One mark of a skilled creator is the ability to capture truths of their craft in few words. Years of learning go into producing what can come across as truisms, making it all the more frustrating when novice creators ignore the wisdom of their elders and insist on learning things for themselves. Hey, we’ve all done it. And the truth is, it takes a certain degree of experience of your own to recognise someone else’s wisdom.

In this case, the pearls are produced by cartoonist Kyle Baker, one of the industry’s leading talents, in this interview concerning his contribution to DC’s Wednesday Comics, reviewed a while back right here. Anyway, the critical bit of the piece, which is well worth reading in full, is found in this nugget about the character Hawkman, whose adventures Baker chronicles in the weekly comic:

“The big challenge in writing for a hero who carries a mace and sword is that these are not defensive weapons. There is no ‘stun’ setting on a mace. A mace is designed solely for smashing bones and tearing flesh. As a writer, I can’t give Hawkman a human adversary. It would be cruel. If the plane hijackers had been normal human beings, Hawkman would have bashed their skulls in and stabbed them. Even though the hijackers have shot the pilot, the punishment exceeds the crime. On the other hand, beheading a giant space lobster with a sword seems quite all right, even heroic. A man using a mace to battle a T-Rex seems positively sporting.”

Baker makes his point with humour, and there’s a danger that it obscures the very pertinent points he is making. So I’ll spend a while demonstrating in a pedantic fashion exactly what makes his comments so smart and relevant to anyone who fancies calling themselves a writer.

The bottom line is, design a story so that all the elements integrate. An antagonist should be well matched to the protagonist, preferably one step ahead of them for the majority of the story until the hero finds whatever it is that will enable them to prevail. In Hawkman’s case it’s a whacking great mace. It could just as well be the realisation that their opponent has power only because an implicit acceptance of their right to bully, and conquering that interior glitch will enable the hero to win on the outside too. Different genres have their preferences for whether the critical moment happens on the inside or the outside, and it’s often clear that each reflects the other: if Hawkman can’t fly it’s likely to be down to inner conflict, even if the story wraps it up in magical or science fiction trappings.

Put Hawkman in a story where emotional nuances count for more than wingspan and martial prowess, and you start to realise the limitations of the character. Unless you’re a writer of Alan Moore’s calibre that is, and can go on to uncover layers to Hawkman that readers had never previously suspected, but your story convinces them were there all along. Only, you’re probably not Alan Moore, so I suggest you save such deeper character work until you’ve got some of the basics under your belt.

That said, mixing things up is interesting. You might not want to go as far as seeing Hawkman undergo therapy (though a gangster’s explorations of his psyche fuelled The Sopranos perfectly well), but there’s inherent interest with putting a winged barbarian in a setting where diplomatic skills count for more than swordsmanship. That could lead to humour, or the realisation that Hawkman is a lot cannier than most readers would initially imagine. At any rate, the capacity to surprise the reader is to be cherished — as much as fans like their heroes to go and do the things they’re most known for, mixing things up from time to time is a good thing. Remember Indiana Jones shooting his sword wielding opponent? Worked a treat because of audience expectation that Indy would reach for his trusty whip. If we didn’t know Indy used a whip, it’d just have painted him as a less stylish hero, and that wouldn’t do. The more work you put into setting things up well, the more fun it is when you mix them up later.