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How Do I Write Prophecies?



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Sat Jan 07, 2017 9:19 pm
Featherstone says...



In my stories, especially Shadowsong, prophecy plays a large part: it gives foreshadowing and greatly affects the characters' actions and outlook on the world. However, I have a problem: I'm not sure how to write a good prophecy. They are generally meant to be sung, like a ballad, but about the future instead of the past. Any helpful hints?

Thanks,

Feather
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:27 am
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Kale says...



*cracks knuckles*

Prophecies are challenging buggers to do right, but when they are, they're worth it.

Something I've found very useful when coming up with prophecies in my stories is figuring out what role the prophecy plays in the story overall. Is it a motivator? A warning? A misdirection (these are TONS of fun)? Something to be fought or defied (also tons of fun)?

"What does your prophecy do for the story?" is a good first question to ask because how you tackle the writing of it will really vary based on the prophecy's role.

So what does your prophecy do for the story? And how to prophecies work in-story?
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
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Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:09 am
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Featherstone says...



Well, @Kyllorac, the prophecies serve multiple purposes:

1) First, they add flavor. Not a big deal, but since Shadowsong is named after the prophecy, well....sort of needed. Of course I can change the title if I need to.

2) In Shadowsong it gives foreshadowing as well as a sort of riddle for the reader to puzzle on. When I've read books, I've always loved trying to anticipate what happens based on the prophecy and I'd like for my readers to have that as the story develops.

3) The Shadowsong is something the MC of Shadowsong has held close to her heart for many years. It's tune is her heart, its words her future. Even if it isn't prophetical and just a song it is necessary.

4) As far as the other story goes (Wolfsbane Chronicles) as well as Shadowsong it is needed because events are happening which have been foretold. It needs to have been foretold because the course of the story relies on it being anticipated. It would take a long time to explain in detail.

5) Raven, the MC in Shadowsong, is a seer and can see various future paths. So I need some impromptu prophecies for her to spout nonsense with. I'm not having much a problem making that, but they are prophetical, so they fall under this category.
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:54 am
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Kale says...



Reasons 1 and 2 are really weak reasons to have prophecies, and in most cases, including the prophecy is far riskier than rewarding because sharp readers have a tendency to figure out the meanings of a prophecy long before the foretold events occur or become relevant, which can really ruin a story.

Considering you concede in Reason 3 that it doesn't have to be a prophecy, you might want to reconsider including the Shadowsong as a prophecy at all.

The seer angle is a lot more promising (and a lot of fun to play with), but you really need to know the ins and outs of how prophecies work in-story, i.e. the mechanics behind them.

To give you an example of what I'm talking about by what a prophecy does for the story and how it works in-story, one of my stories revolves around a prophecy about the arrival of a prince being the undoing of a kingdom. An important thing to know about the prophecy is that it was given to the pregnant queen as part of a tradition of foreseeing the accomplishments of those born into greatness (the queen's unborn child, in this case). The prophecy is literally essential to the entire story because it spurs all the involved characters to act in ways to avert the prophecy, with the result spurring the MC to undo the damage and make things right.

Basically, without the prophecy, the story would be completely different.

I don't get the same feeling of necessity of prophecy in the stories you've described, particularly in Shadowsong since you mention that she sees various future paths, and considering how the Shadowsong is supposed to be super important, you'll need to figure out what sets it apart from the other prophecies and why it's justifiably more important than other prophecies.

Knowing the mechanics of how prophecies work opens up a lot of avenues for making them essential to your story.

For example, in another story of mine, prophecies only have power if they're shared. If a seer doesn't share a prophecy, the prophecy never comes to pass (or even exist). Some prophecies are stronger than others, and so they compel seers to share them, however they can, with prophecies that have been written being among the most binding.

The central prophecy of the story is a particularly strong one that has remained incompletely transcribed for over a century, because the seers kill themselves before finishing. The MC is a young, ambitious seer who sets out to complete the transcription and make a name for herself among the greatest of seers, and the plot revolves around her struggles with doing so as she finds out first-hand why the other seers killed themselves before completing the transcription.

