Power Creep

Let us talk about ‘power creep’ and what it means. Then let us talk about how to avoid it. Power creep is mostly a problem of long-running series. It happens when one or more recurring characters get too strong during the series, so that they can’t really be challenged by anything any longer. Needless to say that when it happens to your main character or characters, that is bad for your series. Sometimes, power creep seems unavoidable, but in most cases, there are ways around it.

How does power creep happen? Generally speaking, the higher the stakes get in a series, the stronger the characters have to be to face them. Over the course of a long series, stakes will rise considerably and with them the skills the characters have to develop to be able to overcome the conflicts and be victorious.
It is normal for a character to grow during the course of series. As a matter of fact, it would be weird if they didn’t. Characters gain new skills and new friends, they become more powerful, more famous, more important.
The problem arises when they’ve gotten too much influence, too many friends, too many powers. In a series, every conflict and every climax is supposed to be bigger than the last, so the characters have to keep up with the new stakes and threats to make that happen.

Yet, the stakes must rise every time, so must the characters’ powers, right? Not necessarily, as it were.
Climaxes aren’t about rising powers, they are about solving a problem, about resolving the conflict in some way. In some cases, that means that your main character must gain or develop a skill which makes them equal to the antagonist and allows for them to win the final confrontation. In other cases, it might mean finding the MacGuffin or gathering allies who will help you in that confrontation.
If you don’t want to raise your characters’ powers, it is valid to expand their circle of acquaintances instead. Make the story about them all about making new friends, about helping others so they might be helping your main characters out in the end.
If you’d rather they go on an adventure, make it all about finding the MacGuffin (and, perhaps, making some friends on the way, why not?). It’s not always about becoming more powerful or developing new skills.
If that doesn’t work, either, think about expanding a skill they already have. Perhaps they can hold their breath for ten minutes, but that strange underwater passage demands they hold it for twelve — so let them train to become better at something they can do already.

Long series can happen by accident (I certainly didn’t think I’d write eight books about Jane Browne, but here we are — and more might follow at some point), but if you’re planning a project as a series, then there are a few precautions you can take.
First and foremost, don’t raise your stakes too quickly. You need to raise them from book to book, no question, but you don’t have to go from ‘local mystery’ to ‘the whole world is at stake’ between book one  and book two. It will still be a raised stake if you go from that local problem to one on a slightly bigger scale. In the first book, it was all about the village, now the nearest town is involved, too — or the neighbouring village is. In the third book, there’s another town or even a city involved and so on.
Like this, you will have a lot of books between those ‘local mystery’ and ‘the whole world is in danger’ situations. By the time it’s about the whole world, you characters should have a nice collection of useful skills, good friends, and enough renown to be taken seriously when they talk to the wizards’ council.
Alternately, of course, you can switch out main characters every now and then, let the children or younger siblings or apprentices of your first-generation heroes take over. Yet, most people want to end a series with the same main characters with whom it started, so either establish the changing heroes early on or find a very good reason for the exchange.

A series bible also comes in useful at this point. I would always suggest to keep a list of characters and their skills handy and to note all plot points which might be important later on.
It’s helpful if you can just look into your notes instead of having to re-read several books (or their manuscripts) to find out what happened in that cave four books back and how it influenced this character’s spell-work. It helps you keep your characters’ current skill levels consistent, too, which is important. Even if you don’t note that they seem to have gained or lost a skill without explanation, some readers will. Better avoid that from the beginning.
If you’re planning ahead, you can also sketch out how the skills of your main and recurring characters should evolve and use that when planning the next book. It’s often easier to shape a plot around skills you want for your characters to get than to later on deal with a strange, disjointed array of skills they’ve gotten from various plots over time.

With all of this said, power creep can be avoided through careful planning and through avoiding to make the climaxes about the same thing every time. Introduce allies and the occasional MacGuffin, if you must, to make the resolutions varied. Make sure to evolve your characters’ skills in a logical manner that makes sense to the readers. Avoid raising the stakes too quickly, so the characters don’t need to develop their skills extremely fast to manage the next climax. Keep a list of skills your characters already have, so you can see whether one of those could do for the climax of your next book already (with a bit of a development, perhaps). Don’t let the power rise too quickly for just one character, either — try to keep them all on a similar level or you’ll have a situation in which only one character matters any longer (the ‘Son Goku Problem’).

Strange Days

Last week, my computer died. It wasn’t unexpected at all, the computer had been behaving weirdly for a while and I knew I would have to get it seen to or to get a new one. Last week, the computer made the decision for me by killing off its own motherboard.

