How to write a prophecy?

Question

No, I'm not actually asking you to tell me how to predict the future!

Several pieces of fiction I've read/watched recently have prophecies. One of my favourites is

On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered. - Doctor Who

In the story the viewers know massive amounts of this, we know the question, the planet but the final story was a real surprise.

What are the best techniques to create an interesting prophecy which keeps the reader guessing until it is revealed?

Answer 1

As usually with all riddles, start from the end - what the prophecy describes.

Write or at least plan thoroughly the story, leaving a placeholder where the prophecy has to go.

Then sum up the events that are to be prophesized, actors involved, their role, the effects. Try to get that into about the size you want your prophecy to take.

And then get to convoluting it. Start replacing names with metaphors, involving deeds or characteristics of the subjects involved. You may consider writing it as a rhymed riddle. Make sure to obfuscate, give it double meanings; good if the second meanings are deceiving - match both the actual subject and some completely different subject that still has a prominent place in the story.

Depending if you want the prophecy, or a part of it to be understandable from moment one, involve factors that are already known at the time the prophecy is encountered. The parts that are to remain unclear should reference factors either not known to the reader at the time, or not yet fully understood. Nevertheless, spice it up with a few grains of clarity, something the reader can understand readily and grasp as obviously relevant - say, alternate name of a place, or an obvious, unique trait of a significant character. If the whole prophecy is a mystical mumbo-jumbo without a single good hint, it will not be attractive.

Answer 2

@SF has given a good answer. A couple of other thoughts that occur to me:

You seem to be saying that you want a prophecy that is cryptically worded. Depending on the point of the story, one could have a very clear prophecy, like, "You will have seven years of abundant harvest followed by seven years of famine." If the point is to show that the prophet really does have a special connection to God or has magical powers or whatever, making it clear and unambiguous would do that better than something cryptic.

If you want it to be cryptic, presumably so that figuring out what it means is an interesting puzzle, something I'd carefully consider is whether you want it to be so vague that no matter what happens, someone could say that it came true. Like there's the famous prophecy of the Oracle at Delphi to King Croesus. He asked if he should attack Persia, and the Oracle said that if he did, he would "destroy a great empire". So he attacked and lost the war badly. And so the true believers in the Oracle declared that what the Oracle meant was that the empire that he destroyed "would be his own". But of course if he had won the war, they would have said, See, the Oracle was right, he destroyed Persia. Or like those psychics who offer to help solve crimes and then make statements like, "The letter R will be important." Then when the case is solved the psychic can find something in there that has the letter R in it -- some geographical feature near where the body was found may start with an R, or some store nearby, or the first, middle, or last name of the person who found the body, or some object near the body, etc. There could be dozens or hundreds of people, places, and things that are in some way related to solving the crime, and just by shear probabilities one of them should have a name that starts with any given letter. If I read such a prophecy in a story, then unless the point is to say that no matter what happened the prophet could claim to have been right, I'd find that very unsatisfying.

I think the ideal mysterious riddle would be one that sounds very cryptic and could mean anything when you first hear it, but when you finally get to the solution, it suddenly sounds very clear and explicit.

Oh, and maybe this is obvious: No matter how cryptic or mysterious the prophecy to the reader, make sure that YOU know exactly what it means when you write it. Don't just make up something bizarre and think you're going to figure out what it means later. This is the age of word processors: if something you put in your prophecy in chapter 1 turns out to just not work out by the time you get to chapter 20, go back and change it. Any mystery in a story you write should be baffling and mysterious to the reader, not to the writer. You should know where you're going.

Answer 3

As a huge fan of fantasy I've had my fair share of riddles, prophecies and rhymes. One thing you have to make sure of is your prophecy is not too long. Readers love riddles that draw them in, but don't make them miss half the chapter. Try to include obscure hints that they can piece together later in the book, like a mystery, and start with a line they can understand at the moment. Don't use names of your characters though, using a label that could apply to more than one person or thing leaves your options open and appeals to the reader's detective role in solving the prophecy. Plot twists never hurt! Hope this was helpful.

Answer 4

I think that sometimes writing a story can be a journey as much for the writer as for the reader. See the where the journey takes you, and leave the prophecy blank. Then, after finishing the story, come back and write the prophecy. It works much easier, especially if a basic idea of a prophecy is already written and only embellishments are needed. Then, reread or ask someone else to read and tell you if the prophecy makes sense and fits in with the story.