Fortune-telling rant

[limyaael]

For when you just want to toss those crystal balls down the stairs and watch them shatter into their component parts.

Comments

[troubadour118]

Funny that you should do this rant. I'm in the middle of writing two short stories that feature "fortune-telling" as a main theme. (One is about a clan of "fortune-tellers" that use/read the flow of rivers as their medium for prediction, the other is a semi-parody about what happens to the Wise Mystic after his prophecy is delivered and the hero hares off on his Great Quest).

I was happy to see I haven't broken faith with any of these suggestions yet, so I must be on the right track. XD

[blacktigr]

Do let me know when you are finished with these. They both sound worthwhile.

[limyaael]

Well, I do think that gypsies and crystal balls and even Tarot cards can be done well. The challenge is finding some reason for those particular things to be in your story. It sounds like you pretty much know what you're doing.

[frenchpony]

There's a section of Barry Longyear's Circus World that you might like, where the fortuneteller child Crisal apprentices herself to a magician

[uncreativity]

I bet so many people do it because it's in all the video games. *sagely nod*

My faith-healer/fortune-teller/general-purpose-expert-on-all-things-magical (that be him in my LJ icon :D) is a clever charlatan! It's hard to book a session, though - he's very particular about his clients (being gullible young ladies).

[uncreativity]

(Okay, that was meant to be "post a new comment," not-so-much a "reply to this," but I am apparently not capable of clicking the right link, so... yeah. Sorry. ^^; )

[limyaael]

Or in D&D. Or in other fantasies who are bastard children on the wrong side of the Tolkien sheets.

(It drives me NUTS, lately, when I want to find new authors to read, how similar most of them sound to one another. I'm going to Barnes&Noble in an hour, and though I usually use trips to brick-and-mortar bookstores to find new authors, I'm a little nervous. The last time I was there, there were several books of the 'prince is oppressed by a cruel family and finds out he's the chosen one who has to find the mystical artifact' type. They sounded like they could have been each other with the names transposed.

And the parantheses is now longer than the non-parantheses, so I will end there).

[fadethecat]

I suddenly feel much better about my rather not-good little story about Edward Paine. Who, despite being a protagonist, actually is a fortune-teller. (Well, he's a sorcerous damned soul hanging out in Hell, so reading auguries kinda goes with the job, but that's beside the point.) The first book starts with him trying to figure out what birds in the wrong season mean. He sees the future in fountains, fires of bone, blowing leaves, the flight of birds, the guts of his enemies, and his own blood when it's pooled into the crook of his elbow.

Weirdly enough, while the three stories I've written about him have largely sucked, I'm pretty proud of the fortune-telling bits. They're confusing, they're occasionally counter-productive, and this is with an expert who's really trying and considers it one of his strongest fields. Spent enough time researching obscure forms of divination to keep it original, at that.

[limyaael]

That sounds fascinating. Even if, as you say, the stories largely suck, those bits could probably be taken into another story and used to its profit.

[fadethecat]

I keep trying. I like the character, and the setting, and even his sidekick. (Yes, he has a familiar. It's a fairy. Well, a tiny winged skeleton, anyway, which is like a fairy, right? It eats dreams...) So I've written three novel attempts about him so far--one finished, two unfinished--and it...continues to suck.

Sigh.

(It was not helpful when he showed up in a bit role in another novel attempt, and readers suggested I ditch the boring protagonist and write about him instead.)

[princesselwen]

a tiny winged skeleton, anyway, which is like a fairy, right?
For some reason that reminds me of Discworld's the Death of Rats. But it sounds cool.

[dsgood]

Something I've seen in sf but not in fantasy: a charlatan who turns out to have real powers, much to his dismay.

[limyaael]

I've seen it in a few short stories. The reason it drove me nuts is because, every time, the "charlatan" immediately repented of his previous ways, realized how wrong he had been, and turned around to helping the good-guy mages. Of course, Speshul magic would never choose an evil person.

[tiferet]

Basic psychology and a firm grasp on cause and effect is often more *useful* than psychic ability, especially with the sorts of problems most people bring to diviners. (I have, during several periods in my life, made my living as a diviner--I've worked at a 1-900-psychic line and given readings in bookstores, especially in grad school when my stipend paid for rent and books but not food or the phone or the cable.) It wasn't that I wanted to cheat people, ever--and I didn't. But there were times when I really didn't *need* to read the cards to figure out the solution to the querent's problem, and I used the cards and my divinatory skills mostly as a push to *me*, to let me know if there was something I hadn't been told, something odd going on, etc.

[criada]

This is why I love Granny Weatherwax in the Discworld books. She talks repeatedly about "headology" and uses it to far greater effect than the fanciest magical ritual.

[limyaael]

Basic psychology and a firm grasp on cause and effect is often more *useful* than psychic ability, especially with the sorts of problems most people bring to diviners.

I would like to see this. In fantasies, characters with sharp observational skills, such as thieves, often don't have magical powers. It's as though the authors writing the magic think that of course someone is 100% likely to be either observant or magical, but not both.