So, my next question to you is: why/how are the prophecies essential to the story?
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
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Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:30 pm
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Featherstone says...



@Kyllorac: I can see how I didn't explain very well. Let me try again. In the Wolfsbane Chronicles, the knowledge of a prophecy sets the plot: it foretells the coming of two chosen: a Hunter-borne (one of the MCs) and the Huntress (the other MC). If they hadn't any knowledge of the Hunter-borne or the Huntress, the story would have played out very differently because it wouldn't have initiated the preemptive actions that were taken to prevent the opposing chosen from gaining power, which is a lot of the story and is huge in character development.

Shadowsong is written in the first-person from the point of view of a seer. She sees various paths but she also sometimes sees how it can be achieved. For instance, instead of just seeing the outcome she sees how to get there. This comes out a lot throughout the story when she tells the future, not only the possibility of it. The Shadowsong (prophecy) is something that both the angels and the demons have been waiting for for a long time (it tells of a dark angel with a lot of power and talks about the outcome of the war between them). So when a dark angel comes into the picture that then falls (becomes a fallen angel), it affects the actions of the angels and the demons in their race to get to her first- the angels to capture her and the demons to harness that power. The outcome of that race is what molds Raven's backstory, her personality, her past- it is the basis for her character. If there hadn't been the prophecy, the demons probably wouldn't have bothered to go after her and she would have become a very different person.

I hope that explained well. If it didn't, tell me and I'll re-write this when I'm not tired getting ready for a trip.
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Wed Jan 11, 2017 4:20 am
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Kale says...



Sorry for the late reply. Adulting is hard work.

The prophecies definitely look essential after those explanations, though the prophecy in the Wolfsbane Chronicles seems to be played pretty conventionally considering how common chosen ones via prophecy are. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're playing it straight deliberately, but I think it would still benefit from some kind of twist or depth to the prophecy.

Shadowsong has so much potential to use prophecies in unexpected ways. Having a seer PoV is so much fun, though you do need to spend quite a bit of time fleshing out the mechanics of how prophecies and visions work in the story's world.

Like, are all visions cryptic and super symbolic, are they literal, somewhere in between, varies based on the individual seer, etc.? Even literal visions have a bunch of room to play with since seeing a situation as it occurs doesn't necessarily mean you'll understand what is going on, which leads to variations in interpretations, and differences of opinion upon the best course of action (which leads to delicious conflict yum). And what about prophecies that haven't come to pass yet? Are all prophecies things which will happen, or are there failed prophecies, ones which will never come to pass because the circumstances surrounding them have long past?

Are the seers organized in some way? Do they debate each other on the interpretations of prophecies? Is there a long record of such debates and prophecies fulfilled? Are there debates on whether or not prophecies have been fulfilled, and in what precise fashion?

I may have gotten a bit carried away with the questions, but prophecies.

Anyways, the way I usually go about writing prophecies for my stories is by laying out all the ways the prophecy must be fulfilled (plot-wise), several possible ways for how it could be filled, and then interpretations for which events fulfill the prophecy and in which ways. Basically, I start objectively and work my way into the subjective views of the characters and readers.

I really love prophecies that are more than just literal, so I like layering as many possible interpretations of events as I can into a single prophecy. Depending on the story, it leads to lot of juicy conflict as characters argue or make decisions based on their interpretations of the prophecy and which events fulfilled which aspects of it.

One example from a story of mine that I haven't touched in years (that I should probably revive because I really like the idea behind it) involves a prophecy about a star-eyed ruler restoring balance and all that typical fantasy prophetic chosen one stuff. Of course, Things Happen to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass (which obviously fail, otherwise we wouldn't have a story). So our MC is a poor peasant girl with starry eyes who gets told that she's actually the lost princess who is supposed to reclaim the country from the evil people who lead the coup that murdered the rest of her family. The guy telling her this is her half-brother and bastard son of the previous king, who doesn't have starry eyes because that's the trait of the direct bloodline of the ruling family, of which the previous queen was a member (not the king).

