Networking with Writers: Powers are Boring
This is an expansion of a piece I wrote out last year to explain why a writing group I was in seemed so inclusive to some new members but so hostile to others. It is based on my experience there, but what happened so regularly there is sadly general behavior, both online and offline.
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If the first thing you tell your writing group about your character is all the cool powers they have, everybody is going to check out. They can tell you don’t have a character. You have, at best, an imaginary pose-able action-figure.
Super-powers, used incautiously, rob a story of its drama rather than complimenting it. They were popularized by genuine talent such as the late Stan Lee who knew how to use supers to craft a dramatic story, but it was not the super-powers that made Marvel and DC comics so interesting to so many people for so long. In fact, if you think that the unique super-powers of each hero is what made them interesting characters, I don’t even know where to begin to fix you. Most people won't even try.
Characters are defined by their struggles, personality and limitations, not by their strengths. You don’t know a character when they’re at their best, and your readers won’t identify with them until they are seen at their worst. Generating some wild slew of silly magic powers to let the character Mary Sue their way out of a series of problems does nothing at all for the reader. Similarly, if when talking about your characters, the only thing you have to say is what their powers are, many more experienced writers will tune you out.
Kind and well-meaning people in some writing groups will call you out on your terminal failure to create characters, but don't be surprised if people just smile and nod and leave you to your tailspin. Many young writers take this correction to be an attack on their favorite mass media fandoms, and throw it back in the face of their would-be mentors . "Learn to make characters who are more than the sum of their powers" is not the same thing as "Iron Man isn't cool," but for those determined to avoid correction, it's tempting to concoct just such an irrationality.
If this is a problem you think exists in your creative process, you probably need to start by learning to design characters before you allow yourself to design powers. If you are too power-obsessed, read some stories which lack any sort of super-powers, and try to write them as well. This is a good idea even and especially if you want to focus on writing supers-heavy fiction; using superpowers is only going to be a meaningful creative decision if you have alternatives.