Okay, Mr. Writer, What Makes The Power Club So Special?

One of the cool things about publishing a book is getting interviewed. One blogger recently sent me a series of questions, and, while I enjoyed answering them all, one threw me. The blogger asked: Super-hero stories are quite common these days. What makes The Power Club unique?

It’s a fair question. Every writer should know what makes his or her book stand above the herd. In my mind, I’ve rehearsed an answer to such questions ever since I started writing PC. Yet answering that question for real requires the writer to take a good, hard look at his or her work, delve into personal reasons why he or she wrote the book in the first place, and connect those reasons with readers who will buy and (we hope) love the book.

It’s especially a fair question today with movie theaters glutted with Avengers and JLA movies. What makes PC—a story about kids with super-powers—different?  One obvious answer is that these kids are forced to live in a place known as “the district,” which restricts the use of their powers and keeps a careful, perhaps sinister, watch over them.

But there’s more to it than that. Herewith is my attempt to give a more complete answer to “What makes The Power Club unique?”

         1. PC is a deeply personal story which combines elements of real life and fantasy.

Growing up in the small Midwestern city of St. Joseph, MO, I dreamed of having super-powers and friends who had powers so we could form our own super-hero team. For a fleeting summer, a bunch of neighborhood kids and I, fueled by comic books and cartoons, pretended we were super-heroes. Then they moved on to other things (sports and cars), but I never did. In the back of my mind, I always wondered, “What if our super-team had been real?”

Also, I felt a sense of confinement in my neighborhood and hometown, just as Damon, the main character in PC, feels confined in the district. All the “real” super-heroes lived in New York or imaginary cities such as Metropolis and Coast City. I wanted to explore the world, but I was “stuck” in St. Joseph.

A third strand came from the realization that the world outside the safe confines of St. Joseph was a scary place (and it could be scary inside St. Joseph, as well). Suicide bombers and mass shooters were extremely rare in those days, but the world always seemed to be on the brink of nuclear disaster. Until I was almost 12, there were constant reminders that—as a young male—I could be drafted and sent off to fight in a war. When I was about Damon’s age, a cult led by the Rev. Jim Jones committed mass suicide. These events formed my perceptions of the world and fueled my desire to do something about them.

This isn’t to say that PC is based on fear. Quite the contrary, I hope readers derive a sense of hope and optimism from it. Yes, the world is screwed up, and there is much outside our control. However, we can do something about our own choices.

Fear, then, is a motivating factor in the book, and it hits Damon from all sides. He must contend with super-powered bullies as well as the district itself, which conspires against him. How Damon responds to these challenges determines who he is.

 2. PC isn’t just about good guys versus bad guys. Sometimes it's difficult to know what a good guy should do.

Many super-hero stories succeed because they are comforting and familiar. We know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and we know the good guys will win after they overcome many obstacles. But in PC, the obstacle and the choices the characters make to overcome them aren't so clear cut.

The PC characters share at least one common obstacle: they are young. They don’t have the resources, independence, or experience of adult heroes. They must contend with real-world challenges such as going to school, obeying rules, and even attending birthday parties. All of these things get in the way of being heroes.

Damon and some of the other characters have to make difficult choices in order to become heroes. One character lies to her parents so she can participate in a mission. Damon must decide whether to kick another member out of the club. He also learns that the district, which is supposed to protect him, uses dirty tricks to keep him from becoming a hero. Sometimes, doing "the right thing" is hard when there are competing choices.

Being a hero is also dangerous business, and this is shown in the book. Stopping a scared mob is one thing, but going up against real criminals is another. Some members of the PC question whether they want to be heroes, and the sacrifices they have to make. So, PC turns this assumption on its head: Just because you have powers doesn’t mean you can or want to be a hero.

      3. PC wasn’t written to cash in on trends and fashions.

Okay, I hope PC is a big success, and if it rides the current wave of super-hero popularity, so much the better. However, my goal is for PC to have universal appeal and to live on, be read, and be discussed for years. Though I don’t pretend to compare my book to Harry Potter, I think some lessons can be learned from J.K. Rowling’s series. HP is not just about a kid who wants to become a wizard; it’s about a kid who, bereft of a loving family, seeks to find his place in the world. This is something all kids everywhere can identify with. 

Likewise, PC is about kids discovering their special abilities and trying to figure out what those abilities mean for them and the world.

That’s my take on what makes PC unique. For another perspective, here’s a gracious review written by the Blushing Bibliophile:

Three and a Half Questions for FALSE ALARM

Special shout-out and thanks to Laura Packer for this insightful post on her blog. I decided to take her advice and ask myself the 3.5 questions about my forthcoming book, FALSE ALARM: A POWER CLUB NOVELLA™.

