Writing Prophecies!

My gosh I haven’t been posting and I’m so sorry guys! But it IS close to Christmas so I wanted to make something for you all! This was a request from one of the in the adventure chat. And also a very important part of world building if you have a prominent one throughout your story. I personally don’t write a whole lot of prophecies in my works. But I have read a good deal. Some good and some bad. So this post will go into depth about the do’s and don’ts of writing a prophecy for your story!

What is a prophecy?

Not to be confused with a prologue since the two are often confused. If you want more info on prologues, then click here for more info! Normally you see it structured like this: "In the time of x, the great evil x will arrive, and the x (usually end of days) will begin. Only the x (usually hero) whose heart is pure (can be replaced with 'heart is true, virtuous, strong, kind etc.) can stop the evil x and save the x! (Whatever it is that is in danger and needs saving.) in some type of poem format. This is pretty standard and there’s nothing wrong with it either. Just that it’s what people expect. But the thing is, there’s so many more routes you can take. I mean, who says it has to be a written prophecy? Why not a prophecy painting? Or a prophecy clock that counts down to the end of the world? Or a prophecy com that only points to stuff when it’s time? Like... there are SO many routes.

You want to hint at what’s to come without giving it all away or making it seem pointless. But the main thing to is that a prophecy is based off something. Maybe some oracle saw into the future or whatever it was, but there is some reason that people believe that this is a likely outcome. Many stories will simply have a prophecy with no background or anything backing it and the people in the book simply believe it with no question or ask how it came to be. Like that oracle I mentioned. He or she would need to have made several other predictions that have already come true before anyone’s going to believe the end of the world is going to occur if they don’t kill some random orphan.

Just sayin.

Or heck use that to your advantage. Maybe the oracle person is a regular at the pub who gets drunk all the time spewing out stuff that seems like random nonsense, only for it to be true and them say “I told ya so” afterwards.

Riddles

Notice how lots of prophecies are really cryptic? Well lots try to be really vague. Which is a... well it’s a mixed bag. Making a prophecy where everything is super vague and implies that literally anything could happen, then there’s kinda no point in having one other than making the characters paranoid. I personally see the best way to make prophecies have more weight is to add riddles! There are several ways to do this to good effect.

Red herring: say one thing, but it actually means another thing. the Pokémon movie where there was a prophecy that if the hero’s failed that the world would turn to ash? Only to find out that the prophecy was being coyly literal and was actually referring to the character who’s NAME was ash instead of literal ash? That plot twist blew my fricken mind when I was a kid.

Language barrier: and I don’t just mean in a different language. A prophecy needing to be fully translated could be a cool idea. You have half the prophecy but in order to get the full picture you need to translate the rest. But sometimes you’ll have problems in your own language! Everyone knows how ridiculous English is. Is this literal or figurative? Is that a noun or a verb? Wait was there a comma we missed??? That changes the whole sentence! Oh and symbolism. Lots of biblical style prophecies use lots of symbolism.

Active prophecies: I don’t see these as often, but Harry Potter did these very well. Prophecies that were either already in motion by the time the story starts, or they only happen when someone acts on them. The idea of just leaving a prophecy alone and it won’t happen is a very interesting concept. The only way the prophecy could come true is that someone wants the outcome to happen.

But here’s something important to keep in mind: prophesies are often defined by the person who is receiving the vision, NOT the subject of the prophesy itself.

Meaning whoever gave the story is going to be biased. The prophecy may be not as bad or way worse than the person thought simply because their experiences made them interpret the information differently. I mean... a lot of the times oracles are crazy old people who are close to senile. You really think they’re the best to go to for clear interpretations of messages from otherworldly forces?

Predictability

One big problem people run into when talking about prophecies is how predictable they can be. Prime example is if you have one that says “[insert hero] will fight the dark lord”. It didn’t say that they’d win, just that they’d fight, so you’d think that’s all good right? Well then you have another issue. Any fights before that will have no weight. If we know the dark lord and the hero have to fight in the prophecy then we know the hero can’t die until that happens. You’ve unintentionally given your hero plot armor for the entire story up until the final battle and have effectively told the reader you have done so.

Another thing to keep in mind is the idea of the “unavoidable prophecy”. If you have one that says “person a will kill person b” and you kill person a, then you’ve effectively saved person b and thwarted the prophecy. Which would be kind of a paradox. Because the idea of prophecies is that they come true right? But if by some happenstance the prophecy still comes true then that means there’s some kind of force ensuring that it indeed does come true. Now I know what your thinking.

“It’s fate BR! You can’t change fate! That’s the point!”

Then what’s the point of telling anyone the prophecy in the first place? It’s going to happen no matter what you do and can’t be stopped so why even tell people? If you think about it this way, prophecies are ultimately very unnecessary. Not saying they can’t make a story compellingly used with good execution, but very often there’s nothing unique about it that makes different from every other kind of prophecy there is. And if the prophecy tells the whole story already... why are we reading the story?

Which brings us to the last point.

How does the prophecy drive the story? The first question you should ask yourself is WHY should the chosen characters follow this prophecy? If a princess has been kidnapped and you tell the chosen one that he must go on a quest to get a thing, to get another thing, to do another thing to save her, why does he have to do that? Why can’t he just go straight to the princess right now? And what if they say no? I feel like so many stories never take it into consideration that they might find the chosen one, tell them of their quest, and the chosen one just being like “nah I’m not feeling it. Adventuring isn’t really my thing.” Because telling them that they have to do it or the world will end isn’t really a choice, it’s an ultimatum. A really bad one.

“Hey kid, we’re gonna literally put the weight of the world on your shoulders and rip you away from your normal lifestyle because we’re too incompetent to deal with it ourselves and we’re probably the reason it started in the first place! There’s no reward other than your life, and half your friends and family will likely die if they haven’t already along the way. Because you’re the scapegoat- uh- ah, I mean, The chosen one!”

Now I know this whole thing sounds like I’m dissuading you from making a prophecy at all. Aaaaand that’s half true. The reason being because they’re used too often. One of two things will happen usually:

1. The prophecy will come true, maybe with a few things switched around due to wording etc. but the events it described will happen.

2. The prophecy won’t come true because it was a lie, or the point of the story is that fate isn’t real.

So personally? Yes, I would probably not recommend anyone ever use a prophecy, because it doesn’t fix any image problems a story would have. Just like prologues. Just on their own, they’re mostly used as a cheap way to foreshadow future events to keep the reader engaged for things to come, which wouldn’t be needed if the the story was already compelling in the first place. So don’t use a prophecy if it has no purpose other than just telling people stuff that’s going to happen later. You how I said that a prophecy could be a great WorldBuilding tool? I don’t see it often used that way. Questions you think people would ask about it more often then not are just never brought up, making the prophecy seem like it’s a literal law of the universe, oddly just known to the characters of the world. How many people take it seriously and how many question it? Who sees these prophecies and how reliable are they? Does the world depend on these prophecies or is it a new concept people are getting used to? So many questions can arise from a prophecy in a story. Don’t be afraid to ask them!

#WBclub