I had to catch up with someone to help me with saving my data, that much was for sure. Unfortunately, my computer guy, the guy I went to with computer troubles and got most of my new computers from since my teens (aka. a long time ago), closed up shop a year or two ago, somewhere alongside the beginning of the pandemic. That was why I didn’t do something about my computer earlier, even though I should have. I didn’t know whom to go to.
I had even already picked someone I wanted to call a few months back, but hadn’t been able to bring myself to call them and discuss things. I called them last week on Friday, but it was one of those days many people take off here in Germany, because Thursday, the day after my computer died, was a bank holiday here (Corpus Christie, the last bank holiday before summer starts properly). I called him again on Monday, as we’d agreed.
We’ve come to the agreement that I order a new computer from a website he gave me (it’s good — I could configure my computer to make sure it has all I need for it to have, including Win 10 instead of 11). It’s probably going to arrive on Friday and the guy will help me set it up (I can do that on my own) and transfer my old hard disks to the new computer (or help me transfer one and get all data I still need from the other, I hope for the first option, but the second one would be fine as well — I can live without my old Windows hard disk, provided I can pull my podcasts, pictures, documents, and some roaming data off it first).

That is not why I’ve titled this post “Strange Days”, though. I currently have an ancient laptop from my dad in use. It can run Scrivener, proving that the program is really nice, as I can even use it right now. All my projects, unfortunately, are on my old computer and not available right now…
On the day on which my computer died (in the late afternoon), and on the bank holiday afterwards, I spent time listening to audio books and read my way through the whole “Miss Knight” series (a review post will come in a while). On the day afterwards, I mentioned to my dad that I would be looking for a laptop, so I had an emergency computer to fall back upon and he mentioned his ancient laptop. I thought it would at least work for internet surfing, if nothing else — and it does. When I had it set up, updated a few things, etc, I checked and found it would also run Scrivener. Currently, I’m running the trial version and I’m really glad it only counts the days on which I’m really using it.

When I was suddenly without computer, I realized how much I use it all day. It’s the first thing I start up in most mornings and the last thing I shut down in the evenings. For most of the day, I sit at my desk, I even eat there usually. I do my diary-writing at the computer desk. I prepare my bullet journal at the computer desk. I only sit on my couch when my dad comes upstairs for tea and, some days, in the evenings for some watching TV together. Needless to say that, with the audio books and the DVDs I watched (and using my smartphone to stream TV programs and YouTube videos to my TV), I spent a lot more time on the couch so far.
I was desperate on the first two days, partially fearing for my data, partially because I didn’t have anything to do — I couldn’t really write, I couldn’t really go online, I couldn’t have most of my regular amusements. Then I got the old laptop and realized it would run Scrivener and I was a little calmer. After talking to the new computer guy, I was much calmer, so now I’m merely waiting for my new computer to ship and for the guy to help me with the data.

I’ve begun to realize that I really love writing, that I really love sitting down with a word processor and getting some words into it. I have a little project going for getting through the days without computer (and I’m thinking of all the games I will be able to play or play better on my new computer, as I can finally dive into “Planet Zoo” I bought ages ago which wouldn’t really run well on my old computer!).
If nothing else, the days without a proper computer have motivated me to write again, showing me that while I make some money with my writing now, it’s still something which I do because I love it, not just because it brings in money.

Even if your writing sometimes frustrates you and you feel like you can get nothing done (as I’ve felt about “DI Colin Rook”), keep in mind that you love telling stories. You want to write things down, spin your yarn, entertain people. Don’t let the hard work part of it get you down.

Animal Companions

Disney movies are known for their animal companions. Even in stories where the female lead had no companion before, there often is one in the Disney version. They’re cute, they’re something for young children to enjoy, and they make for additional merchandise. Yet, animal companions are not just for Disney movies, there’s also quite some other reasons to add an animal to your story and give your main character a furry, feathered, or scaly friend.

A classic example of an animal companion are familiars — animals which are around a mage of any kind (although witches are the most common thought to have one) and have a deeper connection to them than your regular pet.
A familiar serves several purposes for the owner. Usually, they are magically bound to their mage, so they might have a higher-than-normal intelligence. They might be able to communicate with their mage as well, either directly, being able to speak in a human way, or telepathically. A familiar might have been given to the mage by a higher power (usually the devil) and serve as a connection to that power, too. That’s why Isadora has the Beast of Set for emergencies. Familiars often also bring their mage objects which the mage needs — catching small magical creatures, for instance, or finding rare herbs and suchlike.
Giving your magic user a familiar can be quite useful. They won’t be as alone as they might be otherwise, as they can hold a conversation — sneaky, reassuring, or something else — with the familiar. The familiar could help or hinder them with a task they’re doing, could get them into or out of trouble.

