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How do you make a prophecy " un-cliche"?

I really want to add some kind of prophecy to my book, but the problem is that prophecies are done to cliche.
Can you maybe tell me some things/cliches I should avoid when making a prophecy?
Maybe how to make it a pinch original?

Public Comments

1. I have no idea. Unless it was some kind of dorky prophecy, like, "The potato salad at Barbie's wedding reception will be poisoned," there is no way you could make it un-cliche. Because prophecies are BIG, like predicting the end of the world unless a Chosen One saves it or somebody from great power falling or the outcome of a war.

Ugh. I really don't know. I'll think about it some more and add to this if I come up with anything. Sorry I wasn't much help here. D:

2. What do you mean by prophecy? It's not cliche to have a character predict something and then have that prediction comet true in the end... as long as the prediction is not terribly overused/trite.

It's kind of hard to answer this question without an example. Tell what kind of prophecy you are considering using and maybe answerers can give more specific suggestions.

3. Most prophesies are told by priests, monks, holy people, etc.. How cliche. How about this time a well-known prankster tells the prophesy. To make matters worse, the prankster was drunk while telling of things to come.

Also, prophesies usually tell of gloom and doom. This one predicts prosperity and certain happiness but, will come at a price. If the price is not paid, then comes the gloom and doom. The people hear this and thinks it's another prank and a scam.

To make the prophesy less credible, people notice the words of the prophesy are from song lyrics, poems, literature... basically someone else's words.

4. Watch the fifth season of Supernatural. It ends in the Apocalypse and the last episode is told by a prophet himself. And honestly, that is the only non-cliche prophet AND prophecy I have either seen/read. I'd suggest watching it to get some ideas :).

5. Prophecies are always there, but I haven't yet seen any that can be termed as a cliche.

Most of them tend to speak about people, though. You might want to have a prophecy which focuses instead on a pivotal event/object.

Other usable devices are misinterpretation (as in, the wording of the prophecy tends to be a red herring) and flexibility (it is not necessary for the prophecy to be fulfilled).