First of all, I really want to thank you for letting me speak to TEDxGateway in India about superheroes. I wish I could be there in person, but this is the next best thing. I would really love to share some of the things I've learned over the years and share them with any artists and writers in India who might be wanting to create new superheroes and new superhero adventures. India has been on my mind a lot lately because I've been working with my good friend Sharad Devarajan and with Graphic India to create a new Indian superhero named Chakra The Invincible, who lives in Mumbai. My goal with Chakra was really simple. I wanted to bring an Eastern concept, like the chakras, to the Western world of superheroes. And for me, superheroes will always spark the imagination of people around the world regardless of their background, because I think that people are always looking for something that represents the ideal person or the ideal situation. Almost all of us have loved fairy tales when we were young. Just remember stories of giants and witches and wizards and monsters and things that were so colorful and bigger than life. But then, you get a little older and you're too old to read fairy tales. But you never outgrow your love of that type of story. And if you think about it, superheroes stories today are really like fairy tales for grown-ups. The characters are bigger than life, just like in fairy tales. They have the same type of superpowers: some can fly, some are extra-strong, some can be invisible. It gives the viewer and the reader a chance to relive the excitement he or she had when they were young. They're really reading fairy tales for grown-ups when they read or when they see superhero stories today, and that's why I love them so. To me, the human aspect of superheroes has always been, perhaps, the most important part. By that, I mean: OK, we assume your superhero might be extra-strong, or might be able to fly or run as fast as a comet, but unless you care about the superhero's personal life, you're just reading a shallow story. Just because a person has a superpower doesn't mean he might not have the same personal problems that you or I might have. Maybe he doesn't have enough money, maybe he has a family problem, maybe the girl he loves doesn't love him. Or maybe the girl he loves doesn't want to be involved with a superhero. There are so many things you can think of that round out the character and the personality, so the superhero isn't just one or two dimensional. You want a three-dimensional superhero who lives and breathes and worries and experiences things just the way you and I do except for the fact that she or he has a superpower.
首先,感謝大家 讓我能在印度的 TEDx 大門 談論超級英雄 雖然我希望我能到現場 不過這是次好的事 我真的很喜愛分享 多年來我學到一些東西 並分享給印度藝術家和作家 任何一位想創造新的超級英雄 和新的超級英雄歷險記 你們知道,最近我常想著印度 我和好友 Sharad Devarajan 以及 Graphic India 已經合作一陣子 致力於創作新的印度超級英雄 名叫無敵查克拉 他住在孟買 我設定查克拉的目標很簡單 我要將東方概念,像脈輪 帶入西方世界的超級英雄 對我而言,超級英雄 總能激發人們的想像力 於世界各地,不管他們的背景是什麼 因為我認為人們總是在找尋一些事物 能表現出理想的人物或情況 幾乎每個人小時候 都有摯愛的童話故事 總記得故事中的巨人和巫婆 巫師和怪獸 一些色彩繽紛 大於現實生活的事物 後來你們大一點 不適合讀童話故事時 你們對這類故事的愛 卻不會因為長大而消逝 如果你們這樣想 那現今超級的英雄故事 就是屬於大人的童話故事 主角比平常的人還強壯 就像童話故事 他們也擁有超能力 有些能飛,有些特別猛壯 有些則能隱形 這讓觀眾及讀者 有機會重溫,他們在童年時 感受到的興奮 他們真的就像在讀專屬大人的童話書 當他們現在讀或看超級英雄的故事時 這就是為什麼我喜愛他們 對我來說,超級英雄的人性面 一直是,也大概是最重要的部分 我的意思是,我們假設 你們的超級英雄或許格外強壯 或許能飛,又或者跑得像彗星那麼快 但除非你們關注 這超級英雄的個人生活 不然你們閱讀的只是故事的表層 一個擁有超能力的人 不代表他可能不會有 和你我一樣有的個人問題 或許他沒有足夠的錢 或許他有家庭問題 或許他喜歡的女孩不喜歡他 又或許,他喜歡的女孩 不希望他牽扯上超級英雄 有太多事情可以去思考 要怎麼去完成這個角色和人格特質 讓這個超級英雄不至於扁平沒深度 你要有一個三維的英雄 他要生活、呼吸、也會煩惱 也會經歷一些你我會經歷的事 除了他或她有超能力之外
