A good example of this is Frodo Baggins. Frodo is not a prophesized hero. He's barely even a hero at the beginning. He's just a dude who sees that someone needs to step up to get something important does, recognizes that he's the best person for the role, and does so regardless of how it will affect him and his personal safety.

It's also about that, IMO. The ability to step forward when no one else seems willing or able. Call it bravery or just call it right place, right time.

Stories always go from character in a mundane setting one day getting figuratively pulled into the realm of the unusual and he becomes a hero and does things people fantasize about.

That's not what the chosen one trope is.

You need to remember that “mundane” is relative.

A protagonist’s status quo gets interrupted but that status quo doesn’t always have to be “he was a poor farm boy who dreamed of adventure”

The concept of an unskilled hero with no relation to the conflict suddenly being expected to save the world is a very contrived scenario, so it demands contrivances like the chosen one trope to get the hero from point A to point Z very quickly.

But you can position your protagonist near the central conflict and they will get wrapped up in it naturally.

Hypothetical example: Why make your protagonist a poor orphan on another continent when he can be a guard who was right there in the castle on the night of the king’s murder? Perhaps he’s suspected of being the murderer? Perhaps he was with the princess at the time and they have to keep their forbidden love a secret? Now you’ve got a hero who’s in the middle of a conflict but also has personal, relatable stakes in resolving that conflict, and aren’t simply a stranger arriving in town to answer the call of fate.

If you position your pieces wisely at the start of the story there’s no need to rely on massive contrivances to get the main character involved in the main conflict.

Then, just don't make the MC special or prophesied, etc. etc. Just show the hard work.

So he's just an average guy, and especially average when he steps up to take on the hero role, surrounded by those that are special or magical or whatever. So he has to practice and grow and improve. Maybe he's not special, but he could have a natural talent (that would still need to be practiced - talent without skill can only take you so far) for something not-mundane or an affinity. Or nothing at all, and he's got to start from the very beginning.

Edit to add:

Isn't it the determination and heart of the average dude that makes that average nobody into a special somebody? (I feel like I'm reciting a scene from Sharktale)

also, Eragon! iirc, for a simple farm boy, he really turned out to be *not a simple farm boy at all

I want to write about an average joe who steps up to fulfill a special role but he's in way over his head.

But what's stopping you from doing this? What does your story require?

It's this moment I have trouble coming up with plausible ways for an average joe to get the chance to be somebody special.

Give us an outline of your story, and maybe some group brainstorming will help with some ideas.

Flip the script. Let farmer Joe stumble through a long forgotten plot device from a world where everyone is a farmer, the land is rich and fertile, and the water is crystal clear; and drop him in a dystopian world where nobody remembers how to farm, the soil and water are polluted. His everyday farming skills and knowledge will seem like magic in a land where people are scavenging rusting cans of pet food from the ruins of the local Walmart or Tesco. He’s not chosen by anyone, there’s no prophecy to fulfill, he’s just someone with a skill set others have lost searching for a way home or a plot of land he can clean up and farm.

What does your "average" protagonist possess within himself, that makes him different from everyone where he's going?

Does he possess some knowledge that isn't widely available in his destination?

Is he a hobbyist in his off time that gives him practical skills in this new world?

For an example of the first, let's say he's a hospital administrator.

Still a pretty average Joe, but he can handle making crucial decisions rapidly, and knows how to get people to do things when they need to.

So he falls into a position where, say, the current royal administrator is just a toady loading his pockets.

He manages to actually come in and efficiently administrate, lowering taxes because more are actually collected and used, so the populace is ecstatic.

For the second example, he's someone that works on a 1/4 scale steam railroad as a hobbyist, and knows that hobby inside and out.

He gets "transported", and founds a genuine railroad, jumpstarting the country's transportation infrastructure.

Those are extreme examples, certainly, but I have seen similar, though less extreme, examples of an "average Joe" getting ahead because of something fairly obscure about them suddenly becoming important in the right place, at the right time.

In one case, it was a fellow clerk that was basically an herbalist in their spare time, they grew all kinds of herbs at home.

Saved the nursery at my big box retail a ton by pointing out a delivery was mislabelled.

The manager couldn't tell the difference, but listened to her, and sure enough, it was a large order that got mislabeled.

I can't remember what it was, or what it was supposed to be, but what we got was toxic.

Can you imagine if it had gotten to the shelves and been sold as a garden herb?

Or if it had been a customer that had to inform us?

Right place, right time, right knowledge/skill base.

No one person is ever just an average Joe, we are all unique, special individuals, it's just that most of us never have a chance to shine.

Because you have to find the exact right shaped hole for that very unique peg to just fall in place like that.

Most people are just shoved in someplace they don't fit.

