I just realized
that in my new Work in Progress, a fun, no-expectations project, I’m driving
one character straight onto the freeway exit for Chosenville with no graceful
way to change lanes.
Chosenville is the hometown of fictional Chosen Ones.
The short definition of a Chosen One is that only they can deliver the plot
requirement, which usually involves saving the world one way or another. They
have a Destiny. There are some other typical characteristics though. These
include:
- Often orphaned.
- If not orphaned, one parent (often but not always Dad) is absent/unknown.
- Birthmark, scar, unusual eye color or something marks them as different physically.
- Have powers.
- Attract a magical amulet/weapon/being that only functions for them.
- Sometimes have a powerful, enigmatic, or unlikely mentor (not always).
- Their rival or villain always tells them they’re a big old loser.
King Arthur was a chosen one. Piercy Jackson is one, and so is Clary in the Shadowhunters series. So was Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer until, in the final TV season, she figured out how the game was rigged and turned the tables on the patriarchy. Actually, she kicked over the table.
I loved Chosen Ones as a kid. I mean, as a child, who doesn’t identify with someone who is literally the Center of the Universe? And many children have times when they wish their parents weren’t their “real” parents. I continued loving COs as an adolescent and an adult. As a writer, though, I dislike them. They are everywhere. You can’t turn around without running into one. There’s a Chosen One behind you in the coffee line. That kid across the street, who skateboards down the sidewalk? Chosen One. Your bank teller? Chosen One. Mail carrier? You get it.
And now I’m heading down the path of writing one.
As a character, having a Destiny puts a lot of pressure on you, and limits your choices. What if you don’t want to go trekking off to save the world? What if you don’t like travel? What if you want to pursue your career as a baker? Or farming—you really like farming! And you can’t miss spring planting.
And the entire book hangs on the question, what if you fail?
At least my character’s task, or destiny, seems to be spelled with a lower-case D. She’s not in charge of saving the world. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see her as Chosen. I knew she had a form of new magic in a world where magic is highly bureaucratically monitored. “New Magic” is common enough that there’s a bureaucratic category for it, (and presumably a unit designated to deal with it). Then it occurred to me that to have the eccentric upbringing she’s had, she has to be—yes, you saw this coming—an orphan. If her parents are alive (one of them is) they’re in no position to help her. Now she’s 1) an orphan with 2) extraordinary (previously unknown) powers. And, damn it, she was raised by an enigmatic mentor. There’s another one! I was going to say, “At least she doesn’t have an adversary who constantly denigrates her abilities,” but there is that stalker person who keeps telling her not to communicate with the entity she’s communicating with… so maybe she does.
By this point, she’s
in the Exit-Only lane to Chosenville, and there are cars on each side of her.
Do I jettison my plot and start over? Right now the thing is fun to write and its
energy is carrying me—and my word count—forward like a fast river. Are there ways
to subvert the trope along the way? Probably. The thing that comes to mind immediately
is that already I have an idea that while she has been “chosen,” she is not a
Chosen, singular. There are others, and if she agrees, she’ll be part of a
network. That’s not the usual Chosen One trajectory.
I think I’ll keep
on. Now that I’ve noticed it, I’ll stay alert and find ways to make my “new
magic” character something other than Destiny Girl. And I won’t be checking
Zillow for apartments in Chosenville.