Here are the results:

1. What do you love about this story?

FALSE ALARM grew out of a scene in THE POWER CLUB™ in which 14-year-old Denise confesses to Damon that she's not confident in her ability to see the future because of something horrific that happened. She had had a vision that a certain building would catch fire but did not know when it would happen. She told her parents, who alerted the authorities, but the fire didn't happen when Denise thought it would, so they dismissed her prediction as a false alarm.

Eventually, the building did catch fire and a lot of people died. Even though Denise was not responsible, she felt responsible. It was a very traumatic experience for her and led, in part, to her hiding the nature of her power, even from other kids who had powers.

After writing THE POWER CLUB, I felt there was more to the story, so I wanted to go back in time to when Denise first discovered she could see the future and what this power cost her.

I love this sort of "fill in the blanks" story. It enables us to learn so much more about the characters and their world, and to experience a different side of both. For example, we meet Denise's best friend from before she developed her power. We get a sense of her life before she and her family moved to the district when her brother, Vee, developed his power of super-speed. And we get a sense of the conflict no 11-year-old should ever have to face: choosing between her freedom and doing the right thing.

2. So why do you want to tell it?

In telling Denise's story to others, I am essentially telling it to myself. As I do so, I learn more about Denise and the world of super-powered children who are forced to live in this place called "the district." 

I feel like I am on a shared journey with my readers—a journey to discovering what it would truly be like to have a super-power, to develop one at a young age, and to have your life change dramatically because of it. 

3. Who is your audience ...

I wrote FALSE ALARM with young readers in mind, especially girls age 9-11. But even though the main character is a girl, I imagine boys will love the story, too. As a boy, I enjoyed reading stories about girls (even though I would never admit it) because I learned to see the world through the eyes of someone different from myself. 

As young children, I think we are more open to such experiences than we are later, when we are taught that boys should like certain things and girls should like other things.

This is particularly a problem today because some claim there's no point in creating super-hero comics or toys for girls because "girls don't like super-heroes." I want to challenge that stereotype because I know plenty of women who like super-heroes!

I also wrote FALSE ALARM with fans of THE POWER CLUB in mind, though you do not have to have read the novel to understand this story. In fact, if you haven't read THE POWER CLUB, this story makes a good jumping-on point.

3.5. ... What do they need? 

This is a tough one. In Laura's original post, she talked about what your audience needs when you are telling this story to them, such as rhymes for small children. My readers will be reading my book, and I hope I have made it accessible and engaging for them.

Beyond that, I think what my audience needs is a sense of empowerment in a very troubled and dangerous world—a world in which we can't get away from disasters in the news and on social media. What would happen if you couldn't get away from such things even in your dreams? What if you could do something about it? What would you do? 

I think that's what my readers need: a sense of who they truly are and the difference they can make in this world.

"False Alarm": A Power Club Short Story (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2. 

          Denise hated to disturb her father while he was working, but he always seemed to be working, just like her mother. Denise stood in the doorway of the den. It was lit only by the gold and green desk lamp on her father’s desk. In the glow of the lamp, her father sat hunched over his desk, pouring over paperwork. Probably more loan applications, Denise figured, from people who had to move into the district when one of their children developed a power.

            “Daddy?” she said quietly. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she turned to leave.

            “What is it, Neesy?”

            Denise didn’t like it when most people called her “Neesy,” especially not her brother, but when her father used that nickname she’d had since she was a baby, she didn’t mind.

            “Daddy,” she began, hovering in the doorway, half wanting to run, half wanting to stay, “what would you do if you thought something bad was going to happen but wasn’t sure?”

            Gerard Evans leaned back in his banker’s chair and stroked his chin with the earpiece from his reading glasses.  Denise thought the reading glasses made him look much older than he was. “What do you mean?” he asked.

            Denise didn’t know how much she should tell her father about what she had seen on the bus. “What if you thought something bad was going to happen, like say, a building was going to catch fire and a lot of people were going to die?  Would you tell the police?”

            Her father’s eyes narrowed, but not in a way that seemed mean. It was more in a way that suggested he was thinking. To Denise, he always looked kind when he was thinking, and she knew it was because he wanted to help people who came into the bank and needed money. But sometimes, he had told her, he couldn’t give them the money they asked for, and that broke his heart. Denise sensed that his heart was breaking now.

            “Come over here,” he said quietly.

            She approached the front of the desk and stood there, like she imagined customers of the bank would do. After all, her father was vice president, a very important position. But he reached out and guided her over to his side and then turned in his swivel chair and faced her. “Denise, tell me what you think you saw.”