It’s also quite common for children to have an animal companion. Animals are good for children and their emotional and social development and in many stories, they serve as helpers or protectors as well.
It is one thing to let your young child run around alone, but if they have a quirky dog by their side, you might be less worried, especially in a rural setting. For children, a dog or cat or bird can also be a close friend and confidante — someone they can tell their worries to without being told off, someone to share secrets with they can’t tell anyone else about. They can be caretaker (to a degree), friend, protector, playmate. In practical ways, an animal companion can also further the story — by being stolen, by running away, by leading the child or children to an important place, or by informing the adults that Timmy has fallen down the well … again.
An animal companion in a children’s story will usually be a more regular pet. They won’t have higher-than-average intelligence like a familiar, but they will be true to ‘their’ human and they will help the child or children master the challenges of the story.

An animal can also take on a different role, however, by being more than the average companion or even familiar. Sometimes, there’s more than your average dog, cat, bird, or lizard under that fur, those feathers, or those scales.
Perhaps the animal isn’t really an animal, but a transfigured human. Perhaps the animal is magical and has human intelligence. Perhaps the animal has been scientifically changed to be the perfect guardian for a biologist’s child. There are many ways to make an animal companion more than just your average animal. In that case, the animal can even be a traitor, leading the main character into a trap and leaving them there, delivering them to their enemy.
Anne, whose stories are planned, but not yet written, has an elder abomination by her side that has been stuck in the body of a cat for ages and started to display definitely cat-like traits. Yet, Necro is also still much more powerful than an average cat and can be an excellent protector if he can be properly motivated.

Animal companions, even those that are nothing more than regular animals, can fulfil a lot of different roles in a character’s life — they can be helpers, they can be emotional or practical support, they can be protectors, they can simply be playmates.
Being presented with a little pup or kitten can help a child overcome a hard cut in their life, such as the death of a parent or a move into a completely new environment. Finding a freezing animal in the rain can pull a character who is emotionally down out of their dudgeon and give them a new reason to live. Having an animal by their side can help your post-apocalyptic hero out there to find the way to the promised land with keeping up the search and stop them from feeling lonely and helpless. After all, there’s that crow who is always with them, they’re not alone!
Animal companions usually are not full characters. They don’t have their own internal arc under normal circumstances (although those ‘not quite an animal’ companions might have) and they have no identity of their own within the story, but are defined by the character they’re with. They can still play an important role in the story and be a great help to their human.

One more thing should be considered, though: a lot of people are more sensitive to the death or torture of an animal companion than to that of a regular side character (or even the main one).
It seems weird at first to think about that, but it does make sense to a degree, as animals have less agency and thus less ways to avoid such a fate than a human. So unless you have a very good reason to show the death of an animal companion, it’s a good idea not to put it into your story. Even if the companion seems little enough connected to the narrative (like Harry’s owl Hedwig), their deaths are often considered worse than that of a regular character. It might be a good idea to let that dog, cat, or owl live, unless it is absolutely necessary for the story to kill them.

Animal companions happen most often in children’s literature, but they can have their use in other kinds of stories, too. Even if the animal is not ‘real’ or the place of animal companion is, for instance, taken by a robot or suchlike, it can be a good idea to give a character someone to stay with them and whole-heartedly support them all through the story.

Chosen-One Narrative

In recent years — and especially in YA books —, the ‘Chosen One’ has become a mainstay. The trope of that one person who has been chosen by a higher power, such as a prophecy or a divine being, or who is the first one to break the mould of regular people in the world, is exceedingly popular. What pitfalls await you when you’re trying to write this kind of narrative, though? Yes, trust me, there are quite some pitfalls to avoid, especially as the trope has become so common.

