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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42434
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think in large part this is due to the fact that we're all the hero of our own stories, and so when we read a story about someone we adopt some of their story where it fits with our worldview.

I'm not sure if there's any really _interesting_ way to write a story without at least some of this feeling. Unless your character is simply an observer, and not really a part of the story.

An example I can think of is Bean from Ender's Game. He was a fairly minor character in that book, but in later books he was the hero of his own story.

Maybe the reason that it's so tough is just the fact that every single one of us is who we are and nobody else - and while most things we could do could be replaced by someone else who could probably do them just as well, there's the undeniable fact that I'm the one writing this response and it's not anybody else - if it were someone else it would probably be different in some subtle way, and maybe not enough to matter.

I think if you want to avoid that feeling of chosen you'll have to be able to make your conflict such that they literally were just in the right place at the right time and happened to make the right decision... but that's kind of a sort of chosen, too, huh?

Original score: 3