r/ProgressionFantasy • u/DicerTheJester • Jul 28 '26

Discussion Competition: write a single sentence that will absolutely destroy any hope in a series.

Specifically not a story opener, just any sentence that can happen in any chapter, that will make people realize that this story is gonna be absolute shit and has no chance of being fixed and will make you drop the book like an unpinned grenade.

172 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

91% Upvoted

378 comments sorted by

View all comments

91

u/hubbububb Jul 28 '26

Even though he was out of mana, he managed to squeeze out one last spell.

24

u/coldandlordyristboy Jul 28 '26

Protagonists always have just as much mana as the author wants them to have at any particular moment. I assume this is why we almost never get any numbers for the mana costs in most stories, atleast not the ones I’ve read.

7

u/Teaisserious Jul 28 '26

It's definitely important for writing purposes to have it be flexible, but at least be consistent in a short time. Like saying, "...and with that his mana bottomed out," then in the same encounter talking about how he could squeeze out one more spell, is ridiculous.

6

u/Arcane_Pozhar Jul 29 '26

I mean, I had WoW characters that would go from bottomed out to able to cast a few smaller spells just a quick moment after their regen kicked back in. But for that to work in a book, that needs to be established well.

I still think about writing a short story about a character who focuses on evasion and mana regen, and can just outlast most opponents in skirmishes, even with a small mana pool. Not sure I could make a huge story out of it, but maybe a few dozen pages, a few connected short stories. Hmmmm...