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When the main character is physically invulnerable, then that gives you an opportunity to highlight their emotional vulnerability.
Address how his newfound superpowers affect his relationships with other characters.
Don't threaten the main character, threaten the characters who are dear to him.
Don't threaten the main character with physical injuries, ...
22
Unable to be killed is not the same thing as unable to be defeated.
Being captured, wrapped in chains, sealed in a box filled with concrete and dropped in the ocean may not kill the protagonist, but it should "defeat" him for at least some period of time.
Also threats to others may also defeat him. A missile strike may not hurt the protagonist at ...
22
Don't ascribe human motivations to non-human creatures
I think the core of the problem you are encountering is your decision to ascribe a pathological motivation to your protagonists.
If you start with a set of rational needs for your sapient monsters, then I think you'll end up with better characterizations, especially if those needs operate on multiple ...
11
You've just encountered one of the oldest and most famous rules of the Internet:
Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.
The first thing to point out is that Rule 34 is not a "current trend". Porn parodies have been around in some form or another for decades. The advent of the Internet has merely made them easier to create, ...
10
Over the years I've noticed that, in media with nigh-invulnerable protagonists, battles tend to follow a basic formula:
A villain shows up somewhere and starts causing mayhem
A weaker (but still powerful) character tries to stop them and gets their ass kicked
The protagonist shows up, rescues the weaker character, and defeats the villain
The initial ...
10
There are existing book and TV series which do this. The issue is that generally a divine being makes sense within its Pantheon — in the Hercules TV show Aphrodite is Hercules's 1/2-sister (and acts like it), sister to Ares despite her distaste, and daughter of Zeus. Without that, she's just some random sexy airhead. Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light, Creatures ...
9
Humans, Only Not as Much Anymore:
You gave the answer, and it's a broad one. You need to interact with the monsters for them to have character - otherwise they're vague threats. All of them are former people. So what motivates people?
These aren't zombies, they're thinking beings. Only a small percentage of them are going to be psychopaths, killing people ...
8
In a way this is an irrational fear, not because it will never happen, but because of the reverse - short of never sharing your work with the world at large there's essentially nothing you can do to prevent it. Rule 34 holds as significant amount of truth now as it did 18 years ago. And the more popular and widely known a property/character gets the more ...
7
Your antagonists need motivations, and these will become themes
You've said that some of each type of monster decide not to eat humans. Okay, so why do the ones which do eat humans, decide to eat humans? Having a good answer to that will give your monsters enough personality to be antagonists for a few chapters.
This should also tie into the themes ...
6
Plot is the dramatization of the lessons the character learns. So, if you have to pause the plot for the character to learn a lesson, something has gotten out of sync. "Show, don't tell" may be overused, not-always-applicable advice for novels, but when it comes to life lessons, it's non-negotiable.
The problem is that you want your character to ...
answered Feb 24 '21 at 22:12
Chris Sunami supports Monica
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5
An invulnerable character who can't be killed is not necessarily an invincible character who always wins.
Suppose there was a character with the invulnerability of Superman but no other powers, no super strength, no X-ray vision, no flight, no superbreath, nothing except they couldn't be killed.
Suppose the villain call be killed but has a superpower like ...
5
There are plenty of good alternatives out for the life of death theme. Here are a few of those alternatives:
Use the weaker characters
The main character will not be the only character in the book. You could have the villains capture the unkillable character's family and hold them hostage and under the threat of death. Now, your character has a goal and ...
5
Keep it simple:
An island is still an island, since a country could be part of an island, or several islands. Don't confuse the issue by using clever, cryptic language. If you never refer to anything but islands, they'll get the point. Or the world can have a suggestive name like Islandia.
Characters can discuss the island-like nature of the world, or ...
5
There's phonetic description, there's even phonetic spelling if you are feeling ambitious. Like "Sumsing iz wrong ’ere." for a French accent. Most find it distracting. Phonetic description is more like "Bob left out every 'h' and nasalised the vowels." while giving Bob regular dialogue.
I personally think those tactics have their uses, ...
5
An author can't really show an accent, except via spellings intended to suggest pronunciation, and in my view only a very little of that is enough to annoy many readers.
