Tevun-Krus #6 - Superhuman

Author Spotlight: Adam Sigrist

I don't necessarily consider myself to be religious, but I am definitely spiritual. I believe that people can be spiritual in all kinds of ways which don't necessarily involve organized religion. That being said, I have explored religion in my writing, as well as other spiritual practices which I incorporate in my own life.

Others say your first novel is usually autobiographical in nature. Did you find this was the case? Do you ever base characters or situations off real life situations? How do you balance that? 

Every writer bases characters or situations off real life. They may not do it all the time, but no matter how hard you try to separate the two, your life bleeds into your art. That being said, I have had a lot of friends approach me to say, "is this character supposed to be me?" I can honestly say to just about every one of them that no, that character is not them. With VERY few exceptions, there isn't a single one of my characters which is based on just one person in my life. I like to create composites of the people I know, I find that makes characters more interesting.

Who is your favorite character you’ve written into a story? Why? 

Sugar from The Zombie Prophecies series. She's just a lot of fun to write, she's always joking and trying to break the tension, which is an important role in a zombie apocalypse 

Walk us through your writing process—how does it begin? What do you do when you get stuck? How do you decide when the story is over? 

I begin with an idea, as anybody would, then I sit down and write. I don't bother with outlines or notes or what ever. I just write until I think I'm done, or I get bored. Sometimes I might have an idea in mind for where I'd like the story to go, but mostly I just let my imagination do the typing until I think "wouldn't it just be excellent if this character from the beginning did this? If only that could happen..." Then I think "Oh right! I'm the author! I can make anything I want happen!"

It's really not an organized or well thought out process at all and often times leaves me with partially finished books that all start out exciting, only to lose my interest when something shiny catches my eye.

(& in the spirit of this month's theme, Superhuman Scifi)

Adam, if you could have any superpower, which would it be? 

I've always considered myself to be more of an empathic, or telepathic superhero. I have a hard time seeing myself as a fighter, but I could absolutely round out a team with my mastery of the mind. 

Basically, if I were a Skyrim character, I'd be dropping a lot of perks into my illusion magic.

When did you get started on superhumans or superheroes in general? ...do you have a favorite? 

X-men was always my thing. Growing up gay, it was nice to see a group of superheroes who were seen as "freaks" by the general population. Even at a very young age I was aware of the very important lessons being taught by mutant kind. Whether it's sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, what ever sort of injustice is your cause you can draw parallels between that and X-men.

Plus, all I ever wanted to be when I grew up was Storm, but that's one of my more superficial reasons.

If you were a superhero, who--in your own life--would be your sidekick? 

My cat, Lois. In fact, she's my sidekick in my profile picture.

Any advice for those of us out here attempting some superhuman scifi?

Please try to be original. I know this isn't easy advice, but it's all I got. People have been telling superhuman stories since the dawn of time. Who are Gilgamesh or Achilles if not superheroes? So it's difficult to be original in a genre that's been around for so freaking long! Here's the trick, place nearly impossible limits on the powers of your characters. 

Perhaps your character's power is useless without the presence of a specific person or condition. Recently, I binge watched an entire British series called Misfits. One of the major villains was a man whose only ability was making dairy products boil with his mind. Ridiculous, right? But who doesn't like to eat some yogurt or have a latte with their breakfast? He had a very limited, and unique, power that could be entirely useful for a super villain in the right situations.

Maybe your character's power is literally tearing them apart with every use. In my story Slipstream, one of the characters can perceive and manipulate people's auras. This isn't necessarily new so I gave her a bit of a twist. She can see, and change the emotions of other people, but forcing another person to do something (open a door for example) can seriously injure her brain causing headaches, nose bleeds and even loss of consciousness. It's the limits we impose that make a superpower interesting.

Secondly, It's not easy to come up with a NEW power, so try to present an old one in a new way. The TV show Alphas did that really well. A lot of the powers in that show actually presented as developmental or physical disabilities. For example, one of the characters had autism. You may or may not know that some of the symptoms of autism are a lack of eye contact, and the tendency to stimulate yourself with repetitive movements such as flapping your hands. Well, as it turned out, this character wasn't making eye contact because he was more interested in looking at the electromagnetic wavelengths all around him. That hand flapping? He was just sorting through the thousands of waves that presented themselves to him in a busy metropolitan city.

These are just a couple of ideas, and they might even be total crap for all I know. Just keep them in mind when you're creating your own superheroes. Just remember that every Achilles needs his heel because nobody, NOBODY, likes an invincible good guy. If there's no way the hero could possibly lose, there's no tension, and if there's no tension nobody wants to read it.