CHOSEN ONES - Terrible Writing Advice

Is it preordained that you will write a chosen one story? Well the sales figures say yes. As it turns out, dark lords and ancient evil cannot be defeated by military force, international cooperation, or any other traditional method regardless of the time and resources brought to bear by the best and the brightest the world can offer. Only one person can stop evil and save the world, the most special person in the whole universe around which everything revolves! The Chosen One! The Chosen One is the best cliche ever because it can be played completely as is without any thought put into it whatsoever! Even better, it gives the writer an excuse to give their Chosen One all kinds of amazing powers and make sure that not only every other character obsesses over them, but that the Chosen One is at the center of the story’s universe. But surely there are pitfalls in making the main character the Chosen One? Hmm... Well I can’t really see any. Oh wait! There is one problem that must be addressed right off. And that is how will the audience know the main character is the Chosen One? Well the easiest way is to make up a prophecy. Have a detailed outline for your story? Add some purple prose and bam! Instant prophecy! Using a prophecy as a blueprint for your plot will in no way subtract from the story’s dramatic tension. No need to obscure the prophecy with vague language. Thank goodness all fictional prophecies are 100% accurate and will point the way to the Chosen One. In fact, the prophecy is so accurate that even the bad guys will find the Chosen One often before the good guys do. Wait a minute. Assuming that destiny and fate are a legitimate force in the universe, then that means that the Chosen One is destined to eventually triumph over the dark lord or ancient evil. So the forces of evil will send their best troops to destroy the Chosen One before they even begin their quest. However, the Chosen One would have never started their quest in the first place if the forces of evil hadn’t attacked their home, forcing them to begin their hero’s journey. Wouldn’t that mean that the only way for the dark lord to avoid defeat would be ignore the machinations of destiny and gamble that he was living in a free will based universe? Wouldn’t knowingly engaging with the prophecy only validate it? What kind of philosophical implications does this present us? Can the audience stay awake if the author mutters the word ‘philosophical’? The answer to these deep and complex questions is very simple. Who cares! The fact that the forces of evil are trying so hard to prevent the prophecy only shows the audience how much more special the Chosen One is to the point where the Dark Lord will squander his best soldiers trying to kill the Chosen One rather than using his forces to secure more valuable strategic objectives! Speaking of the dark lord, it is imperative that our Chosen One has a direct connection to the main antagonist even if this makes absolutely no sense. Make sure this connection is deep and intimate in a way that slash fics will certainly not take advantage of. There are a lot of other ways to make our Chosen One even more chosen. Special marks, special birthday foretold by the prophecy, special eye color, virgin and/or royal birth, Latin chanting. Being Chosen also means that the main character is assured one or more love interests. We all know that love triangles are included in a discounted wish fulfillment package for Chosen Ones. I am sure the love interest will be thankful to the Chosen One for saving her from her arranged marriage only so she can be arranged to marry the Chosen One! Destiny says so! Who cares that everything great about the Chosen One comes only from their destiny. And in no way should an author have the Chosen One be self conscious about this. Some may think that all of the special powers, destiny, fame, wealth, and otherwise sheer volume of wish fulfillment might make the Chosen one a bit unrelatable. We could flesh out a Chosen One with flaws or use the stress created by fame and the weight of responsibility of saving the world to generate meaningful conflict. Or an author could balance the wish fulfillment by withholding a core desire from the Chosen One that no amount of special powers can ever give them. But all that sounds like work! Let’s take the easy way out! All we need to do is give them a humble origin filled with petty bullies and mean foster parents. That should generate enough sympathy to last an entire series! Now the details of the Chosen One’s backstory will vary based on genre. Writing a fantasy story? Make the Chosen One a lost royal heir living as a farm-boy in a defenseless ‘soon to be burned down’ peasant village. I am sure his youth spent as a field hand will prepare our hidden heir for the rigors of managing his reclaimed Kingdom’s complex economic system and web of political intrigue. Writing a dystopia story? Make the Chosen One a member of a lower class of people with super powers. Everyone knows that people with super powers are easy to oppress! Her special status as chosen one will allow her to instantly upend centuries of systematic oppression. Just like how real life oppressive systems disappear overnight! Now, occasionally, other characters will doubt Mary Sue’s... whoops! I mean the Chosen One’s abilities or even question his or her decisions. After all, no one else is capable of saving the world and should never express frustration at their apparent uselessness. If fact, the author should spend no time fleshing out the other characters in the story besides the villain and Chosen One. Having ordinary people rise up to resist destiny and face overwhelming odds to seize the day and determine their own fate is not nearly as dramatic as the Chosen One instantly annihilating the Dark Lord with their special powers, as telegraphed... I mean foretold by the prophecy. Nor should the author address the implication that only special chosen people are capable of changing the world or resisting evil in any significant way. We should all just accept that we are average and thus incapable of changing the course of a deterministic universe. The moral of a Chosen One story is pretty simple. We should just sit around and wait for a special person to fix all of our problems.

