Mistakes

A year ago I started writing a novel called Malt. It centered around a superhero, Maxwell Malt, who worked solely in a small town a couple of hours' drive from New York City (called Eastport, and apparently actually exists) without the use of actual superpowers, and living in terror of having his secret identity discovered. Other main characters were Wilfred Jenkins, a reporter seeking just that information about Max, and October and Ferret, two very weird surname-less sisters, one of whom Max was supposed to fall in love with. (How I intended to write this last after years of shunning romance, I have no idea.)

Malt eventually failed, for various reasons. First of all, it had no real plot. Wilfred was supposed to hunt down Max and his secret identity and whatnot, eventually finding out who he was, with the occasional bizarre event tossed in. At one point they were supposed to end up on a boat, at another in a taxi in New York City. Max was going to get drunk at an unspecified time. As previously mentioned, he was also supposed to fall in love with October. This is the entire outline of my planning.

The second issue was that I tried to write the universe without magic. The problem with this was that, if you have superheroes, even powerless ones, you have to have supervillains. Those usually require some form of magic. When I do rewrite Malt, although Max will still get by with purely human ability, the universe will have magic in such strength that it is incorporated into the government; in the same continuity will be another novel involving a government official and a professional magician/bodyguard, yet to be titled.

Finally, I was not very good at characterization. Max is painfully insecure. It's why he became a superhero, why he hides his identity, why he's terrified of being exposed (as he thinks of it). It dictates most of the decisions he makes--or at least, it should. Unfortunately, my characterization at the time was either terribly ham-handed or completely absent, and I'm not sure which instances read better. Wilfred's motivations, too, were unclear, and October was pretty much a weirdo to save me from assigning her any real character traits.

I do intend to rewrite Malt, once I've worked out what the plot actually is. Wilfred, October and Ferret may be entirely absent. I have no idea. But hopefully it'll be better than the first attempt.