: Re: Phrasing a prophecy to avoid specifying gender or number Is there a singular form for the ideas behind the words 'them' and 'they'? You have 'he', 'she', and 'they' (which often implies more

Why not just erase the requirement for he/her entirely?

As far as I'm aware prophecies don't tend to be overly long, so rather than saying He/she will accomplish these feats, just say The Chosen One will accomplish these feats, or whatever name you want to give in the prophecy. In at most a couple of paragraphs of writing, it shouldn't be too out of place.

It can even be an actual prophesied name. Take for example the prophecy from A Song of Ice and Fire:

There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.

If you change the instance of he to the one and him to the Chosen One and all of a sudden you have a gender neutral prophecy. And if it is rewritten slightly then actual name of Azor Ahai could be used instead of pronouns at all.

In order to make this work, you may need to restructure the exact wording of the prophecy to minimize the requirements for these swaps. My answer to this question may help with minimizing the uses of pronouns in a piece of text.

Prophecies don't tend to fit with how languages are spoken in an everyday context, so having an uncommon sentencing structure that exchanges the instances of he, her etc. will not be overly conspicuous, it will simply seem to be how the prophecy was originally read and will allow you some artistic license with allowing it to seem historic or mystical.

Load Full (0)

: Dedication Punctuation - include a period? For the dedication of my upcoming book, I have written For my child. Do you think that period should be there?

@Yeniel532

Load Full 2 Comments

: I think the difference between show and tell is really the difference between implicit and explicit. We can describe actions that represent something else within a piece of writing, or we can

@Yeniel532

Load Full 0 Comments

: A villain that doesn't even know the hero's existence? In the story I'm writing, the villain is a tyrant who is taking over control of the world (a very small one, with only two continents)

@Yeniel532

Load Full 5 Comments

: Is it okay to skip forward in time rather than write scene transitions? Whether I'm writing short or novel-length fiction, I always find myself writing some relatively short chunk, then wanting

: Re: Phrasing a prophecy to avoid specifying gender or number Is there a singular form for the ideas behind the words 'them' and 'they'? You have 'he', 'she', and 'they' (which often implies more

More posts by @Yeniel532

: Dedication Punctuation - include a period? For the dedication of my upcoming book, I have written For my child. Do you think that period should be there?

: I think the difference between show and tell is really the difference between implicit and explicit. We can describe actions that represent something else within a piece of writing, or we can

: A villain that doesn't even know the hero's existence? In the story I'm writing, the villain is a tyrant who is taking over control of the world (a very small one, with only two continents)

: Is it okay to skip forward in time rather than write scene transitions? Whether I'm writing short or novel-length fiction, I always find myself writing some relatively short chunk, then wanting

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top