Have you ever watched the Percy Jackson movies?

I'm not here to rant about them. I'm here to tell you what it was that made them a flop. Because it wasn't Percy's age, or Annabeth's hair color that made it bad. No, it was the plot. The same reason why The Rise of Skywalker was a disappointment. And why your book could be too.

But first, let me get this out of the way. The Percy Jackson movies were... okay. As standalone films that you watched without reading books, they were okay. Not bad, not good, they were okay. Just like The Rise of Skywalker. 

But I should stop berating these movies. Time to get into what didn't make them great. The plot. (Plus character, for The Rise of Skywalker. If you want more info on that, watch the media/video at the top.)

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McGuffin Hunt. That sums up the whole plot to The Lightning Thief . The characters went from place to place, trying to find magical pearls. That's it. Get Pearls, Mother, and go home. And here's the bad part. They succeed.

"What? How's that a bad part?"

Bear with me, here. The original prophecy went a little something like this.

You shall go west to face the god who has turned

You shall find what was stolen and see it safely returned,

 You shall be betrayed by the one you call friend, 

And fail to save what matters most in the end.

You see, Rick understood what tragedy was. He didn't go and write some happy snappy ending. No. In the end, Percy leaves his mother in the Underworld. He makes a sacrifice. The movie completely ignored that. They left Grover there with Persephone. 

That was what really crumbled the plot. First, you basically had a mcguffin hunt the whole time. Then, you don't sacrifice anything. Grover says literally one sentence, and you let him stay. And then you battle with Luke. (Which should've taken five seconds, either person. Shing! Percy is dead or disarmed. Or BAM! Luke just got 500 gallons of water dropped on him.)

Then happily ever after. Luke is, well, should be dead, Kronos won't rise, blah, blah, blah. Where is the sadness? The character development? Everything I came here to see? No, you didn't deliver me anything but mindless action and a little bit of humor the whole time.

What makes the plot to Percy Jackson so great is that it's old, but made unique by Rick. Everything is modernized, to the Lotus being a casino, and Olympus being in the Empire State Building. Percy follows the path of the heroes of old, but with his own style and sarcastic personality. We relate, and get involved with his character, and that makes it great.h 

Now, not all McGuffin hunts are bad. In fact, the Russo brothers actually made a really good movie about a McGuffin hunt. You might have heard of it: Avengers: Endgame. In the movie, they have weird, not fully thought out time travel, which they use to go steal the Infinity Stones.

(A lot of things were wrong with the movie. The time-travel was bad. And at the end, Cap has to go put all of the stones back. What they don't mention is that they need the case for the Tesseract, and the sphere that was holding the power stone, and they don't have those. But it was a good movie, I think. )

They played it out. There were stakes, thrilling adventures, and an amazing journey. But the Percy Jackson movie just didn't do that. I didn't get my money's worth. If you're writing your story, everything you write should either advance the plot, or develop your character. That's why shows like Gravity Falls work. No filler, it's all serialized. Everything advances the plot.

Your plot should be similar to the old legends. Study them, read the ones that Percy hasn't lived through. I want to see you modernize them. Look at Odysseus. If you're characters ever find themselves in the Underworld for a quest, you might want to include some characters from the myths of old. Maybe they see Tiresias, and he tells them a cryptic telling of their future.

Originality is key when making a plot. And I know all of you can be original.