Superhero stories?

[ThisAdamGuy]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does Scribble Hub like superhero stories?

 

[Cipiteca396]

Speaking as the only person on SH, 4.

Then again, there's a LOT of marvel fanfics. So maybe 8?

 

[CarburetorThompson]

As far as fanfic I think marvel and mha are decently popular, but I’ve never seen an original story get much traction.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Glancing through search results, I think 4 is actually quite accurate. WOW, it's kinda sad looking. There's a few standouts, but... It's really, really hit or miss, apparently.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Welp...(Wads up idea for superhero story and throws it away)

 

[Cipiteca396]

Welp...(Wads up idea for superhero story and throws it away)

Well, you never know. Recently, Broker came out and has been quite popular. You might be able to ride that story's success if there's lots of people hungry for more like it.

 

[Nolff]

Look man, anti-hero seems more fun than a hero.

 

[Jemini]

Well, I mean, in general it's actually kinda hard to make a good superhero story. You are either at the level of WORM or Madoka (if you count magical girls as super heroes), or you don't gain any traction at all.

A tip I might offer would be that if you want to write a superhero story... well, first, you need to be VERY confident of it's quality. I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a decently experienced writer, you have read WORM and some of it's better fan-fics, and you have a very solid idea and outline for your story already.

After that, I would recommend posting it up on Space Battles first before you hit anywhere else on the entire internet. That is more or less the haven for WORM fan fics, so readers over there are a little more inclined in the superhero direction.

Then, after you've gained some traction, (assuming you DO gain some traction,) you can start posting it to other places on the internet after maybe word of mouth has built it up from when it was only posting to Space Battles. That will give you the initial boost it needs on it's new home site to have the visibility and gain traction in other places.

So, yeah. This is part of why audience research is important.

(Note: If you count magical girls as super heroes, they have a little more lee-way than straight up marvel/DC style capes. MGs have a stronger Japanese association, and a lot of the Webnovel spaces have a strong affinity for Japanese inspired stuff.)

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Look man, anti-hero seems more fun than a hero.

If it's done right, then sure it can be fine. But let's be honest, most people don't know how to write antiheroes. They either just dress them all in black like a middle school goth and think that's all an antihero is, or they make them irredeemable monsters with an inexplicably loyal friend following them around and acting as their hype man.

"Get out of my way!" snarled Judas Slaughtertorture, kicking the starving orphan boy in the face with his spiked leather shoes and knocking out three of his five remaining teeth. "If I ever see you again, I'll drown you in acid!"

"Please don't think badly of him," said Evian Toidi, helping the half dead child back to his feet. "Judas might seem cruel and uncaring on the surface, but the Sword of Eternal Peace and Harmony chose him as its wielder, so I'm sure he has a kind and gentle side even if he's literally never shown it to anybody."

"I HATE BABIES!" screamed Judas Slaughtertorture as he lit one on fire.

they have a little more lee-way than straight up marvel/DC style capes.

I've never read Worm, but my idea was that whatever god was sustaining life on earth died and a bunch other gods are bickering over who gets to inherit the planet. But before they can do that, they have to wipe out all life that's currently on the planet, so like a dozen different apocalypses are happening all at once. But the old god actually intended to let humans inherit the planet (the divine version of leaving everything you own to your cats) and people are suddenly developing superpowers to fight back the various apocalypses.

 

[Jemini]

I've never read Worm, but my idea was that whatever god was sustaining life on earth died and a bunch other gods are bickering over who gets to inherit the planet. But before they can do that, they have to wipe out all life that's currently on the planet, so like a dozen different apocalypses are happening all at once. But the old god actually intended to let humans inherit the planet (the divine version of leaving everything you own to your cats) and people are suddenly developing superpowers to fight back the various apocalypses.

Well, that actually has the potential to go WORM level. Now you just need to introduce a reason for the humans to fight each other more than they do the apocalypses and slow-roll the advent of the world's gradual destruction a bit. (Dying over decades and centuries as opposed to months and years.)

The thing that pulls people out of marvel/dc style superhero stories is how quickly they tend to escalate to world threats. The bread and butter that makes the story good is the street-level stuff. What made WORM good was that it spends 80% of it's run-time at the street level, and even when it DOES introduce a global threat, it always pays attention to what is happening at the street level.

This is a large part of why WORM also has a reputation for essentially being suffering incarnate in the form of a web serial. It is because looking at the street level during a city-scale or even global-scale disaster is going to mean a LOT of death, and then continuing to look at it during the aftermath is going to mean even more ugly stuff. But, that's what you really do need to be doing in order to make this sort of work good. It's all about focusing on the street-level, and the dark and ugly stuff really comes with the territory.

Really, about the only reason marvel and dc manage to get away with toning it down on the mass death, destruction, and suffering is because they have such a long and established record and came to prominence when superhero stories weren't so common. Plus, they also have a visual medium on top of that.

A purely text web serial simply cannot get by without sticking to the street level like a freaking barnacle on a boat. If you loose track of that street level for even a single story arc, it will harm the appeal of your work severely. (Plus, portraying the suffering also allows you to delve into themes of human resilience, which is also appealing.)

 

[Zanafar]

6-ish?

I did my part adding some content to the genre. It ain't much, but it's honest work.

 

[GlassRose]

I've seen some fairly popular ones, more often lgbtq fics. Kammi Kettu (or Kammiverse), especially notably, Superluminal too. So that sub-community in SH might have a higher percentage?

 

[Comatoast]

If it's done right, then sure it can be fine. But let's be honest, most people don't know how to write antiheroes. They either just dress them all in black like a middle school goth and think that's all an antihero is, or they make them irredeemable monsters with an inexplicably loyal friend following them around and acting as their hype man.



I've never read Worm, but my idea was that whatever god was sustaining life on earth died and a bunch other gods are bickering over who gets to inherit the planet. But before they can do that, they have to wipe out all life that's currently on the planet, so like a dozen different apocalypses are happening all at once. But the old god actually intended to let humans inherit the planet (the divine version of leaving everything you own to your cats) and people are suddenly developing superpowers to fight back the various apocalypses.

Wait that's such a good idea, If you write it I will read it, Promise. ?
If you need any inspiration or encouragement, I'm writing one too! We can suffer together!!

 

[Vnator]

Speaking as the only person on SH, 4.

Then again, there's a LOT of marvel fanfics. So maybe 8?

I never got the popularity of marvel fanfics, at least the MCU ones. The story is self contained and essentially complete with Endgame. What more is there to do with it, even with adding your own take on it? Or maybe that's just marvel fatigue talking

 

[RepresentingCaution]

1, because 1 is the best number.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Two of mine (Strange Awakening, Diamond in the Rough) are technically superhero though that is more a sub-genre than a focus (one is noir-horror-superhero, the other is ... even more complicated, and also the only one of the two with any traction). 4 or maybe 5 seems about right.

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does Scribble Hub like superhero stories?

On Royal Road they can be really popular (they just click and become some of the most popular, best stories I read there), and Space Battles has some wonderful "worm" fanfics ("worm" is a fic by wildbow built on a superhero dystopian world). Scribble Hub... eh... not really. I didn't really find many good ones here. Mostly smut or really low-quality fanfics.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does Scribble Hub like superhero stories?

How much of the story is porn?

 

[TroubleFait]

I've been reading Broker here on SH, it seems to be pretty popular. If your story is engaging people will enjoy it.

 

[corruption]

Wouldn't a LitRPG with an OP MC be a Superhero story?
To me they are.