While the narrative of that one person who is destined to bring down the dystopian system is very common, not everyone who does so is a Chosen One. For instance, Katniss in the Hunger Games is not a Chosen One. She is thrust into a situation in which she has to fight the system instead of just keeping her head down and surviving, but she wasn’t chosen — she chose herself, if you must have a ‘choice’ in that case.
So the first important part about the Chosen-One narrative is that there must be something or someone choosing someone else. This something or someone must be a higher power of sorts. Harry Potter is ‘chosen’ both by a prophecy and by Voldemort himself (as Neville would also have qualified as the Chosen One in this case, but by going for Harry, Voldemort ‘marked him as his equal’ as per the prophecy). The prophecy does qualify as a higher power, even though Voldemort doesn’t. Luke Skywalker isn’t a Chosen One (but Anakin Skywalker is, following the prophecy of ‘the one to bring balance to the Force’), even though, like with Katniss, circumstances push him into the role of the hero and he fills it.
If you want a proper Chosen-One narrative, a higher power of a sort must choose your main character. That higher power could be a prophecy or a magical creature or a deity or something similar. It can’t just be that guy who says ‘you look like you could slay that Dark Lord.’

Being a Chosen One also isn’t just about a random person becoming a great warrior. The basic skill to solve that problem the Chosen One is supposed to solve must be within the person who is the Chosen One. They might not know it — often, they don’t —, but it must be there.
Anakin bringing ‘balance to the Force’ in a universe in which there’s two Sith Lords and a number of dark Jedi, yet a large order of regular Jedi can only mean pushing the Dark Side, even if the Council doesn’t realize it. Now, everyone can fall to the Dark Side, if some will more easily than others. Yet, if Anakin is to bring ‘balance to the Force,’ he must go dark. Not that we didn’t know that before — we know who he becomes, after all. Yet, he doesn’t wake up some day and says ‘I’m going to be a Sith Lord now.’ It’s a process fuelled as much by Palpatine’s manipulations as by the actions of the Council and the general things happening to Anakin along the way. His past as a slave, his fear to lose his wife and kids (whom he’s forbidden from having) like his mother, and the general Skywalker impatience make it easier for him to fall to the Dark Side, but the development is still there. We see why he ends up behind the mask (even if it could have been done better…).
If the mere presence of the Chosen One makes other people solve the problem instead, though, you’re doing it wrong. The Chosen One must be the only one qualified to deal with the problem. If they’re not, if there’s someone better suited for it who can and would do it, then you don’t have a proper Chosen One, but more about that later.

Often, the Chosen One has a connection to the story’s villain. They are bound to confront the villain for something or the villain has singled them out for some reason. The easiest way to tie them together is through some kind of family connection. Either the villain has killed parts of the Chosen One’s family or, even worse, the villain is part of the Chosen One’s family.
Of course, such family matters make for an easy conflict. If the villain has killed the main character’s whole family, there isn’t much to understand about why the main character focuses on bringing the villain down. If the villain is part of the same family, the Chosen One might want to bring them back — or clear the family name by killing them, depending on the kind of story you are after.
Yet, that has become a trope of itself by now. Instead of seeking revenge for the death of one’s own family or only focusing on bringing the villain back from their evil ways, the villain and the main character can also be connected through the very problem it is all about. If the Chosen One was chosen to put together a MacGuffin of sorts, the villain could be hoarding some parts for other reasons or could be the one whose power will suffer once that MacGuffin is running. If the Chosen One is the secret heir to the kingdom, the villain can be ruling it even without being related to the main character (they could either rule ‘instead of the missing heir’ or simply have taken over after the last heir disappeared). Like this, both sides are invested in the situation without being directly related to each other.

It is, of course, possible to subvert that regular Chosen-One narrative. The easiest way would be to portray a ‘Chosen One’ who is fake while someone else does all of the actual saving of the world. Or to show a Chosen One who refuses to act and forces others to do their work instead, showing that it was not about being chosen by a higher power at all.
What you should avoid, though, is something like the undeserving hero. A Chosen One who is not showing any of the skills necessary, but gets pushed into the narrative as the only one who can deal with the problem. At some point, a Chosen One should show why they’ve been chosen — should show that they possess the necessary skills to win the day, solve the problem, and defeat the villain. Or not really be the Chosen One and just a decoy who believes they are. If your Chosen One is not doing a thing and others are saving the day, unless you make a point of it, then you have the wrong Chosen One.

As mentioned, the Chosen-One narrative is very popular and, thus, very common. If you feel you have to use it, try to make it your own, try to subvert it a little, try to make something new out of it. Exploring the Chosen-One narrative in a story can be very interesting and create a great story, but just following through with what everyone has been doing already won’t make your story stand out.

Good Adaptations

An adaptation is translating a story from one medium in which it exists to another. The most common one is adapting a novel for a movie or TV/streaming series. More rarely, a computer game is used as a basis for a movie or series or a novel is turned into a game. Sometimes, a movie comes out with a novel adaptation alongside it, turning the usual process on its head. There are other forms of adaptation possible, of course, but I’ll mostly be talking about what happens when you turn a literary medium, such as a novel, novella, or short story, into a visual medium, such as a movie or TV/streaming series.
Adaptations always come with problems, but I’ll be dipping into a few examples for what can turn an adaptation into a good or a bad one.

