Secret super powers.

We all know that normal, non-superpowered humans in action movies actually have superhuman powers---John McClane, for example, should have died at least four times in the original Die Hard, and that film is almost tame by modern standards of implausibility. But even in novels our heroes display incredible, unexplained abilities. Sometimes they get the tar beaten out of them, shot and stabbed, and keep on coming, just like in the movies, but sometimes they have more subtle powers. For example:

1. the ability to eavesdrop at precisely the right moment

If two villains are chatting with each other for hours on end, the hero will be happening by in the twenty-second span required to explain the fiendish plot, or at least enough of it to advance the story. If cops had this power, stakeouts wouldn't last through one doughnut. I've even seen this happen where both the villains are foreigners but speak in English for no reason other than that the hero would not understand them in their native tongue. Very thoughtful of them to use English.

2. the ability to meet (by accident) the one person in the city who holds the key to the mystery

Someone ducks into a store in the rain and meets the heiress (or the Underground in a bomb raid and sees the spymaster---looking at you, Buchan) in a city of ten million souls. I can't even find a cab, and they're yellow.

3. the ability to run into old friends in faraway places

Charles Dickens's characters had this one in spades.

"Mr. Poonsnort! How astounding to see you here, in Tottering-on-the-Brink, 700 miles from the shop in London where you spend all your time! And on the very day I have arrived!"

"Indeed, Young Master Splatt, I was suddenly summoned to this mansion to help patch a dire plot hole."

"What is that ledger you carry? It looks like the one from Chapter Three."

"Yes, Young Master Splatt, it is your uncle Charles's, containing important information that will lead to the climax in Chapter One Hundred Forty-One."

4. the ability to become enormously popular for things that in real life would rate a dull “Meh”

The heroine starts writing a newspaper column that the bird wouldn't bother crapping on---and suddenly it's the most popular thing since Walter Winchell's heyday. We're told the lyrics of a hero's song are fantastic---and in reality they are so pompous and stupid they would make Sting gag. Part of the problem is that if writers knew what would really work to generate wealth and popularity, we would be doing it.

5. the ability to think for five minutes between lines of rapid-fire dialogue

Most of us barely think at all before we spew blather. But in books, some people have time to play 18 holes of golf between sentences.

"What do you mean, John?"

John thought back to the days when they were young, the many times he had saved Jill's life. In the jungle, when the pumas were marauding. On Dr. Smeckle's island, after they lit the charges to blow it up. By the well, when he broke his own crown stopping her from a fatal plummet. At his mother's house, when she forgot to volunteer to clear the table. How could she fail to understand the mathematics involved in this situation? It was as simple as calculating the cosine and the hypotenuse on a negative integer coefficient. He ran the equation in his head again just to be sure. He thought about that time it rained, in Seattle. And the other time it rained in Seattle. And the other other time it rained in Seattle. It rained in Seattle a lot. Almost seven inches of precipitation in November alone, he'd heard. Maybe they should try Albuquerque sometime instead. His cousin had a place there. Said it was nice. A lot of Q's in Albuquerque, though. Maybe too many!

"I mean your hat is all wrong, Jill," he said.

But she had left an hour ago.

6. the ability to attract hot people even though they are plain, dull, and dumpy

I think I first noticed this is Peter Benchley's Q Clearance, where a frumpy middle-aged speechwriter in a failing marriage gets the hot spy chick. How a blah girl gets vampires and werewolves to fight over her is more than I can explain.

These are just a few of the important superpowers found in supposedly average folks. I'm sure you've noticed others. If you've noticed them in my books, keep it to yourself, pal.