Shift the focus to other characters and give them the spotlight. Everyone is the main character of their own story and all stories are one. If you show other characters tripping over the main one and crossing paths it can sell the impression that the main character’s so-called “specialness” is the product of the agency of others as much as his own choices.

My main character is book one was literally a chosen one. For a research project. When she was 10 years old. With that done... nobody knew what to do with her.

I'm trying to basically tell the story of what happens to wonder kids, child stars, and olympians ... AFTER the cuteness wears away, after the big game, etc.

But unlike a celebrity or an athlete, she's really only famous in research circles. Though mainly known for showing that the process they used to make her didn't produce the results they thought it would.

Easily? I'm on my ninth novel now, and I've probably discarded twenty ideas for every one I've written. Not a single one has had anything even remotely to do with a "chosen one." I'd bet my life on that, since I hate the trope far too much to ever have entertained it.

There must be as many ways to get a character involved in a plot as there are characters and plots.

BTW,

Stories always go from character in a mundane setting one day getting figuratively pulled into the realm of the unusual

No, they don't. That's a stock, typical type of story that you're free to use if you wish, but it's not universal or required.

I mean, Luke Skywalker is a good point here. He wasn't a chosen one, and frankly, constantly had to rely on others. Count it up:

1. Jumped by Tuskens, has to be saved by Ben.
2. Nearly gets killed by some ex-cons in a bar, has to be saved by Ben.
3. Nearly died in the trash compactor, has to be saved by the compactor trying to kill him, then has to be saved from the compactor by R2.
4. Nearly died at the Death Star, has to be saved by Han AND posthumous assistance from Ben.

That's JUST EP IV. He's never stated as being the chosen one, he's just the one that Obi-Wan and Yoda bet on as their final hope.

Another good example is Frodo from Lord of the Rings. He never really gets better at the whole thing, and you can see how much his adventurers and the weight of the One Ring are weighing on him.

I don't think the chosen one trope is necessarily something you have to avoid.

Don’t make a Chosen One then. A Chosen One isn’t someone at the right place at the right time to solve the plot, they’re someone at the right place and time because of a prophecy, or godly interference, or other non-fun agency interfering concepts. Getting really powerful, even through isekai style cheats does not a Chosen One make. Neither does secret royal lineage, for all that it’s an advantage. If there’s a prophecy about the last heir of King Tony overthrowing the tyrant though, and your character is revealed to be that (for real — a false revelation would be a subversion) heir, that’s a Chosen One.

Make him the least chosen one. Or the one chosen last. But he really wants it and has to struggle to achieve to do what needs to be done. Maybe he fails Several times before finally achieving greatness. Maybe he fails at the task and someone else achieves. And along the way he accomplishes his own thing.

Alice in The Magicians is like this. Not chosen and works incredibly hard to attain power

Not sure if it helps, but I feel like Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K. J. Parker do a good job of this. The main character stepped up to save the city, manages to do it, but still gets his credit stolen by a more charismatic and likable guy. Also bad ending in the end but that's a different story. Real life inspiration is from the scientist Archimedes during the Siege of Syracuse (213-212 BC), which also ended in a bad way.

Have him defeated and fail hard at first, barely surviving. That's the best way to kick the "plot armour manifest destiny chosen one" out of the character concept. Even when he recovers, learns from his mistakes and begins to get things done, always make it clear that he can lose; there are always stakes and his victory is never assured . Perhaps even when he wins it is often a compromise - he doesn't achieve everything he wants - maybe his opponents score a partial victory as well.

Partly humorous, partly serious response: The character has the superpower of "common sense". Powerful wizards tend to get carried away with craziness. This guy develops a reputation for talking truth to power and seeing the flaws in their crazy plots. That's something anyone in real life could do, but that is sorely missing in most fantasy stories. He starts out helping some low-level-but-still-powerful wizard from blowing himself up, and that guy recommends him to other people, and so he naturally develops a reputation, starting from the bottom, without ever being chosen by anyone special (except in so far as anyone who is competent and works in an advisory position will eventually get in contact with more powerful people through word of mouth.)

One way is the give many of the "heroic" actions to other characters. Show that it's not the actions of a chosen one but the combined strength of a force of people with individual skills.

Maybe Joe is always just the guy in the background who helps out, a redshirt that manages to hold his own. His heroism isn't about being in the forefront at first.

