The fantasy prompt where everyone picks the same exiled prince origin

I run a small writing group in Austin and I noticed over 3 months that almost everyone submitted prompts about exiled princes or lost royalty. Last Tuesday someone pitched a story about a baker who discovers a spell in her grandmother's recipe book and it was the most original thing we'd seen in weeks. Am I the only one seeing this trend in prompts or do you guys get flooded with the same archetypes too?

3 comments

3 Comments

hollyl2525d ago

Oh man, the exiled prince thing is EVERYWHERE right now lol. My friend group has this running joke where we take shots every time someone's DnD character backstory has 'my kingdom fell to ruin' in the first three sentences. We've gotten dangerously hydrated. A baker with a grandma spell sounds like a breath of fresh air honestly. The pattern is so baked in that even when people try to be original, someone's still like 'what if the prince was ALSO a baker though' and we're all doomed.

gracec1625d ago

Right now my character is literally just a guy who runs a tavern and has a gambling addiction. No tragic kingdom, no secret lineage, just terrible life choices and a tab at his own bar. But the last time I pitched a simple commoner concept my friend goes "okay but what if your dad was secretly a king though" and I nearly threw my phone across the room. Like can we not? Some of us just want to roll dice and pretend to be bad at finances, not reenact the entire plot of The Lion King for the 800th time. At this point I'd rather play the grandma baker with questionable spell ingredients than hear one more backstory that starts with "I was next in line for the throne.

victor_robinson24d ago

That thing about the simple commoner pitch getting hijacked is so real. My writing group has an unspoken rule now, if you mention a character's parent at all someone will be like so are they dead or just missing royalty. I actually found the most interesting twist came from a guy who played an exiled prince but the twist was he was totally fine with it. He just wanted to run a food truck and kept getting annoyed when people tried to recruit him for rebellions. The genre needs more characters who just genuinely don't care about their lost crown.