/gag

. . . The writer describes the man as having "chiseled features." Jawline or whatever. For some reason, when I think of chiseled, I think of a piece of wood that looks like a beaver has been gnawing at it. But I'm sure it wouldn't read well if "Duke Stone had a well sanded chin, both baby butt smooth and hard like a rock."

. . . Only one man (or woman) can stop the evil plot or find the cure or save mankind. I mean, is there really that much difference between Indiana Jones and MacGuyver, or Sylvester and Arnold? And yes, I can't remember how Richard Dean Anderson's character is spelled(if I spelled it wrong).

. . . A writer uses a really, really bad metaphor or analogy. "The words echoed in his head like a bad nursery rhyme." This in a fantasy book? Exactly which nursery rhyme is bad?

. . . The writer tells you everything the character knows. Sure, this is useful at times, but in moderation, I think. "Bob knew from his years of experience and training in martial arts that by the way the man stood, he would be leading with his left foot and then striking from his right hand, which he could easily evade out of and then throw a single punch to the man's throat etc etc." Funny, you didn't mention that he knows self defense earlier in the book . . . /yawn

I also think that people should only use a flashback when necessary. Starting a story to get into the action, then you have pages of fill in to get to the point you started at. I made an attempt at something similar to that once, but I was lucky and someone asked me why I didn't start at beginning. I went back and started at the beginning (what should have been the beginning to start with) and it worked much better.

I guess the biggest thing that annoys me is the lack of a definite point of view. I know that some people get away with several paragraphs in a novel that is purely an explanation, but why should it be necessary.

My friends are in danger. Every second of delay reduces my chances of saving them from death. BUT, I must pause to inform the villain dramatically that, if my friends die, I'll make sure he pays for it.

Similarly:

You know, I'm a little confused by this one. Is your objection that only ONE man can stop things, with no team or back-up? This is rarer than it may seem. Even James Bond usually has some CIA babe working with him, and the army is likely to show up in the nick of time with a final assault on the bad guy's stronghold.

Luke Skywalker has a whole rebel army backing him up, but it still comes down to him acting alone to destroy the deathstar. Frodo starts out with a band of heroes, but in the end it's him and Sam who have to climb the volcano. Batman has Robin, Robind Hood has Merry Men, the Lone Ranger has Tonto, Spiderman has . . . uh, okay, I don't think he has anyone.

Or is your objection that you would prefer fictional problems that require complex, multi-pronged avenues of attack? Obviously, in the real world, big problems are almost never solved by one person working on one small aspect of a problems, and the problems usually aren't solved, they simply morph from acute problems into chronic problems. The war in a Iraq was obviously won by any historical standards of victory, but it wasn't won by a single person, and victory has brought on a whole new set of problems, i.e. we have to build a new government that will be strong enough to hold the country together but not so strong it becomes just another dictatorship. One wonders what happened to all the Orcs and bad guys in LOTR after Sauron fell. Did the good guys have to worry about establishing a healthy economy and self government for the orcs? And if they didn't, how good were they?

In any case, while I can thing of dozens of novels where one man doesn't save the world (usually because the world isn't in danger in the course of the novel) I'm having a hard time thinking of a novel where the world is in danger and one man (or a small group of men) doesn't wind up saving the whole shebang.

Thanks for giving my such a thought provoking problem, by the way. This is really getting my creative juices flowing.

What I should have mentioned was the blurbs on the backs of books or the raspy voice on the movie trailers telling you that "Only one man can stop the blah blah" or "Only one man can find the killer, his name is [insert tough sounding guy's name here] when in reality, a large number of people could do the same thing. I'm glad the story or movie is from a main character's perspective, but that cliche line on the back of the book just annoys the hell outta me.

I probably should have just said that the 'one man' line on the backs of books or in movie trailers sounds rediculous to me since everyone knows that the movie or book IS going to be about that man, doing whatever to save the girl, stop the bomb, find the killer, etc. And it's worse when 'only' is added, as in "Only one man can stop the [insert crisis here]" My feeble point was that it is a rare occasion when only one person out of six billion can do something that no other of the six billion minus one can not do.

Using the LotR as an example, if I remember correctly, the trailer used the voice saying that the "future lies in the hands of one hobbit" or something close to that. Quoting Gandalf, I think. Sounds suspenseful and NOT cliche! Wouldn't it have sounded odd if "only one hobbit can save their world?" I mean, I'd think there were a lot of hobbitses (sorry, couldn't resist) around so that perhaps there might have been another or two who could have done what Frodo did? Sam perhaps? Not trying to undermine anything about LotR, just using that as an example to hopefully show the difference.

Z

No matter if the ultimate "one person" could have been anyone -- isn't that the point? It still needed to be someone. Someone mattered. Whether it was Frodo or Sam, some one had to drop that ring into the fire. Sure he would have the support of the Fellowship, and Gandalf's interventions, and the diversionary battle, but all that would be for naught if some one didn't carry through to the end in spite of great odds and inconvenience -- and the greater the odds and inconvenience, the greater the hero.

To say otherwise denies heroism.

Anyone can throw themselves onto a grenade, but the one who does it is the hero.

But he must purposely act. Had Gollum remained in control of the ring and somehow stumbled into the fire, he wouldn't have been the hero Frodo was. A deserter running from battle stumbling and falling onto a grenade isn't a hero.

Book jacket hype notwithstanding, true heroism occurs when one individual breaks from the committee to do the job.

I guess the point is that a story follows a hero who succeeds, we accept that. If it follows a guy who ends up dying then we wouldn't get to hear the rest of the story because our narrator would be dead. THAT is why we follow the particular hero we do, not becuase of the cheesy suspense of If this one guy can't do it no one can. I'm not saying he's not really cool for succeeding and worthy of special praise, but that's not really why we follow him.

And you are right, we DO accept that John Smith is going to win in the end, but I think we can live without the cheesy hype that fails--for me at least--to be a hook. I think we all take it for granted that Hero A will succeed and meet up with Love Interest X along the way.

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I was there the day the strength of men failed...Isildur took the ring.

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But I think that I know what you mean. Telling the reader that only this particular individual or that one can save the world or whatever is poor literature, though it might be very good as a motivation for the protagonist. Frodo is kept going by the thought that he, and he alone, can destroy the ring. In the end of course, we see that it isn't true. Frodo doesn't destroy the ring...he can't...never would have been able to do it in any case. At the moment when he most truly hates the ring, and has seen unmasked all the evil that it is and will cause, it is at that moment, with the fire at hand, that he finally admits to himself that he can't really do it.

But being told that he was the only one who could, even though it turns out that he really couldn't, is what got him there. And the ring is destroyed in the end..."by the most unlikely person imaginable", in the words of the narrator.

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Isn't King's The Dead Zone about a hero who fails?

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No, it's about a hero who succeeds but who dies in the process.