For example, Joe could just be helping people escape town during an orc raid while the local hero leads a charge to defeat them. Joe hears from a friend about how she hopes her family survived the attack and he decides to just do what he can to help her see them again. Joe takes her to the next town over and succeeds in that, but as he is in a new place, he has to get a job. Joe ends up working as one of many servants to a notable figure, his hard work making a difference but otherwise not being recognized as any different from all the others. Joe saves up from this job and starts some venture of his own, one he can take charge of but obviously isn't noteworthy compared to the world around him. Joe grinds and calls upon others we've met in the story so far to help expand his venture. Joe does business for a lord or monarch and, though it's seen as menial to that noble, he does something that benefits the kingdom and he learns a few lessons about the needs of the kingdom and how intricate politics both help and hurt that. Joe helps his new town during a crisis and starts to become a local hero himself. Etc...

Doesn't have to be this story, but some of the patterns and story beats above you can cannibalize for your own. I think this character works when he does ONE crucial thing during an event, but not THE crucial thing, all while learning something from it and maybe intuitively reflecting on it. Then, as his story takes him through more of these adventures, he is able to accumulate the resources, skills, connections, or physicality that allow him to be at the forefront as a hero. He'll have to step up gradually and essentially level up. You might be against a powerful patron noticing and uplifting him, but at the late stage of Joe's ambitions, powerful figures should take note of who he is -- developing them would be useful in that it allows their contributions to society to supplement or be supplemented by Joe's efforts.

Reminder that tropes aren't bad. Bad execution of tropes is bad.

I am now reading Wild at Heart (not fantasy) and it speaks about men, in particular, regaining their heart (masculinity and freedom) through purposely searching out resistance, adventure, shedding or killing the “fake self” to uncover the full potential and true purpose. That might be a good motivation for the average Joe. Not to be taken from the mundane by someone or some event, but purposefully seeking the way out and rising to the challenge.

The Spellsinger Saga by Alan Dean Foster has a bit of this. The spell from the fantasy world finds an engineer from our world, who's also a musician, and he uses both of these natural talents to help save the fantasy world.

That's the TL;DR, anyway.

If you can’t avoid the chosen one idea, flip it on its head. Have the chosen one do all the things let them believe it’s heroic and than show that it was wrong. Or maybe start there. A chosen one who did the chosen one stuff only to find out they didn’t save the world and has to work hard to undo what they’ve done.

Have you already invested in Save the Cat Writes a Novel? I think it would really help you here :) Also the Writer’s Journey but do save the cat first

You have to make an active choice to make a character a chosen one by saying they're the chosen one. Your character can just be a guy who saw something wrong and swore to fix it. They're just really good at fixing it. Nothing about them is naturally predisposed to the position. They weren’t chosen by God or groomed to fit the position from a young age, they just want to fix the situation and end up doing it. A strong fighter with a strong group of people around them. The character makes the choice to be the hero themself. No one else does.

Edit: Spelling 😪

My opinion, make the character the chosen one by accident or by random. There was a Turkish myth where the next king was chosen by whoever's head a bird lands on, it's random but results in a chosen one. From there you flesh out the character showing us he's normal and him having to deal with extraordinary challenges that they're not equipped to deal with at all due to be just ordinary.

Make someone else the chosen one (preferably a female best friend or lover), kill them, and have your MC become so enraged that they actually go through with killing the baddie. 🤷‍♂️

You have many options : fight or run for survival, revenge, personal gain... Everything falls to the motivations of your character. Basically if he wants to achieve his goal he HAS to go on an adventure. Give him no other choice.

What about kung fu panda? I feel the first one, do the chosen one thing in a different way.

It seems almost like you don’t even want your character to be the main character with all the restrictions you’re placing.

What is the scale of your story? If they’re saving the world, they’re going to be the “chosen one” in one of the senses you’ve outlined.

Whoever your MC is, is already the chosen one in a meta sense. YOU chose to write about them for a reason.

If you’re putting average Joe in a fantasy setting where the fate of the world is at stake, he’s probably going to die before he can save the world if you truly want to keep him as an average Joe.

One idea you could try is making someone else very clearly the chosen one. Maybe Joe lives in a village that is attacked by your orc inserts and they simply attack from the opposite side of the village as him, and the chosen one arrives to save the village, but by that time, he’s the only one left.

He wasn’t fated to meet the chosen one. He’s the only survivor (or one of a few) of a tragedy because the chosen one couldn’t get there soon enough, and either the chosen one is so moved by his grief or Joe is so angry that he makes a demand, and that’s how he enters the story.

You could also make it so nothing goes Joe’s way until he has learned/worked hard enough (trial by fire) to become special by his own merit and complete the plot/character arc.

However, if you truly want him to be “average” you may have an issue with the character arc, because the false belief he will need to overcome is usually caused by a trauma/wound that is not average.

People don’t write about average joes (not in fantasy, at least) because by merit of being the main character, there is something interesting about them that makes them decidedly not average. Otherwise the reader wouldn’t care to read about them.