One thing I might mention, most writers - and I think it's an unfortunate thing - they try to write something that they think a certain audience might enjoy. I've never been able to do that because I can't put myself in the mind of other people. I only know what I enjoy, so every time I've written a story, I've always tried to write the sort of story that I, myself would enjoy reading, a story that would interest me while I'm writing it as I'm waiting to find out what happens next. And I can't know what other people think, but I can know what I think, and I feel I'm not that unusual; if there's a type of story I like, there must be lots of people who like the same type of stories. Therefore, I have always written to please myself, not to please a certain type of audience, because you can't know the audience as well as you know yourself. And if I write a story that I'm enjoying while I'm writing it and I can't wait to see what happens next, then I'm hoping that a large proportion of the public will feel the same way, and they'll enjoy it too. So to sum it up, I have always tried to please myself, not other people, and somehow, it seems to have worked because I guess I'm not that different than other people. So, to wrap it up, what I suggest is, use your imagination, don't be afraid to come up with the wildest thought in the world. If what you create is truly different and colorful, and if it's written well, people will enjoy it. Now when I say "written well," what I mean is you might have the most fantastic notion in the world, suddenly you have a man who can fly faster than the speed of light. That could be interesting, but you have to make him believable, you have to give the reader or the audience some reason to think he really has the ability to do that. How did he get that power? Origins of superpowers are always very interesting. If you get the right origin, like, for example, Spiderman being bitten by a radioactive spider, at least, then the viewer has something to hold on to and to say, "Well, it might have happened, now I'll enjoy it." So even though you're writing what amounts to a fairy tale for grown-ups, try to keep enough facts and try to give enough detail that the reader or the audience will say, "Well, it could have happened," and then your public goes along with the fun. But if you make it too wild, and you don't give any reason why it is as wild as it is, then sometimes it can be overkill. So what I'm trying to say is, let your imagination flow freely, but always base what happens on some sort of provable fact so that the reader or the viewer will go along with it and enjoy it as much as you enjoy writing it. So good luck to you! Thanks for listening and I really enjoyed talking to you.
還有我可能提過一件事 就是大部分的作者 我想過這是個不好的事情 他們會試著去寫一些 他們覺得某些特定觀眾 可能會喜愛的故事 而我從來沒辦法做到這樣 因為我不可能去讀別人的心 我只知道我喜愛的是什麼 所以每次我在寫故事時 我總是試著去寫出 自己喜歡閱讀的故事類型 寫出一個引起我興趣的故事 我也期待,我等著發掘出 接下來要發生的事 我無法知道其他人在想什麼 但我知道我在想什麼 我感覺我和大家一樣 如果這是我喜歡的故事類型 應該也會是很多人喜歡的故事類型 因此我總是寫讓我愉快的故事 而不是為了寫給特定的某些觀眾 因為你們沒辦法了解觀眾 像了解自己一樣 如果我寫一個我樂於其中的故事 我會等不及接下來會發生的事 因此我希望大部分的大眾 會有同樣的感覺並享受著故事內容 總而言之 我總是試著讓自己高興 而不是為別人 不知為何,似乎也有用 我猜是因為我和其他人想法相同 總結是 我建議你們,使用你們的想像力 不要害怕湧出世界上最瘋狂的想法 如果你們創造出來的東西 真的不一樣、很精彩 而且寫得好,人們就會愛上它 我現在說的「寫得好」所指的是 你可能有世界上最荒誕不經的想法 忽然間,你創造一個 能飛得比光速還快的男人 那可就很有趣了 但得要讓他有可信度 你必須給讀者或觀眾 一些他有能力真的做得到的理由 他是怎麼得到這個力量 超能力的源起總是非常有趣 如果你想到不錯的起源 例如,就像蜘蛛人 是被有放射線的蜘蛛咬到 至少讓觀眾有把握得住的東西 說 :「沒錯!是有可能 我要好好享受這故事」 因此儘管你是寫 屬於給大人看的童話故事 試著盡量保持足夠的事實 和給予足夠的細節 讓讀者或觀眾說 「這是有可能發生的」 然後大家就能在你的故事中找到樂趣 但如果故事內容太天馬行空 且你無法給出為何 故事如此誇張的理由 有時就會令人難以信服 我想說的是 讓你們的想像力自在飛翔 但永遠要以一些有根據的事實為基礎 你們的讀者或觀眾就能順著讀 並享受和你們一樣多的樂趣 祝你們好運 謝謝你們的聆聽,很開心和你們談話
Excelsior!
精益求精!