You can describe a character's accent, either via an omniscient narrator, or from the PoV of another character, in terms such as "quick", "sharp", "drawled", &...
4
Message via story
Your intuition is probably right.
The best way to convey a message is via Story. The choices of people, plot and setting should/will/may tie into a message.
I would continue working with scenes and action, and stay clear of the magic potions for a little longer.
The best way to convey a message is by not giving the reader anything that even ...
4
I'd recommend using preexisting names for a few reasons.
Reason 1- you need less explanation of the creature, as people will probably already know what it means. For example, most people have heard of a Pegasus being a bird horse, and so you don't have to explain in detail the Pegasus because they already know the bulk of what it looks like, all you have to ...
4
A few pointers that might be helpful :)
1) 0-0-1-0-0 (No Action)
I personally find this quite helpful, since I have a habit of overusing tags as well. Usually during dialogue between two characters (won't work for 1 or more than 2 maybe) people tend to talk a lot more than, well doing gestures, movements etc. So it's a lot better to send emotional cues ...
3
The challenge a character is seeking to overcome should not be the thing that is easy for them to achieve.
If a protagonist is bulletproof, and has no problems beyond people shooting at him, then there is very little challenge or struggle involved.
Overpowered characters are interesting either because they have an even more overpowered opponent, or because ...
3
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling inspired authors all over the world to write magical academies. It fine for you to write to the theme but beware that other writers may have taken this idea into several hundreds of hits. Make your own magical education and split factions unique. Divergent is similar to the faction yet it was based on science, dystopian, and ...
3
Authors use characters' wants and fears when crafting the narrative because authors want readers' engagement with their stories. It is not a question of what readers' really want, but how an author decides to establish the motivations that drive plots forward.
One method of achieving that is for the plot to be the fallout of the characters' decisions. Using ...
3
You're having trouble looking at it from a perspective that is not that of the humans in the story. You're innately considering anything that eats humans as "evil". But if your protagonists are monsters, then human morality doesn't factor into the narrative evil.
To put it differently, just because Superman eats a steak doesn't mean he's the ...
3
In a plot relevant manner.
For instance, if the characters are needed to face some evil that managed to immunize itself from any character from that world, a wizard might come and persuade them to come.
Or if the war in that world is damaging the fabric of reality, they might find that walking in a seldom used building has odd effects that finally cumulate ...
3
Of Course!
I've done it myself, and it's a great way to integrate lots of different elements into a story. You can draw on and allude to many mythologies, lending depth and character that would take hundreds of pages in a newly created pantheon. You can even use it as an educational opportunity if someone is willing to dig into the subtext of your story. A ...
3
This is a paragraph telling us how one character feels about the other. Convert it into something showing that instead, and everything else will fall into place. Namely, set up a situation with your MC and have everyone else there react to it. If you can't fit all the information in one event, make another, maybe a little into the story. I would try to avoid ...
3
I want to write a magical story about witches and wizards but not make it like harry potter [closed]
If you steal from one person it's plagiarism, if you steal from 5 it's research.
This question keeps coming up on forums, and it's almost always about HP. There is something about HP that seems to trap people's minds. It must have something to do with it being a children's book, and maybe the only series people have read.
To me this sounds like someone how ...
2
Your reader must first understand him
People like characters who jump into the adventure and never look back, not ones who get dragged into it kicking and screaming, even if they have completely justified reasons to feel that way.
Then, you, as an author, must justify your character's behavior to the reader. Show why the character is not so 'gung-ho' about ...
2
How does what you want to say relate to the invulnerability of the MC? Are you writing an adventure story (invulnerability would reduce the stakes, but raise some possibilities)? A story about depression or alienation (all of the MC's friends die and MC becomes lonely)? Mystery (you mentioned the MC isn't sure about their own vulnerability)?
Not every story ...
2
There's no real hard and fast rule for this and as such it'll vary from work to work. Put them in the place where it makes the most sense in the narrative. That said, make it clear so the reader will know they're reading a flashback and the context of it should make sense and be relevant to the scene the flashback is framed in.
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