The main thing I want to talk about is a faithful adaptation. It is never possible to 1:1 turn a book into a movie. You can’t always use the same sort of storytelling devices in a literary and a visual medium. Instead, a faithful adaptation is one which keeps the core of the story intact, which keeps the important plot points, the important character traits, the important aspects of the setting and the action and uses them correctly in the new medium. I admittedly can mostly think of bad adaptations in this aspect. Let’s look at two of them, one of which many thought a good adaptation when it came out: “Relic” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.

“Relic” makes changes to the story which are not wise, considering the novel it is based on (also called “Relic”) is the beginning of a series. Two character who survive in the novel are killed in the movie. At first glance, that would not be a problem, but both play a pivotal role in the second novel and killing them makes a sequel based on it impossible. Special Agent Pendergast is in the novel (and the series is ‘his’ to boot), but doesn’t turn up in the movie, where his character is fused with that of the local police detective. In general, fusing two characters into one or omitting a character can be a good idea during the translation process — novels can get away with more characters than a movie, as adding one more doesn’t cost anything in a book, but casting actors costs money. Yet, if you fuse two main characters, you should have a very good reason for that.

“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” seems at first to be very faithful to its source material. We find the diary-based style, we get opulent late-Victorian sets, we get a lot of details which are rarely reproduced for a movie. Yet, the movie already deviates dangerously with its prologue, for one thing it’s linking Dracula to Vlad the Impaler (while it is clear from his notes that Stoker had heard about him and chose ‘Dracula’ as his vampire’s name after he had, it’s clear from what the count says that his life is not based on Vlad the Impaler at all). For another, it tries to set up a ‘star-crossed lovers’ romance between Dracula and Mina that is simply not there in the book. It does the opposite of “Relic”, too, by having Quincey P. Morris in the movie. Quincey as a character is not that important in the novel and usually left out of adaptations for that reason. Quincey does nothing which another character can’t do and his death in the end lacks the depths of a ‘sacrifice’ or suchlike which would make it important to the story. It’s fine for him to be in the novel, but a movie adaptation doesn’t sorely need him. Van Helsing and Mina are both given a completely different character, too, which hurts them both. Mina turns from an over-powered female lead (highly intelligent and persevering) into a helpless little lady (who cheats on her absent fiancé with Dracula). Van Helsing turns from a warm-hearted mentor (with strange verbal manners) into a cold-blooded scientist with a personal interest in the vampire as a such. At first, the opulence of the costumes and sets might impress you, but as a reader of the original, you will soon see how much the movie deviates from the source material and not in a good way.

A good adaptation is an adaptation which you will enjoy, no matter whether you know the original or whether you don’t. My examples above both are good movies and highly enjoyable if you don’t know the original text. If you have read the books, though, you will see the problems with the movie adaptations and they will probably spoil your viewing pleasure.

Despite changing some plot points — such as cutting out the ‘curse’ sub-plot with Linda and her try at suicide because of it, “Evil Under the Sun” (1982) as a movie adaptation is a good one. It preserves the original setting of the cut-off hotel where no regular person can come and go unnoticed. It mentions the earlier murder which Poirot was asked to look into for an insurance company and which will help him solve this one. It keeps the motivation for the main characters, their general behaviour towards each other, the murder which only works with two culprits, everything plot relevant in the novel. It injects a few details, moves the hotel from the southern area of England to somewhere on the Balkan and pulls an American couple with little reason to be around into the circle or suspects while cutting other characters completely, but that doesn’t hurt the story, because it doesn’t matter where that island is or whether there’s a land connection during low tide or not. The cut characters had no bearing on the plot in the first place and their work can be done by those left in the movie.
If you’ve never read “Evil Under the Sun”, you will be entertained by the movie. If you’ve read the novel before, you will still enjoy the adaptation very much and have a good time without thinking ‘that’s not how it was in the book’ the whole time.

A good adaptation stays faithful to the story, not to the details. It’s not about turning a book into a movie while preserving every line of dialogue and carrying across every detail of every scene. Characters will most likely be cut or merged. Minor details or sub-plots which aren’t necessary will be removed. Scenes will disappear. If you leave the spirit of the story intact, it will still be a good adaptation and will be enjoyed by both those who know the source material and those who don’t.