Help me please

Discussion in 'Author Discussions' started by Anvis, Jun 8, 2021.

  1. Anvis

    Anvis Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2021
    Messages:
    353
    Likes Received:
    65
    Reading List:
    Link
    I have a mc that is the most powerful person in my novel and I want to know how to make my
     
  2. Marvin

    Marvin The Man who realize love

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2016
    Messages:
    1,540
    Likes Received:
    968
    Reading List:
    Link
    Complete the sentence pls...
    Can you give us a summary of the story your making? I'm interested and happy to help
     
  3. TamTyler

    TamTyler Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2018
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    34
    Reading List:
    Link
    Restrict his powers, make them conditional, make him forget how to use them. The restrictions could be physical (lost limb, sealed powers, conditions like for example a sacrifice is needed to activate them) or mental (needing to be in a certain state of mind eg berserker, enlightened/ indifferent, a trauma makes him not want to use it eg the powers only bring misfortune, forgetting, just his personality makes him reluctant to use them).
    There could also be in universe rules like high-level cultivators are nerfed in the mortal world or gods being forbidden from killing humans directly or they fall to the dark side
     
    Deleted member 349329 likes this.
  4. waleuska

    waleuska Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2016
    Messages:
    858
    Likes Received:
    497
    Reading List:
    Link
    Put him in situation in which his broken powers is useless.
     
    Deleted member 348269 likes this.
  5. gcool

    gcool Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2020
    Messages:
    67
    Likes Received:
    54
    Reading List:
    Link
    Make the relevant side characters and villians just as OP
     
  6. Darkcrow.

    Darkcrow. Foul Tarnished

    Joined:
    Feb 8, 2018
    Messages:
    1,295
    Likes Received:
    1,492
    Reading List:
    Link
    Write something like MC’s enemy have kidnapped a close relative of MC (I would prefer a Daughter) to kill him through a ritual ( The ritual completes by slitting her throat) . But the ritual doesn't kills him, he do loses all of his power as he kills the enemy (Who killed his daughter) in his rage and ignores the attack from the ritual. Then you can do a time skip of a month or two.

    Also keep in mind, just because a character is OP, That doesn't mean he or she is invincible, Just make a clever enemy who have right tools and resources to kill the OP character. Also write a high stakes arc.(Just a advice from a novice author like myself, Most of the timepeople like to forget about stacks when they write a novel with OP MC)

    Sorry if there are any mistakes, As I am just too sleepy to fix them.
     
  7. Marvin

    Marvin The Man who realize love

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2016
    Messages:
    1,540
    Likes Received:
    968
    Reading List:
    Link
    Make a traumatic past that makes himself block his strong ability and start working on how to resolve them
     
  8. Xian Piete

    Xian Piete Author of many mediocre stories

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2017
    Messages:
    334
    Likes Received:
    300
    Reading List:
    Link
    The most powerful person in your story is the protagonist.. So you're saying it's like pretty much any other story?
     
  9. Darius Drake

    Darius Drake A poster of verbose posts

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2017
    Messages:
    1,085
    Likes Received:
    544
    Reading List:
    Link
    Okay, it looks like you hit post too early here, but I'll try helping a bit.

    What type of story are you trying to write? There are several types of stories where the MC can be the single most powerful in the world, if not existence, and it doesn't necessarily hurt the story's popularity. I'll be separating my possible answers into the broad groupings that I know of where that's commonplace.

    Power Fantasy: story's where the MC walks around solving problems for everyone around them, typically making the world a better place in their wake. Alternatively, treated as MC walks around collecting girls and collects girls to plough simulator. For this one you want to have an interesting world, and a broad view of what'll happen. Having one to three notable background groups causing major issues that the MC ends up fixing, thus interrupting their schemes, as the story progresses is a good alternative, too. For the broad view interesting world, you're basically having a Slice Of Life Power Fantasy where the MC can roflstomp anyone and just walks around the world doing things and helping people. And if you go with having background groups of troublemakers, then you get to have a more action-orientated story where the MC stumbles over subtle plots and kicks them over like sandcastles.

    Comedy & Slice of Life: Merged these, because the broad stroke approaches for both of them are similar. Anyway, the MC may be strong, but can't fix everything on their own. One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100 are perfect examples of this done right, with some action thrown in. Saiki K is more Slice of Life focused than the action filled One's work, but fits well as well. The focus here is as much on the people around the MC as it is the MC themselves. The important part of the Overpowered MC is that they're the central point, the thing around which everything in the plot revolves, be it the gags or the characters. The MC here is either the punch line, the straight man, the odd man out, the "sane one in a world of crazy's", or someone trying to fit in and hide their incredible power (regularly failing).