            They had had this conversation before, and it always went badly. First there was the time Denise told her mother she should get the tires on the car checked. A week later, one of the tires went flat. Then there was the time she had stayed up all night studying for a pop quiz in social studies—sure enough, Mrs. Glinton gave a surprise quiz the very next day.

            It was useless to lie to him so she told him everything she had seen on the bus, about the dirty chalk-white building catching fire at night. Denise hadn’t been able to get the image out of her mind all day. It was going to happen. She knew it.

            Gerard Evans leaned forward in his chair. Even at home, he wore the white shirt and dark, striped tie he wore at work, although the tie was loose at the collar. When she was little, Denise used to pull on the tie. Wanting to go back to the way things used to be, she resisted the impulse to do so now.

            “Neesy,” he began, “you know that if you start to develop a power, I’ll have to report it to the district, don’t you?”

            “Yes,” she said, knowing where this conversation was leading.

            “And you know that if you develop a power, that’s the end of going to school outside the district. You’ll have to say goodbye to your friends and go to the same school your brother goes to. Do you want that?”

            Denise frowned and shook her head.

            “Then why do you keep letting on like you can see the future?  Honey, you know that’s not possible. In all the powers the district has catalogued, no one has ever been discovered who can reliably predict the future. No one.”

            She loved it when her father talked this way—using words like “catalogued” and saying no one could reliably predict the future (there had been a few crazy people who tried to get into the district by claiming they could see the future, but they were always found out to be phonies). When her father talked that way to her, Denise felt grown up.

            “But, Daddy,” she said, “it felt so real. I even smelled smoke.”

            “We’ve talked about this before,” her father said. “It’s called Phantom Power Syndrome. Kids whose brothers or sisters have powers sometimes feel left out, so they think they’re developing a power, too. It’s a type of jealousy.”

            “Jealousy?” Denise blurted out. “Daddy, I’m not jealous of Vee. He uses his power to cheat at games. He gets away with things no one ever sees him do. Daddy, I don’t want to live in the district forever. I DON’T WANT A POWER!”

            “Okay, okay.” He had been trying to calm her down while she was speaking, and finally, he managed to shush her by telling her not to wake her mother and brother, who had already turned in.  “Well, if you see any more of these things, you come and tell me, okay?”

            “But what if I’m at school or on the bus, like today?”

            “Then you tell your teacher or the principal or some other authority figure. I’m sure they’ll investigate and everything will be all right.”

            Denise nodded. She knew her father was just telling her this to make her feel at ease, and it worked. If her father believed she didn’t have a power, she didn’t have a power, and that was that.

            “Okay, now go to bed.” He swatted her on the leg as she ran toward the door. She reached the doorway, then paused and looked back at her father, who was already hunched over his paperwork again.

            “Daddy,” she said, her voice feeling hollow as if it were coming from someone else, “I think you should give Mrs. Patillo the loan.”

            Gerard Evans looked up from his paperwork. “Who’s Mrs. Patillo?”

            Denise shrugged and ran out of the room.

***

            The next day, as the school bus approached the dirty chalk-white building, Denise held her breath.  She wondered if the images would return, but they did not.  Denise watched the dirty chalk-white building pass and began to relax.

            Two hours later, she was called to the principal’s office.  When she arrived, her father rose from the chair in front of Mr. Sturgeon’s desk.  His face was pale.

            “Daddy, what’s wrong?  Did something happen to Mom or to Vee?”

            “No, honey,” he said in a reassuring tone.  “They’re fine. But, Neesy, I need you to tell me something.”

            “Okay,” she said, uncertain.

            “Last night in the den, do you remember telling me I should give a loan to someone named Mrs. Patillo?”

            Denise nodded, confused. She didn’t think her father had been paying that much attention.

            “Where did you hear that name?”

            Denise shook her head.  “I must’ve made it up.”

            Her father blinked.  “About an hour ago, a woman came into the bank and requested a loan so she could open a bakery.  She said she’d just moved to the district and her kid—the one with the special power—hadn’t even started school yet.  Neesy, her last name was Patillo.”

            Denise stared at him, not fully understanding—or wanting to understand.

            “Neesy, did you see Mrs. Patillo last night, in the den?”

            Denise shook her head.  “No, it was more like she was whispering to me.  I heard her say—” Denise stopped, realizing where this conversation was going.  “I don’t have a power!  I DON’T HAVE A POWER!”

            Mr. Sturgeon, who had been sitting quietly behind his desk, said, “Maybe you’d better shut the door.”

            Denise thought he was talking to her or her father, but someone behind her shut the door, and, for the first time, Denise became aware of a fourth person in the room.  She turned to see a man she didn’t know.  He had the serious, upright demeanor of a police officer and wore a dark suit with a stylized eagle above the breast. Denise recognized the symbol instantly.

