One day, a mystical wizard told a dirt-faced orphan that she was the Chosen One. Her response? "F*** that, I'm out." and walked away. Well crud, my MC just killed my plot...
No, that is simply the hero's refusal of the call to action. Your epic work of literature is at stage 2 of 17.
Oscar Potter was like all boys in fiction - an orphan, but he didn't have a cushy room under the stairs, he was shrunk down with magical Shredded Wheat, and sent to live in the mouse hole and share his bed with Slevingard, a magician trapped in mouse-form who hogged the blankets in their sardine-can bed. - opening line from Oscar Potter and The Magic Mouse Turd.
"We're gonna die, you know that?" Martin asked from around the steel pole he and I were lashed to as it hovered over the gaping maw of a volcano. M.A.R.R.N. had eluded capture, the secret weapon was theirs to be handed over to our sworn enemy. Dr. Klein von Steinenburg was laughing uproariously at the helm of the crane. Klein, the corrupted president of M.A.R.R.N. and a former member of our secret army placed his hand on the lever that would send us plummeting to our deaths. "Now nothing will stop us in our quest for world domnation!" Klein shouted in the intercom, his voice was screetchy and grating to my ears. I looked into his eyes. "Klein!" I shouted, hoping he'd hear me. "I am your son! I never died in Dresden!" Too late. Klein pulled the lever A rushing, maddening heat and it was over. M.A.R.R.N had won and well we've clearly lost.
@Link the Writer Dr. Klein von Steinenburg is the best villain name ever. I read it in this guy's voice:
Perfect! I'll make him a proper villain and put him somewhere, maybe in an action/adventure/thriller story? *** I awoke with a start in a cold sweat. I turned my gaze back and forth a few times around my room. On my fifth gaze was the ghost of a pale woman in flowing white with blood stains. BONUS: The story, my gentle readers, takes place in one of the three cities in the United States of America: San Francisco, Chicago, or New York. Because we all know that there are no other cities anywhere in that nation, it's all rainforest, swamps, mountains and deserts. Our three protagonists are from those three cities respectively and they commute via underground car tunnels carved laboriously through the totally uninhabited landmass because... Fine, it's set in Charleston, South Carolina. You happy now??
'Well that was a hell of an exciting battle with all the trumpets and muskets and crazy horse-riding swordplay,' said the pot-bellied farmer wiping crumbs from his pants with a napkin, 'now let's not speak anymore about it and go back to shoveling dirt, because there are many ways to shovel dirt, not all the same, and I think it's best that I tell you about each of them so that you understand which one to use.
'Warning, warning, reactor leak in sector seven, all personnel to evacuate, all personnel to evacuate, reactor leak in sector seven, contamination shutdown immediate, meltdown possible!!' I yelled on the busy train.
As the undead zombie shambled very slowly towards me, I gazed in dread at the path along which I must flee. It was filled with tree roots and fallen branches, so a dramatic fall to put my life in deadly peril was almost a guaranteed certainty. I regretted I'd had no time to develop as a character before my possible demise, but maybe I had enough time to have a quick flashback.
They named their son Herpes simply because he could joke that his wife had given him Herpes after they danced the naughty dance at cousin Emmit's memorial brunch, which was a shame because a much better joke would be that he got Herpes a year ago and then invite people to the party, because he loves Herpes and wants to share that joy with all his friends and family.
Her body lay unmoving as sweet droplets of crimson blood dripped from where her head used to be. This sight truly did put a smile on my face I especially enjoy the fact she never saw it coming. My grin began to increase as I reached in to my backpack which lay only a few feet away from her body. My left hand went in the bag empty and I came out with a heavy hammer the wood on the handle a bit rotted, but it would do the job. I stood from kneeling position and breathed in the mighty midnight air of the forest. It was truly a perfect place for a moment like this a dark, damp depressing forest. I know it sounds cliché but in my mind there was no better place to commit murder. Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
It would cause me great satisfaction to be able to say that my time in the war was full of bravery, intrigue, adventure and heroism, where I saw horrific sights and fought with amazing people, and to share with you the various characters that bewildered me with their rich background of moving tales of woe and hardship, but sadly none of that happened and I served the war quietly with a group of drunkards that rarely shared more than a belch, so the following tale if more of an account of my lack of interesting times and how I squandered those years playing bridge with the women of the South Coventry Nunnery who, to my misfortune not only had a vow of chastity, as to be expected, but silence, too.
He started up in bed, heart lurching in his chest. 'It was just a dream, just a dream.' He reassured himself. Once the worst shocks of the nightmare had passed he chuckled at his own childishness and settled back into his bed. He had just closed his eyes when suddenly something whispered in his ear: "A Dream, are you sure?"
"T'was a dark and story hour for our poor Chosen One and her undead vampire friend- HA! You actually thought I'd go down there didn't ya? Now buckle up for an amazing tale with deep, though-provoking plotting and characters."
No one knows for sure what happened to Mr. John D. Oue, but that couldn't stop us from writing this book.
Well, to be fair, the old stories are good in a folktale way. And they might be using that line to represent a fairytale based story.