    Action: If may seem confusing to add in a dedicated Action Type grouping when I've already given examples of different types of plots where action was as important as everything else, but this one's different. For here the focus is purely on the combat. Yes, you have stated that you're MC is the "most powerful", but you didn't give any details as to how. Are they the strongest because they have one of overwhelming physical strength, insane magical prowess, incredible durability, pivotal versatility, or a unique power that makes them physically/magically stronger than anyone they're fighting? Any one of these answers would allow you to go the JoJo's Route, allowing the MC to be "the strongest" either in their field or all-round, but giving enemies their own specialties that allow them to fight the MC in their own right, and requiring the MC to discover and exploit their opponent's weaknesses. Basically, the action category admits that your MC is the strongest, but also that direct strength isn't a solve-all button, and throws enemies that they straight-forwardly can't just hit and win against them regularly.

    Political: Now hear me out, because there's a lot of different types of politics out there. There's personal politics, societal politics, environmental politics and more, just in the realm of personal interaction, each of which produces completely different story dynamics. Confused? Sorry about that, so I'll explain.
    * * * Personal Politics in this case is the politics that naturally happen to a person. This is the politics of your friendships, your rivalries, your enemies, your acquaintances, your workmates and your family. A story focused around this with a "Most Powerful MC" would involve having the MC be fettered by those around them. If you choose to do this, you'll want to set up that the MC's a badass, before slowly revealing all the fetters and limitations external forces apply to them. Irregular at a Magical High School becomes a good example of this as it progresses. The story starts off seeming like a standard Power Fantasy, and then diverts off course to show how everyone else is using the MC's power through the MC, revealing the restrictions applied to those with power and how they're applied.
    * * * Societal Politics is what most people think of when they think of politics. That is to say, governance, political parties and the like. In a story like this, the MC is widely recognised as the most powerful individual, and practically never gets to actually do anything with their power. This is because having direct combat ability is useless in governance, what's important is being able to work with others and lead people, be they your co-workers, your staff, and others, for others. Alternatively, a regular central plot focus of X-Men, humans who have inherent powers and mutations being attacked, if not outright hunted, by the government due to being "different" also fits into this category, because they're being directly attacked by the government's decisions and policies.
    * * * Environmental Politics is the middle ground between Personal and Societal Politics. You're not dealing with the politics people have with you, like personal politics, nor are you directly dealing with the politics that affect people and countries at large. Instead, your MC is dealing with what can be considered the results of Societal Politics on a Personal Level. In story's like this, you'll want your MC to be someone with no ties. This can be because they're an orphan, or it can be that they moved across, or to a new, country. Anyway you do it, it's easier to do if the MC is relatively alone when you start up, so that you can showcase that what happens isn't targeted at them. The easiest way I see this type of story regularly happening is that your MC is the most individually powerful, but ends up getting chased by everyone around them due to circumstances. They're hunted by criminals for accidentally being too close when they were being too obvious about their crimes, by police for regular accidental property damage due to poor self control over their incredible strength, or both due to accidentally breaking a criminal organisation's base and revealing their crimes to the public, while accidentally harming civilians as a side effect. The alternative relatively direct Environmental Politics story with a "Strongest MC", is detailing the life of someone who's living in a world made of soft foam. Make a MC who's so strong that they're afraid to actually hold someone's hand, just in case they twitch and crush said hand. Someone who can lift their solid cement desk as easily as they could one half the size made of softwood, and who sometimes accidentally leaves indentations in said desk from lightly tapping it, complete with fingerprints. And then write about them.
     
    Marvin likes this.
  10. YoanRoturier

    YoanRoturier Member

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2021
    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    7
    Reading List:
    Link
    "my story interesting." Is that what you wanted to say?

    Well, there is a sh*t ton of ways to do it. But one particular advice can make a big difference: CREATE TENSION.

    Examples (not that what I say can be interesting for ME):
    - If your MC is the most powerful, make him lose his power at some point in the story. It can become interesting if his enemies learn of his predicament.

    - Make him lazy. He's all-powerful but doesn't care about the world at all, when it is going to its doom.

    - Make his quest/life goal different than being the most powerful. Like... idk, being the best baseball player but the guy is so strong that he sends the ball into space every time he hits it. OR he breaks the baseball bat. IDK.

    - Anything else I didn't think of;