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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42568
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm going to assume you're not writing 'and so the totally-not-chosen-one was victorious despite overwhelming odds and impossible circumstances.'

Luck sucks.... Proper Prior Planning Prevents...

I don't think there's any way an author or director can portray luck that won't be felt by many to be equivalent with 'fated.' But most audiences actually don't seem to mind that, being most comfortable with the idea that the situations they get into have little to do with their own actions and more to do with the god/fate/probability depending on which way their personal delusions take them.

It matters to you though, huh.

Write out luck. Write in scenes and trends that are plausibly confronted by the character you have, rather than requiring ever greater leaps of amazing fortune/power.

People talk about Tolkien, and luck certainly plays a part, but think about say, Shelob meeting Sam and Frodo. It had already been established that the greenskins made patrols, it had already been established that Galadriel had some visionary capacity etc etc. Everything that occurred in the conflict made sense because Tolkien went back and made it make sense, not copping out and saying "hey cool he rolled all 6's" or giving Frodo some magical ability (other than a friend loyal beyond all reason.)

Frodo could well be the inoffensive chosen one, that is, chosen because he and those around him had qualities required to succeed. As opposed to the 'affirmative action' chosen one, who is needs a leg-up from the author in every scene to succeed.

We all of course grew up in a world where people have been inventing magical effects, items, potentials for decades, it's hard not to just cop-out and give characters the ability to do the impossible once you've come up with a scene or goal, rather than simply making the scenes possible through you know, writing character interactions and stuff.

I sure do hope none of that was legible or useful, maybe I should give myself a +10 circlet of grammarly.

//ofc, this is all skipping such things as jeopardy, giving other characters pivotal roles without making them ridiculously OP too, even Tolkien failed with Gandalf ofc, having built up the nazghul too far and etc, he had to upgrade him or invent some more OP-ness.

Original score: 1