Hello again, readers...
Work on the 2nd draft (well, draft 2.5 or 3 at this point) of Vatican Vampire Hunters continues nicely, and I'm still juggling what to work on next. Leaving aside the vague "semi-realistic superheroes" idea that watching Avengers yesterday inserted into my brain, there's the full fantasy I've been talking about the last few entries on one hand, and on the other a sort-of-sequel to VVH - a work set in the same not-quite-real world. It's something I started a few years ago, and got maybe 10k words in before losing steam. No big loss, because at the time, it was a bit of a mess, and I didn't have a clear idea of how to get the plot from Point A to Point Z.
Anyway, the main character of said work is that beloved, or at least frequently used, staple of fantasy/horror fiction - a Chosen One, heralded in prophecy and burdened with a great (and dark) destiny, etc. etc. There are pitfalls in writing about any kind of Chosen One - how to make them interesting in their own right, as who they are instead of what, for instance. There's also the risk of the story being boring because it's blatantly inevitable the protagonist will win.
This is a real problem when God is literally on your side, as He is in the case of my story's heroine. How does one work around being the champion of an omnipotent God? In VVH, the characters serve God, but aren't directly empowered by Him, so the issue isn't as important. It's a little different when the heroine is the direct matrilineal descendant of Eve, chosen (cursed?) by God with the inherited duty and power to fight against monsters of all sorts (vampires, ghosts, Leviathan, angry sasquatches, etc).
(Any resemblance to a certain SoCal cheerleader character is all in your imagination. Really.)
I know how I'm going to address the issue in the book, if (when) I get around to it, but what would you the writer do under similar circumstances? Have at it, ladies and gentlemen!
I think I would make the heroine a likable screw up. Just because they have the duty, and maybe eveny the desire, to fulfill that heritage doesn't mean they are GOOD at it or even understand it all that well. Prophecy can be vague or written as to have more than one outcome. As a certain SoCal cheerleader found out, there are levels upon levels of understanding between entities, not to mention that all important 'learning curve' defenders often have to pass thru (sometimes more than once). Just because it appears that the protagonist will eventually 'win', it doesn't always correlate that in winning, they survive or are particularly happy about their success.
ReplyDeleteI can see sub-story lines about the problems when a personal desire is thwarted by a destiny on both small and big playing fields. What if one (or more) of the choices your character made was the 'wrong' one by the Gods perception, and after that path was played out and she failed at some along-the-way-task, her world frame was 'reset' so she had to made a choice AGAIN over how to handle that same event. Will ponder this more, and talk it over with you when we're both ready. :)