci-fi superhero novel, I Crimsonstreak, will launch in May. The book is now available for pre-order (details below). Matt discusses his decision to use the first person to tell this story.

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I, Crimsonstreak is my first novel, and readers will see the world through the eyes of Chris Fairborne (henceforth Crimsonstreak), a superheroic super-speedster with quick wits and a love of pop culture.

The character has a definitive voice; when I write as Crimsonstreak, I am Crimsonstreak. That’s one of the biggest draws of the first person perspective. As a writer, you completely become that character because you’re writing from his or her perspective.

Even though Crimsonstreak’s voice comes to me very easily, first person does have its drawbacks.

It’s limiting. The biggest problem with first person narrative is that it imposes certain limitations on what writers can do. For instance, if you have multiple characters working together to solve a problem, you’re only able to show what’s happening through your narrator. You’re limited solely to what he or she sees and feels.

That guy is boooooooring! If you’re going to use first person, you’d better be sure your narrator has a distinct, engaging voice. Who wants to read 300 pages of Captain Bland? Not this guy! Not you, either.

“I, I,” matey. Too many sentences will start with “I.” After a while the pronoun becomes nearly invisible, but when you read a piece written in first person, you get a lot of “I did this” followed by “I did that.” It is sometimes unavoidable, but writers must get creative to avoid repetition.

What are they doing? This goes a little bit with the first point I mentioned. If you have several characters to keep track of and they get separated, readers will have no idea what happens “off camera” because the narrator has no way of knowing what has transpired.

Hello, info dump! First person books can become filled with ye olde info dumps. This happens for a couple reasons. One, because the narrator has to talk to other characters to fill in gaps in action. Two, because the narrator is the guide to an unfamiliar world. Sometimes this handcuffs the writer, resulting in some “As you know, Bob” moments.

You’ll have to excuse my friend; he’s a little chatty. First person stories become grating when the narrator simply wants to talk. Constant monologues aren’t interesting, and writers must infuse their characters with personality without turning them into monologue machines. Words are precious; don’t let the narrator’s sense of self-importance override your story!

Get creative! This isn’t a pitfall, per se, but it is something writers must challenge themselves to do. I used flashbacks in I, Crimsonstreak to help flesh out certain themes (the narrator’s relationship with his parents, for example). I also used appendices in the back of the book to lay out the detailed history of the Crimsonstreak universe. The main narrative (via Crimsonstreak) gives readers the basics without getting bogged down in every single detail.

First person is tricky, but I love using it as long as the circumstances fit. It does demand forethought and discipline in order to be used effectively.

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You can visit Matt Adams at his website.
You can pre-order I, Crimsonstreak through Kickstarter and get nifty Crimsonstreak swag here.
Or you can use BN to per-order here.

Guest blogger: SF novelist Susan Jane Bigelow

Please welcome today's guest! Susan Jane Bigelow is the author of Broken, a dystopian sci fi superhero novel from Candlemark & Gleam. Its sequel, Fly Into Fire, is due out in January. I asked Susan to talk about writing superhero characters.

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Hi. I'm Susan, and I write about superheroes. Sort of.

Superheroes, or any kind of super-powered character, can be a great vehicle for incredible storytelling. The problem, unfortunately, is that we tend to think of superheroes in terms of heroic archetypes in tight costumes Doing Good Things, because that's the image we usually have of them from comic books, cartoons and movies. If you don't read a lot of superhero stories, or even if you do, this is likely where your sense of them begins and ends. The challenge, then, is to turn a type of character that most people expect to be cardboard and cartoonish into someone they can relate to and understand.

Lots of writers and directors have done this well. Peter David's run with Supergirl was one of my favorites for just this reason, even though a lot of other fans don't like it. Supergirl is this impossible character to write, but David's reboot of her allows her to become more human (how, you ask? Well, it involves a pile of pink goo and... um, maybe it's better not to know), and he lets us see her ambivalence alongside her pride in who she is, and her desperate need to belong and fit in. The final arc of his run, with its mix of the human and the heroic, is one of the better superhero stories I've read.

That's the kind of thing I strive for when I'm writing these kinds of characters. I like to make lists, so here is a list of questions I start off with when creating super-powered people in my stories:

1.      Powers – what are they? What exactly can this character do/not do? It's good to know about limits. Can they leap a tall building in a single bound? Two or three? And how tall is “tall,” anyway?

2.      Powers – what's it like having them? How does the character feel about different aspects of their power? As in, if they can light fires, is that comfortable to do emotionally? What about physically? How does it feel to shoot fire from their fingertips? Is it hot? Do they mind if it is? Are they kind of a pyromaniac, or do they want to hide under the bed when someone lights a cigarette?

3.      Super-visibility or super-stealth? Is being a superhero or a differently-powered person visible? Do other people around the person know? Is there a lot of hiding going on? What's that like? Bruce Wayne seems to get a kick out of hiding his “true” bat-self from board meetings at the Wayne Foundation, but not everyone might react in the same way. If there is a secret identity, which one is the mask and which is the real person? Is it some mix of the two? Is it more difficult to hide, or more difficult to be seen?

4.      What's it like being different? And that's another important thing: super-powered people are going to be markedly different, sometimes in extremely visible ways, from everyone around them. How does this character react to that? How does anybody react to being different from the “norm” in some fundamental way? I think this is one of the questions that matters the most, at least in the stories I write.

5.      Are you a hero, a villain, or something else? Is this character heroic? Evil? Avoids the subject altogether? Never uses their powers except to get that can of applesauce open? Can a healer walk past a hospital and not help? Can a firestarter walk by a camp full of shivering people and not make them warm? What do we do in moments where we're tested? This is such a key question, and it's often central to the best stories. When the moment comes, whatever that moment may be, what do you do? Do you run away? Stand your ground? Set a city block on fire with your mind? The answer may surprise you.

There are other questions, of course, but it's the intersection of humanity and super-humanity that I think makes for the most compelling and interesting stories. After all, it's not the alien birth of Superman that interests us, but the human he's become.

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You can visit Susan Jane Bigelow on her website.
You can purchase Broken on Amazon.
You can find the pre-order Kickstarter campaign for Fly Into Fire here.