            “Daddy!  You told the district?”  She felt betrayed.

            “Neesy—” He tried to put his arms on her shoulders, but she shook away from him.  “Neesy, if what you saw is true, about the building catching fire, the authorities have to know.  You don’t want people to get hurt, do you?”

            Denise blinked tears and sniffled.  “No.”

            The man from the district leaned forward, hovering just over Denise’s head.  He smelled like cigarettes.  “Denise, you’re a brave little girl for telling your father what you saw. We're going to take you to the District Center so they can run a test on you. It won't hurt."

"False Alarm": A Power Club Short Story (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1. 

 [I'm not quite sure this section is as strong as it needs to be. Feedback is appreciated.]

 

            A police officer boarded the school bus and casually walked up and down the aisle, smiling at each child.  Denise was well used to this practice by now, but it still unnerved her.  It was a daily routine for officers to make sure no children with powers had snuck aboard the bus before it left the district.  Denise didn’t know what would happen if they actually caught a kid with powers, but the idea had never bothered her until now.

            Sheila Torvald, who sat in the seat next to Denise, whispered, “How can they tell if one of us has a power?”

            “Maybe they can’t,” Denise whispered back.  “Maybe they just want us to think they can.”

            “Or maybe they look for kids who have moles in the center of their foreheads," piped Billy Underwood from the seat behind Denise. "That's how you can tell a kid's getting powers."

            “That’s stupid!” Denise shot back.

            “What are you kids whispering about?” said the policeman.  He was now at the front of the bus.  There was no way he could have heard them.  Denise figured he probably had a power, too, like some district police officers did.

            “Nothing!” Sheila, who liked to be in charge, answered for them all.

            The policeman—a handsome man with grey eyes and straight eyebrows—approached them. 

            Denise looked away and pretended she was thinking of something else.

            The policeman turned around, headed back to the front of the bus and announced, “All clear!” to the other border guards outside.  After he left, the bus resumed its trip into the city.

            After the bus passed the border gate, Denise raised a hand to feel her forehead.

            “What are you doing?” Sheila chided her.

            “I think I'm getting a cold,” Denise lied, and quickly rubbed her nose.

***

            “What are you looking at?” Vee said with great annoyance as he looked up from the checker board.

            Denise had been studying her brother’s face, looking for a mole anywhere—between his eyes, on his cheek, under his chin—but she could see no mole, unless it was hidden underneath his bangs.

            “Do me a favor,” she said.  “Do this.”  She shook her head.

            “Why?”

            “Just do it.”

            “MOM!  Denise is telling me what to do again!”

             “Denise, stop telling your brother what to do,” her mother called without looking up from the futon, where she sat pouring over research from work.

            Denise glared at her brother.  He always did what Denise told him to do when Mom wasn’t present. But when she was, he did whatever he pleased.  Denise hated that.

            Vee’s hand blurred over the checkerboard.  The rapid sound of his black checker hitting the board in several spots sounded like tiny guns firing.  When the blurring stopped, three of Denise’s red checkers had been removed from the board.

            “I bet you didn’t see THAT coming!” Vee crowed.

            Denise smiled.  No, she hadn’t.    

***

            “Kids with powers do NOT have moles on their foreheads,” she told Billy Underwood the next day.  “My brother doesn’t.”

            “Neither does my sister,” echoed Sheila Torvald.

            “I didn’t say every kid with a power has a mole,” Billy replied, nonplussed.  “It’s only when they’re getting powers.  My dad says the mole goes away after awhile.” Billy's dad, a dermatologist, should know, he asserted.

            For the second time since yesterday, Denise felt the desire to feel her forehead for a mole.  She had meant to check in the mirror last night or this morning when she was brushing her teeth, but she forgot.  Her failure to predict Vee’s checkers move had put her mind at ease.

            It was silly.  She didn’t have a power and didn’t want one.  As for the mole—Billy was just plain wrong, no matter what his dad had said.

            The bus paused at a stoplight. Denise took the chance to study people the nearby buildings.  One was older than the other buildings, yet it seemed majestic.  Huge, rectangular windows held court over the street,  and the paint of the building—once pristine white, she imagined—had faded to the color of dirty chalk.  It wasn't a good looking building, but Denise found herself drawn to it.

            Suddenly, flames came from nowhere and engulfed the building. The huge picture windows burst, sending glass everywhere.

            Denise jumped as the smell of smoke surrounded her and filtered into the night sky.  Night?  But it’s still morning.  A surge of panic overcame her as she turned to Sheila and Billy, but they continued to chat away, oblivious to what was going on.  No one on the bus acted as if anything was wrong. 

            Denise turned back to the building, but its unbroken picture windows stood there in the morning sun, glaring at her as if she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.  There were no flames.