Have you ever used luck as a plot device in your novel?
Whether it’s a meet cute with a fated mate or that risky final move against the villain that miraculously succeeds, luck often plays a subtle but powerful role in storytelling.
But how much luck is too much? How can writers utilize luck without making characters feel passive or undermining the stakes?
In this post, we’ll explore the dos and don’ts of luck in fiction, the difference between luck and skill, and how you can incorporate luck into your story without frustrating readers.
The Dos and Don’ts:
I like to compare the use of “luck” to Christmas magic in romcoms. Seriously. Watch any Netflix holiday romance and pay careful attention to the Santa character. They’re sometimes disguised as a playful grandma or winking mailman. They may deliver leading one-liners or directly affect the protagonist in some way. No matter what they’re doing, their Christmas magic swoops in to push the character toward adventure. And that’s the key.
Luck should create scenarios, but it should never be used to solve them.
The Difference Between Luck and Skill:
For a character to feel active (and for readers to invest in their journey), a protagonist needs to be in charge of their journey. A protagonist needs to make the decisions and take the risks. If luck plays a hand—such as a character leaping over a precipice and making it to the other side despite odds not being in their favor—we will still see it as the character using their skills to make a calculated decision. That said, I still advise writers to use any obvious moments of luck earlier on in the story, when characters are still growing their skillsets (versus using it later on and taking away from the growth they’ve accomplished).
A character surviving against all odds can feel like luck, but what keeps readers engaged is their skill.
How to Incorporate Luck Without Frustrating Readers:
If you are going to use luck for something significant in your story, it should be a theme and introduced early in the story. Think of Domino from X-Men or the movie Just My Luck (2006). You can also play with the idea of luck. The Death Gate cycle is rooted in manipulation of probability. Similarly, Kakagurui is a gambling anime/manga that explores skills disguised as luck or probability, especially when cheating is involved in the setup of a fixed game.
Luck is the setup, not the resolution. Exploring luck still has stakes.
Luckily…
There are many ways to approach luck, but at the end of the day, readers invest in characters who use their hard-earned skills.
What about you? Have you ever utilized luck in a story?
~SAT
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Luck is something that I am trying to avoid right now in the book I am writing. I had an opportunity to use it, but I thought it looked like ‘lazy’ writing so I wrote it out and came up with a better solution to my protagonist’s problem. But that said, luck certainly plays a big part in our lives in the real world, so there should be a place for it in fiction as well. And yes, I agree with you that readers generally prefer skilled characters, so unless you are writing comedy and your main character is a bumbling, but lovable Mr. Magoo type, I’d avoid too much luck to late in the story.
Agreed! I think if an author can come up with a solution that doesn’t rely on luck, they should go with that. It’ll be more dynamic. Thank you for sharing your experiences with writing luck.
Interesting topic! Like you, I prefer to emphasize character skill rather than having things just be lucky. I would only allow luck to dominate if the situation was unimportant to the plot. “I found the perfect shoes for the ball on sale, how lucky!”
Sometimes in comics, a character will have “luck powers” and make bad luck happen to their opponent. Black Cat and the aptly named Jinx can do this. It really seems more like magic than luck.
I LOVE your shoe example! It allows “luck” to play a role without taking away from any stakes. Thank you for sharing. And yes! There’s definitely crossover between “magic” and “luck” especially when it’s a building block of a character. Great examples!
~SAT
I agree with you assertion that luck can be used to create scenarios but not solve them. I think this is especially so with bad luck. Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd starts with the key figure’s bad luck when his flock are spooked by his dog and fall off a cliff, ruining him financially. My novel starts with the lead character involved in a terrible car crash because of ‘bad luck’ meeting a bad driver coming the other way on an otherwise deserted road. That misfortune changes her life for the worse.
After that, the story needs to be driven by the characters overcoming obstacles through their skill or personality. Otherwise you get what I call the ‘shark repellent spray’ situation. Named after childhood memories of watching the terribly camp Batman TV series back in the 70s where whatever the predicament Batman and Robin found themselves in (such as tied up and lowered into a sea of sharks) he would always just handily have some device to get them out of it (such as shark spray in his back pocket where his tied hand could get at it). It was groanworthy.
Omg, I’m so glad you brought up bad luck! I didn’t address that at all. Thank you for giving great examples, too. It’s so helpful!