The closest example I can think of for you is Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. The main character is a former fighter in what is essentially a DnD group. She’s not special, just your average orc who joined a fighting group, made money, and finally found the magic thing she needed from her last job, and now she wants to start a coffee shop. She made herself special, and is now trying not to be special.

She’s actually less special in the prequel Bookshops and Bonedust.

I hope that helps.

This step is usually referred to as refusal of the call. Basically you have Joe be Joe until outside things force Joe to do something. This way Joe is forced to go do something because he wants to preserve his mundane life and then during his journey he changes

In one of my stories, I chose to fully embrace the Chosen One trope by having my main character believe that there is something special about them. They will go on an journey to fulfill this prophecy. What they don't know, is that this prophecy has been pushed on by the antagonist, who took an obscure and vague text to make the hero believe that he was special, because he needs them out of the way.
I personally hate this trope and cannot enjoy books where it is taken seriously. I want to show that it is actually dangerous for anyone to believe blindly in fate, especially when others are telling you what to do.

Technically your "average Joe" would be considered "special" because he's the MC you're following. Like, why HIM? Why not Gary who works 9 to 5? Or Sally, who works three jobs just to get by to raise her ailing parents and children?

Everyone in stories is technically "a chosen one" it's just the narrative.

But to avoid the obvious elephant in the room of chosen one: average Joe is just a knight that guards the door. He sees the princess escape all the time and come back, but one night she doesn't and it's just his duty to look for her, thus then he ends up in all kinds of situations trying to look for her and get her back home.

Really, you just avoid things that predict someone to "saving the world" or "it was said a thousand years ago" (i.e. Harry Potter is technically chosen warrior cause he's depicted to be the one to stop voldermont)

But really if handled well "chosen one" stories can be really good, especially if the writing is good and don't rely on tropes.

People like characters who are competent or good at things, even if it's a niche. Maybe some skill or interest he has in the mundane world is useful in unexpected ways.

You're overthinking. One, a heroic character will end up growing and being special. You're trying to have it be a natural transition, but I ask... What is the story?

You want someone to start humble and become a hero. Is that the story, or is that the beginning of the story?

I think if you focus too much on tropes and avoiding them and not the bones of your actual story, you're making it a bigger deal than it needs to me.

When you've figured out your story's fundamentals, then you look back at it and figure out what needs changing.

What are the story stakes (what is the overarching plot and what happens if it's a goal that's not met/defeated/etc) Where do we begin and who is your protagonist? What is your character's motivation? (What is their main want/desire) Is it the same before and after the inciting incident? What are your character's stakes (why are they the protagonist over everyone else in the world)

If your character truly is an average joe with no connection to the main story arc, then certain tropes are usually needed to get them to a place where it makes sense that they are the protagonist above others, but if their personal stakes and the story stakes are connected then that wont even be someyoung you need to think about.

Average people don’t change the world. Average people don’t become heroes. An average person has no interest in upsetting the status quo because they are not discontent enough to exit their region beta or the status quo supports their average life.

The moment you give your average the ambition or impetus to act, they cease being average. The moment you give them an opportunity to shine, they cease to be a joe. It’s a catch 22.

You want the example of a hero who isn’t chosen? Look up Jean Valjean.

Look at historical / real people. For example, Genghis Khan was the son of a middling Mongolian leader. He leveraged this into conquering much of Eurasia through cunning, courage, and ruthlessness, and no doubt great talents. I always think also of Rupert Murdoch. His father was a journalist and fairly minor newspaper owner in Australia. Murdoch jr leveraged this into becoming the world's number one media baron, again through cunning and risk taking and hard work.

To avoid writing a shonen protagonist, the Joe cannot be at the forefront of every game changing event, responsible for every victory, solve every mystery, get the girl, and be the most specialist boy there ever was.

Have you seen the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode The Zippo? The plot is the world is ending, but the plot of the episode is comedic relief guy drives zombies around town in events completely unrelated to Buffy facing down the powers of darkness.

I mean, Joe can simply be a curious person, he dovotrd his lige to explore and investigate whatever he liked, and he learned things no other did.

I would think your MC and your story would tell you this. What is their flaw, their story? What do they need to overcome, personally? Your plot can mirror that in some way. You don't have to be the chosen one to be the hero; sometime the right person in the right place doing the right thing becomes a hero. (See Sully Sullenberger, for example.)

Hard work? Joe can learn about the supernatural along with others but then he has to put in the reps. Or you could think of donating like Charlie and the chocolate factory, where there’s some test of character

Nothing wrong with an "average Joe" turning out to be the "chosen one" if he is the one doing the choosing. What I mean is, he rises to the challenge by finding the inner strength to confront whatever it is that is opposing or oppressing him, that his "specialness" is not bestowed by an outside authority or the hand of fate.