Can an unintentional Plot Development be SO perfect it becomes stupid?

I have a question, and it's hard to explain without giving away my story that I am working on, so I will invent an example here without any parallels to my actual story:

Let's say you have five main characters, one of which is a stake maker, that is his profession, you intended this role for the character from the start, in the world they live in, there are not many stake makers, but it is a profession that is very much needed, everybody has gardens, they all need stakes to limit their territory, you even go as far to use this as a plot point for this specific character to leave his home town, kings invite him to make stakes for their gardens, he takes this profession to the next level, and it makes him an important character to the plot overall.

Separate of the stories of the main characters, you create a world, you fill it with life, all kinds of elements, you start to develop an antagonist, a range of monsters rule his army, common monsters like mummies and werewolves. You write beautiful castles in your story, villagers scared of legends. It becomes obvious to you the main antagonist has to be a vampire at this point, something you hadn't even thought of yet because you were just building your world.

Your story evolves, characters have places to be and things to do. Now you reached the point the vampire is posing a threat, you want to take it out, but of your five main characters, you wrote stories and plots to the point where they each have their own place to be, they all have very specific roles, you cannot take these characters away from where they are... but you remembered stake maker boy, the one person you hadn't written an end for yet...

And that is my question, completely unintentionally, stake maker is the ONLY person left to take care of the big vampire boss. As the writer, I did not intent for things to go this way, it was pure luck, but as a reader, could you consider this to be such a heavy coincidence it becomes stupid, that the writer just can't come up with something more original? Would it feel like I wrote this on purpose and it would both minimize the stake maker as well as the vampire antagonist?

I even considered creating a new character to take care of the vampire, but then the reader could think: "Why not just use stake boy, he makes STAKES!"

So I ask you, can some unintentional plot developments be so perfect, they become stupid?

 

Lol I thought you were heading toward Vampire Stakemaker. Now that would be an interesting concept. Not big enough to build a story on, but a nice little side issue. Maybe he has a vampire friend who's a garlic peddler, maybe another runs a seaside resort called Sun & Fun...

Sorry, I seem to be in humor mode just now.

 

How much of a surprise do you want this 'twist' to be? That it will be down to the stake maker to kill the vampire? Is it something that is likely to occur to the reader early on? If so, then they'll be waiting for this thing to happen, with a fair amount of suspense as to how your stakemaker is going to accomplish the thing. I presume your vampire makes an early entrance to your story ...but maybe the fact that he's a vampire doesn't get revealed till much later on?

I know this is not your real story, but just an example ...but I'm wondering how the other four characters work into this. If they are all main characters, then I assume they'll all have some part to play, IF the vampire thing is your main plot arc.

Your stake maker guy. Will he be a reluctant hero? Is his personality as well as his profession up to this vampire-vanquishing job? Or is he rather a weakling, or simply not the least bit interested in conflict. Will this role be forced on him, or will he take it on willingly? It might be fun to make him a MOST unlikely foe for the vampire—which will engender a lot of suspense in your readers. Especially if the vampire doesn't see this stakemaker as a particular problem.

What is the vampire's main goal? Is he focused on any particular people, or just people in general?

I don't need the answers to these kinds of questions, as I'm not the writer here, but I imagine you do. If this twist is something that just occurred to you (with your antagonist unexpectedly turning out to be a vampire) you'll probably need to go back later, after you've finished the story, and rewrite the beginning.

The beginning of any story need to launch the story in the right direction ...and if you didn't have this particular direction in mind when you first wrote it, you'll need to go back and craft the beginning so it does. But these kinds of developments can be very rewarding to work with. Congratulations on being willing to change horses in midstream. I suspect your story will benefit.

 

can some unintentional plot developments be so perfect, they become stupid?
yes.
should you care?
probably no.

Now that the pieces have fallen into place and you are aware of the silly coincidence, you can embrace it and use it to subvert the reader's expectations.

Example: Stake boi fights the vampire lord- it's a really tough battle and stake boi just barely manages to defeat the evil bloodsucker- without using any kind of stake for the entire combat.
He then gets back to his friends or family, badly bruised, tells them about the fight and complains why it was him who had to face the vampire, when there were so many heroes around better suited for this task.

Friend: "But you have to admit, they sent the right person for the job."
Staky: "Why would you say that?"
"Because... you are a stake maker."
"So?"
"That means you are good with stakes."
"What's that to do with anything?"
"Vampires are vulnerable to stakes. You...you knew that, didn't you?"
-awkward silence as stake boi slowly dies inside.

 

You could set it up to look like a more standard story at first, where there would be a hero to wield the stake, but somehow none of the more heroic people are able to do the job, and then by some weird quirk the stake maker is forced to do it himself. It would be like a movie where you think it's going to be about Bond but he's on vacation or hurt of something, so Q has to use his own weapons and play hero himself.

That sets up a scenario like in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, where you have a very unlikely hero, a little gnome-like dude who's more homebody than hero but turns out to have a great deal of courage when he needs it.

Of course I understand this isn't actually your story idea. The stake maker is actually something else, so all this specific conjecture might be totally useless in your actual situation.

 

I'm getting some serious Terry Pratchett vibes from this.

Okay, I have to ask: How did you even come up with the idea of a master stake craftsman, whose job is literally just making high quality wooden stakes, and somehow not immediately realize he was bound to end up a vampire slayer?

Like, what was your original purpose for this guy? You could have just made him the royal gardener or something. Why stakes? That is a very specific profession.

Are you sure this was completely unintentional? Because sometimes your subconscious goes ahead and does this sort of stuff without you noticing it.

...More original than the royal stake maker?

I mean, yeah, it's very over the top and kinda obvious, but I would assume that was the whole point.

Well, of course. You can't just have a character like that for no reason, it creates expectations. Just having a guy who makes stakes for a living is going to make people think about vampires, even before you introduce any vampire characters.

I get the feeling you're looking at this backwards: Nobody is going to be surprised when this guy ends up putting a stake through the torso of the local vampires lord, or at least made the stake in question. On the other hand, people might be disappointed if he doesn't. Because it really looks like you were setting that up.

It's what we call a "promise", and sometimes you make a promise without meaning to, but you still have to keep it.

 

I think a few people are missing the "invented example without any parallels to my own story" part of the OP's post.

The answer is yes. Any plot development can be stupid, and intent certainly won't change that. Think of the reader. Will he know your intent? It's our job to try and make our plots less stupid.

To borrow from the woodcrafter example, how is a tradesman going to have the skill to infiltrate and vampire's lair and destroy him, at least more so than any other aspiring hero? Perhaps he'll be underestimated due to his occupation, or maybe he is also a reformed burglar, or Lady Chance alone gave him a fantastic opportunity. The reader will need to see a degree complexity and subtlety in order for there to be believability. Those seeds need to be sewn early in the narrative for it to be satisfying, and sometimes only beta readers can tell you if you've provided enough.

The funny thing is that this topic broaches the difference in expectation between reality and fiction. Fiction generally has to 'make sense' and be 'plausible' in order to be good, whereas anything goes in real life.

 

So the stake maker, realizing how much is at stake, becomes a stake holder who stakes out his territory in a vampire's heart? Hmm. It might be a mistake to go with a plot with such a capacity for bad puns and word plays.