Channel: Terrible Writing Advice

Views: 1,463,267

Rating: 4.948688 out of 5

Keywords: Terrible Writing Advice, writing, Bad advice, How to, Novel writing, Writing a book, book, J.P. Beaubien, J.P.Beaubien, JPBeaubien, JP Beaubien, Chosen One, prophecy, chosen one prophecy, chosen one writing, writing a chosen one, chosen ones suck, chosen ones avoiding cliche, chosen one characters

Id: LuTQ0EpmnJo

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/AQUIETDAY]

I was in a elevator in the London Harod's in 2003; it stalled for two hours. Turned out the lady in the corner wearing scarf and heavy sunglasses was Rowling. Of course I took out my fan-notes and presented her with my request.

In the final battle, Harry gets his ass beat to the astonishment of wizards and readers. Voldemort does the dark-lord dance of victory; then Neville Longbottom offs him with the Gryffindor sword, killing 'im. Killing 'im dead.

In the final chapter we learn that Dumbledore faked everyone out. Neville was the chosen one all along. Poor Harry Potter was a decoy, dangled before death-eaters, tossed into insane dangers to keep the true Chosen One safe.

The elevator-crowd argued this added nothing to the story and tore up my notes. Possibly they were cranky sitting around. Also possibly it was not really Rowling, just some British lady in scarf and sunglasses.

But it remains a very good idea.

[u/Jebb145]

Yeah, fuck heroes, no one likes them anyway. /s

I get the impression this was a little too pointed at HP, but fantasy has grown in the last 20 years. GRRM, Sanderson, Rothfuss, (and others) are are leading a "new" fantasy successfully, twisting tropes from their writing, no longer are there good guys and bad guys, or a trusted narrator, or maybe the good guys do bad things.

And a side note, for all JKR gets flack for, she did one thing amazingly well, captivated and CREATED an entire generation of readers, myself included; without going on a crummy family vacation I didn't want to go on to the middle of nowhere when I was 14, armed with nothing but an unwanted copy of the first Harry Potter, I might not be the same reader I am today.

[u/i-am-the-danger-6969]

Rand Al thor is the clichéd chosen one. But RJ did a lot of other things too. The story and the battle wasn't completely about Rand. Other characters were powerful too.

[u/[deleted]]

I've said it once and I'll say it again. There is a great psychological horror book inherit in the idea of the chosen. Think about it: you get a random person from humble origins--basically an everyman--who's part in a ancient prophecy slowly but surely starts to strip away that persons free will as they become a tool for a unknownable force.

[u/LoneStarDragon]

Still fun to watch, but I'd like to see some that don't go after the low hanging fruit that have been targeted time and time again and instead address some of the less considered cliches or flaws of the genres.

Yes, Hunger Games, Twilight, Star Wars, etc were flawed. Yes, these videos are made to attract those who didn't enjoy... hated them and their success with a passion. But to constantly be told "Don't do it this way" despite that they are some of the most successful fiction written in recent years, feels a bit strange.

Anyway, still find them to be quite amusing, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does with it when the more common ones are all wrapped up.

[u/410-915-0909]

I've never quite gotten the Chosen One as an archetype both on a story level and on an emotional level

I mean I can get the Heroes Journey as a way to understand and to write stories and as part of that the idea of the call to adventure and how tragedy is a good motivator however I can't understand the whole prophecy part of things, why are you writing that?

For the Greeks it was something along the lines of you can't fight fate and some deterministic world view they had, for the Bible what was important was who did the choosing

Perhaps it's just my upbringing but even in a Chosen One story told with twists and subversions ala Matrix sequels or certain ASoIaF characters I sort of don't care because they're plays on a tropes I can't find appealing or applicable to anything. Strip away the changeling fantasy or hidden parentage tropes and what do you have? Character X will do Y and I just don't see the appeal there, the ways that can be played with just aren't interesting

Luke Skywalker was interesting to me because he was a young man who got to get inducted into a mystic order and was fighting an Empire, Harry Potter was interesting to me because he was a boy getting thrust into a magical world that seemed more interesting while at the same time had the danger that killed his parents, Jon Snow and Dany were interesting because they were facing situations and figures of massive power. I don't see how any of that was/could be improved if you add a prophecy saying they were always destined to do what they did.

[u/RestedPlate]

Everything single thing mentioned I easily thought of a dozen books he could have been referencing, but then just as easily thought of a dozen where the trope was subverted. A lot of the time those books were also one in the same, using old ideas in some places and subverting in others.

I personally love the idea of the chosen one. If only because I'd hate to read about Gary the guardsman who worked double duty to help pay for his kids schooling only to get stabbed in the heart when some assassins snuck in to kill the king. That would just be depressing.

[u/Redbirdfromtheeast]

I'm a sucker for "the chosen one", it's cliche as hell but I never get tired of it. Plus, all the best fantasy writers are STILL using it, so either they're very lazy or there's still some floggability in that dead horse.

[u/lordzazeron123]

I hate chosen ones