Having a Superpower

Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

I run a monthly Zoom workshop on flash fiction writing for the Association of Christian Writers. It is great fun to do and the online aspect helps so much as the members live several hundreds of miles apart so we could never get together in person.

I usually set a monthly theme and then set exercises based on that. Sometimes I will prepare an answer to an exercise to show as an example but most of the time I will write on the night of the meeting with the other members.

Live Writing and Where Superpowers Come Into Some of Mine

I love live writing like that. The adrenaline rush as you try to create something is great but what is most freeing of all is knowing what you come up with doesn’t have to be perfect. Nobody expects perfection. You just want to produce something (and I encourage members to share what they’ve come up with and I do so too).

Some of us, including me, have gone on to polish our works further, then submitted them somewhere, and had them published. Some of mine have ended up on Friday Flash Fiction, for example.

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A recent workshop I ran was on using questions and answers as a structure for writing. One question I generated for this workshop was If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

I set two exercises on this. One was to answer the question from a character’s viewpoint. The other was to write a non-fiction piece answering the question and I did tell my fellow group members I thought I might get a post for Chandler’s Ford Today out of this! So here goes then! (Oh and do have a go at these exercises yourself. I hope you have fun with them. We did).

Superpower of Choice

To dump all burglars, scammers, cheats etc on a remote desert island simply by pointing at them in person or via a screen. So if I saw a cheater on TV, I could point at them and they would be instantly transported to this island. I would not be able to do it for non-fiction characters.

The scammers etc would have food, drink, and accommodation on this island but would have to work for it. The only ones they could cheat would be fellow cheaters. I wonder how many politicians would end up being dumped on my fictional island – a fair few I suspect. I also suspect we can think of a few other professions where members would be rounded up and dumped on this island.

Why choose this superpower? On a serious note, I do have several reasons.

Because I dislike cheaters and scammers. I know something of the damage they can do to other people, having experienced this with my late father.
Because this would be a case of just deserts if ever there was one.
Because it would take some crime out of society, making things at least a bit better for everyone else.
Because I’ve recently been burgled. Thankfully, Lady was okay. They locked her in our lounge. Not much taken though it was of sentimental value. Am unlikely to get these things back. Mess everywhere. Police great. But the feeling you get when you come home and realise your house has been “done over” is horrible and not something I would wish on anyone else.

It would also stop those nuisance phone calls where people ring you up out of the blue and try to claim you’ve had an accident and they can help (classic scam that one) or they’re trying to find out information from you which they will sell on. You never benefit from this.

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Superpower Limitations

In fiction, especially if you write fantasy, you have to bring in some limitations for your characters. If every problem they face can be solved with a quick wave of the old magic wand, where is the story? Where is the drama? Where is the conflict? How would non-magical characters ever survive in such a world?

So I ensure for my fantasy short stories and flash fiction, there are specific limits put on the powers my characters have. They can do X. They can’t do Y because…. They then have to face doing Y but have to find other ways of doing it. That approach leads to far more interesting stories because the characters have to work out how best to face the situation I’ve put them in without recourse to their special talents. What other ways will they choose? How successful or otherwise are they here? Now there’s the story!

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I find it far more interesting to see a magical character having to use their brains to work something out rather than just recite a spell and have done. I’ve long found having limitations, whether it is via a restricted word count as in flash fiction or limiting what the characters can do, encourages creativity rather than stifles it.

You (and by implication your characters) have to think laterally. Ideas will crop up for how you can get your characters to solve their problems another way. The imagination is fired up by having to think laterally like that. So limitations have their benefits.

Superpower Problems

For fiction, it pays to work out who has what power. If all of your characters have the same amount of power, again there will be no story, because they can all cancel each other out. So who has the most power and why? Did they get this legitimately or not? What can other characters do to ensure they have at least some advantages the more obviously powerful ones do not?

Nobody expected a hobbit to successfully defeat Sauron, The Dark Lord in The Lord of the Rings but… (and I refuse to believe that’s a spoiler after all this time since the books and films were out! It is a bit like knowing the Titanic sinks. It doesn’t necessarily put you off watching the film, though I confess I haven’t as it’s not my cup of tea).

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Conclusion

I suspect superpowers are best kept to fiction though. You, as the writer, can invent the rules for your characters here. That’s great fun to do. For life, I suspect the powers that be would not look kindly on anyone with any kind of superpower. Someone would want to control them, yes, and not necessarily for the betterment of humanity either.

So given that, do look out for the scammers. If anything seems too good to be true, remember the old maxim it is! Never sign up to anything you aren’t convinced by and always check things out before you sign up for anything. Especially look out for those trying to get you to commit to something in a limited time window. Again, that’s the mark of a classic scam technique. What you don’t want to be is the mark that gets hit by these people.

Be careful, folks, and take care.

Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Live Writing and Where Superpowers Come Into Some of Mine