Anyways, twisty plot things omitted, the prophecy does come to pass, but rather than being a rightful restoration of the bloodline, our MC's rise to power is the result of manipulation, misdirection, and magical tinkering with a whole lot of hard work on our MC's end because it turns out that she isn't actually a descendant of the previous queen. Her starry eyes were the result of magical alteration to hide the true descendant, something she is very unhappy about when she finds out the truth. But she takes the throne anyway with the actual descendant's full support because at that point, there's really no other path for her to take that wouldn't throw away all of her hard work. And so she winds up being a great queen and leading the nation into an era of great prosperity, etc., though for completely different reasons than the prophecy would seem to indicate.

And so the way I tackled that particular prophecy was by looking at the literal events that needed to occur: a starry-eyed girl raised by peasants becomes a great queen. I then delved a bit into the world's backstory for some additional context, the key piece being that starry eyes = royal family, so everyone would assume that the starry-eyed girl was a descendant of the royal family. From there, the twist was already pretty well-established, and it was just a matter of not revealing it too early (which was super easy in this case since none of the characters suspected otherwise, and the ones who knew otherwise benefited from keeping that fact to themselves).

Basically, I guess my biggest piece of advice is to remember that prophecies don't exist in isolation. They're shaped by and shape characters' perceptions (as well as readers' to an extent), so weaving them into the fabric of the world is really important since the world will inform the specifics of the prophecy, and vice versa.
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
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Wed Jan 11, 2017 5:06 am
Featherstone says...



Well, @Kyllorac- you will be glad to know I've already done a lot of fleshing out on prophecies and related material. I really appreciate you taking the time and giving me such a long response- thank you!

Do you have any advice on the structuring of a prophecy when I sit down to actually write it?
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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Fri Jan 13, 2017 4:12 am
Kale says...



What do you mean by structuring?

If you mean by how to write it in verse, my biggest suggestion would be to lay out all the things you need to cover in the prophecy, brainstorm a bunch of related words, and work out the meter and rhyme scheme from there. I find that working within an established lexicon helps me keep the rhymes from sounding forced or weird themes from cropping up.

There's also a bunch of different poetic forms that you can utilize, especially if you go with the more uncommon meters. Some forms even have unusual rhyming schemes (like the pantoum) that make for really interesting takes on prophecies, especially since most of them are written in iambic couplets.

But if you're talking about how to layer all the meanings and interpretations into the prophecy, I don't have a specific method for that since it's all context-specific and often tied to wordplay. The thesaurus and dictionary are your best friends, as is a dictionary of etymology. One of my favorite things to do is take the more archaic meanings of words and make a prophecy hinge upon it, especially since it rewards readers who are more aware of the nuances of the language. One of the simplest examples I can think of is the usage of "doom"; in older epics, "doom" is used as synonymous to "fate", though "doom" has since taken on a much more negative connotation.

I find that wordplays like that are one of the easiest ways to use reader expectations to your advantage and keep even the more astute readers guessing.
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There are no chickens in Hyrule.
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Fri Jan 13, 2017 1:46 pm
Lightsong says...



I am not well-versed in the utilisation of prophecy, so take my words as a grain of salt. Instead of answering your OP, I am going to talk about the current question.

A prophecy's structure, you ask? Well, as a poet, I would love it if it is delivered through a rhyme poem, containing a mix of imagery and literal messages.

However, poetry is not the only medium where you can present your prophecy. A buried scroll containing a narrative, the drawing on the wall that is up for many interpretations as to its meaning, all of these are ways to give structure to your prophecy. Personally, I would encourage experimentation through widening the variety of prophecy structures.

And that is all! Hope this would help you somehow.
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The subject is a catalyst, a character, but our responsibility is, has to be, to the work."

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Mon Jan 16, 2017 6:44 am
Featherstone says...



@Kyllorac: that's exactly what I mean. Thanks!
@SirLight: I didn't even think of using something other than poetry. Thanks for the ideas!
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."


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